His Musical Legacy Lives On.

The World re- Premier of...

"De Organizer"

This remarkable opera was originally created by two giants of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s, jazz pianist and composer James P. Johnson and poet/novelist Langston Hughes. The two collaborated on the creation of a one-act opera, "De Organizer" which was performed once in 1940 in New York and then vanished. The piece, thought for many years to have been irretrievably lost, was brilliantly restored by University of Michigan Music Professor James Dapogny and performed by an ensemble of nearly 100 musicians in Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan in December 2002.

Extensive media coverage of this unexpected resurrection included articles in such publications as:

The New York Times ; Detroit Free Press ;

San Francisco Chronicle; Voice of America

Radio coverage included Celeste Headlee's story which ran on NPR's Morning Edition on December 3 and Michigan Radio's The Todd Mundt Show . Click on any of these links to read the articles and listen to the stories!

Stories were also featured in the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.