About the project
When Arlen discovers his Colombian great-grandfather left behind a long lost opera that's never been performed, he knows what he has to do... He just doesn't know how to do it. Despite having zero of experience with opera, and not even speaking Spanish, he takes a leap of faith.
But after promising his entire family that the 80 year old Latin music will finally get a world premiere, is he in over his head?
The Way to Andina is a 70 minute humorous personal adventure documentary chronicles the journey from the moment Arlen sees the opera through rehearsals, history, a touching family backstory, and the eventual world premiere. This project incorporates music, video, and live opera performance.
About Eustasio Rosales, the composer of Andina
Eustasio Rosales was born on July 1, 1875 in Bogotá, Colombia to a prominent local family. According to a bio written about Rosales for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra when they premiered his work Three Spanish Dances in 1932, "Rosales disclosed musical talent at an early age, and, having produced an overture for orchestra at the age of twelve, was sent by his father, a lawyer and a statesman, to the National Academy of Music at Bogotá."
After initially visiting Chicago as a tourist during the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, Rosales decided to move to Chicago in 1900. At various times he conducted a nightclub band, wrote and arranged sheet music for local publishing companies, and even played piano accompaniment for silent films.
Rosales died unexpectedly at age 59 on Christmas Eve, 1934, leaving behind a devastated widow, two daughters and a pile of sheet music that contained the handwritten manuscript for his opera "Andina." The show had a set of English and Spanish lyrics written by his brother José Miguel Rosales who had stayed down in Colombia (the two corresponded through letters spanning the continents). The family tried unsuccessfully over the decades to get the opera performed, but it spent most of its time in one box or another.
