When composer Lisa DeSpain ('97) arrived at UNT from Utah in the early 1990s, she knew one thing: she wanted to immerse herself in jazz.

What she found at UNT's College of Music was something bigger -- a place that would shape not only her career, but her entire life.

"I remember thinking, 'This is like Jazz Disneyland!'," DeSpain says with a laugh. "I realized I could pursue my training, chase any knowledge I wanted as far as I wanted. I didn't feel there were any ceilings."

Three decades after earning her bachelor's degree in music composition, DeSpain returned to UNT in April for the premiere of her original opera, That Hellbound Train, based on the short story by Robert Bloch. The production featured a libretto by David Simpatico, and UNT associate professor and opera music director Stephanie Rhodes Russell served as conductor.

 

Feeling the Music

The idea for That Hellbound Train began years before the work ever reached the stage.

While searching for stories that could be adapted for musical theater, she was reading Robert Bloch's short story in a coffee shop and immediately heard music in the words.

"I could just hear music jumping off the page," she says, describing the story's imagery of railroad folk ballads, Delta blues and "an American deal with the devil."

Although she was working primarily in musical theater at the time, she felt the story demanded something larger.

"I said, 'This isn't a musical. This is an opera,'" she recalls.

DeSpain held onto the concept for nearly a decade before finally pursuing it, later collaborating with Simpatico, the librettist, to develop the work into a full-scale opera rooted in the sounds and traditions of American music.

While That Hellbound Train is DeSpain's first grand opera, her entire career prepared her for the challenge. A jazz pianist by training, she built a career writing across genres including musical theater, dance choral, chamber, and wind ensembles. She now sees these earlier works as essential in preparing her to compose for opera's grand scale and complexity.

"It's as if that entire career trained me to be able to write That Hellbound Train," she says.

One of the biggest challenges, she explains, was learning to think beyond individual arias or scenes or standalone songs and instead compose continuously for movement, emotion and dramatic pacing.

"You have to step back and take in the grand scale, look at elements of dramatic pacing, the emotional journey of the characters and of the audience, composing for stage movement, etc.," she says. "If I need it to happen on the stage, I have to write it in the music."

After nearly nine years of work on the opera, DeSpain said the next phase is continuing to refine the production through live performance and audience response. The opera was developed with support from the OPERA America Discovery Grand for Female Composers, National Endowment for the Arts and the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat.

"Opera is constantly evolving," she said. "My hope is that That Hellbound Train touches people's hearts."

A Working Career

That Hellbound Train represents the culmination of a career that has taken DeSpain from UNT to New Orleans, to Broadway pits in New York City, and even the circus.

"Yes," she says, laughing, "the literal circus."

After UNT, DeSpain studied jazz piano with Ellis Marsalis in New Orleans before moving to New York, where she eventually performed and conducted for the Big Apple Circus. But even as her career expanded into musical theater, concert works and opera, she says the foundation for everything began in Denton.

"UNT gave me was a depth of musical knowledge and a breadth of practical experience," she says. "UNT trains musicians for a working career. The work ethic, professionalism and broad range of musical knowledge prepared me to survive and build a life in New York City."

She credits former UNT faculty members, including Cindy McTee, Newell K. Brown and Steve Harlos, with helping her recognize her voice as a composer long before she fully believed it herself.

That belief and the lifelong network of UNT alumni she still encounters across the music industry continues to inspire her.

"I have so much love for this place. UNT was and continues to be incredibly important to who I am as a musician," DeSpain says. "I am so grateful."

Returning to UNT for the premiere of That Hellbound Train has also given DeSpain the opportunity to mentor the next generation of musicians and composers in the College of Music. Throughout rehearsals, she has encouraged students to embrace collaboration, kindness and curiosity as they begin building their careers.

"No one in this industry rises alone. We rise as a community," DeSpain says. "Raise your community with you."