An Evening with Oakland's West Edge Opera

Every story deserves to be told. But whose stories make it onto the stage — and who gets to tell them?
Join us for an intimate evening conversation at the intersection of opera, community, and Oakland's living arts scene. West Edge Opera General Director Mark Streshinsky and Oakland Symphony Music Director Kedrick Armstrong sit down with bass Kenneth Kellogg to talk about what it means to make art in and for Oakland and why it matters now more than ever.
At the center of the conversation: American Apollo, West Edge Opera's West Coast Premiere production coming to Oakland this August. The opera tells the true and long-buried story of Thomas Eugene McKeller, a Black man whose body inspired some of the most celebrated paintings in American art history, yet whose face and name were erased from the canvas. It's a story about visibility, power, and what it costs.
That question, who’s the hero of your story? - runs through everything we'll explore together: Oakland's arts ecosystem, the role of contemporary opera in a changing city, and what it looks like when institutions commit to telling stories that have been too long ignored.