Spotlight on avery r. young

When Lyric Opera of Chicago presents the world premiere of safronia — a new opera that explores the triumph and tragedy of the Great Migration through a story both universal and deeply personal — it will be the next chapter in the company’s ongoing partnership with avery r. young, Chicago’s first-ever poet laureate and creator of the libretto and score.

young first collaborated with Lyric in 2021 as the narrator for Twilight: Gods, a drive-through reimagining of Wagner’s Ring cycle, conceived and directed by Yuval Sharon. The acclaimed pandemic-era project required bold thinking and reinvented storytelling — perfect for the multi-hyphenate artist. With safronia, young returns to Lyric not only as a storyteller, but as a force shaping opera’s future through music, passion, and a work that resonates deeply with the spirit of Chicago and its people.

As the Booker family mourns the loss of their patriarch, they leave the North for the South, retracing the path of the Migration and breaking a kind of banishment that had lasted for five years. The libretto marries folklore, poetry, and history, with a score encompassing gospel, blues, funk, and soul. These visually immersive, concert-style performances are scheduled for April 17 and 18, 2026.

young is a 3Arts Award-winning teaching artist, composer, and producer whose work spans the genres of music, performance, visual arts, and literature. Examining and celebrating Black American history and culture, his work also encompasses social justice, equity, queer identity, misogyny, and body consciousness. In 2023, young was selected from more than 1,300 applicants as Chicago’s first-ever Poet Laureate. 

In the foreword of his most recent book, neckbone: visual verses, artist and scholar Theaster Gates called young “one of our greatest living street poets...one of the most important thinkers on the Black experience.” For young, the book was a way to present poetry as art. “I use words like visual poetry, concrete poetry,” he said in a 2019 interview. “It’s about navigating adjectives within Blackness, intersections in a completely Black world and recognizing ways in which this young dude figured out how to move. I set out to explore 32 moments in Black culture that define where Black people are in this moment in time, and then realized I was writing about me.” young’s writing has also been featured in Cecil McDonald's In The Company of Black, The BreakBeat Poets, The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks, AIMPrint, and other anthologies.

Growing up on Chicago’s west side, young attended Baptist services and sang in the choir. He credits his artistic origins to the mix of musical traditions — from gospel to Soul Train — that he was exposed to as a child. To this day, the influence of the Black Church is obvious in his work. As a performer, his style is similar to that of a Baptist preacher — using language and music to evoke emotions and carry messages. young’s performance and work in sound design merge the spiritual and secular with dramatic and comedic sensibilities. He has performed at Lollapalooza, the Hip Hop Theater Festival, and Wordstock, recorded with house producers Anthony Nicholson and Charlie Dark, and is featured on recordings such as New World Reveal-A-Solution, Audio Truism, Catfish Haven’s Devastator, and New Skool Poetiks. His full-length release, booker t. soltreyne: a race rekkid, features songs and other sounds created during his artist residency with the University of Chicago's Arts + Public Life initiative. Through voice, sound, visual art, and performance, young is constantly exploring the forms and spaces in which poetry can exist. 

young is a co-director of the Floating Museum (a site-responsive arts collective) and tours with his band, avery r. young & de deacon board. He is also well known among Chicago youth through his work as a teaching artist at a variety of arts organizations and as a Rebirth Poetry Ensemble coach, educating young people on the power of poetry.

Audiences can experience the exuberant power of young’s work when he takes the lead role of Barr Jacob Booker in safronia, a work that demonstrates Lyric Opera of Chicago’s commitment to increasing the diversity of stories and storytellers on the operatic stage.