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AUSTIN – When I Rise is the story of Barbara Smith Conrad, a woman whose talent took her from a tiny town in east Texas to the greatest opera houses in the world – and whose courage embodied the spirit of the civil rights era. The new documentary is in development at the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin, the same campus where Conrad was removed from a student opera because of her race in 1957 – and where she was later welcomed back as an honored Distinguished Alumna.

Dr. Don Carleton, executive director of the Briscoe Center, said, "Barbara Smith Conrad's story of personal triumph over racism and adversity and her great success on the world's classical music stage has inspired us to produce a documentary of her life. The Briscoe Center is the repository of Conrad's papers and a series of important oral history interviews with her. We are delighted to add this important film to our documentation of the career of one of our nation's most distinguished vocal artists.

"When I Rise is a stellar example of what makes the Briscoe Center somewhat unusual among history research centers," said Ramona Kelly, associate director for development at the Briscoe Center and co-executive producer of the film. "We draw from the material in our collections to tell stories, and we are telling more and more of those stories through the richness of documentary film." Kelly co-produced the award-winning PBS documentary Last Best Hope: A True Story of Escape, Evasion, and Remembrance, which was co-sponsored by the Briscoe Center.

A number of different campus entities have partnered with the Briscoe Center as co-sponsors of When I Rise, including the Office of the President, the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost, the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, the Butler School of Music, and the Texas Exes. Alpheus Media, Inc., led by Austin filmmakers Mat Hames, Wilson Waggonner, and Beth Hames, is producing the film. Mat Hames is the film's director.

When I Rise will bring to a broad public audience Conrad's powerful story. "Over the years, our collective memories of 'Jim Crow' racial segregation and discrimination have dimmed,” Dr. Carleton said. "And, thankfully, younger generations have little or no awareness of the kind of legally sanctioned racism that resulted in Barbara's removal as the female lead opposite a white male lead in the University's production of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas in 1957. When I Rise will remind viewers of all ages everywhere of society's journey toward racial equality—an ongoing journey perhaps made shorter by stories such as this."

While the documentary will point out this painful moment in both Conrad's and the University's history, it seeks to underscore her triumphs as one of the world's premier mezzo-sopranos, and bring attention to her knowledge and love of, and devotion to, the preservation of the Negro spiritual.

Conrad's visit to Austin will renew a friendship first forged with the Briscoe Center years ago, when she began her role with the Endowment for the Study of American Spirituals. The endowment will enable the Briscoe Center to preserve and further the study of American Spiritual music. Conrad, whose musical prowess was shaped by the Negro spirituals of her church in Center Point, Texas, inspired this important project to preserve a major American musical heritage.

"Spirituals, which arose from the experience of African-American slaves and later arranged by composers such as H.T. Burleigh, Paul Robeson, and Hall Johnson, are one of our most important vocal art forms, one that America can be extremely proud to claim," stated Conrad.

Major benefactors of the endowment are Bob and Nancy Inman, who provided initial seed funds for the project, and Briscoe Center Advisory Council members Alfred and Meta Hausser, and Dr. O. Howard and Rachel Frazier. In addition, Jack Blanton, Beryl Milburn, John Hubbard, and the McCombs Foundation have given financial support to the project. The Briscoe Center plans to use When I Rise as a fundraising tool to complete its Endowment for the Study of American Spirituals, explained Kelly.

Conrad is an energetic and dedicated presence in the endowment's life, performing concerts and leading master classes that focus on the American Spiritual repertoire. In the process, she has brought national attention to the Briscoe Center's wealth of musical resources on African-American music. These archives were built over a period of more than seventy years, and were a hidden treasure until the creation of the endowment. Among the Center's holdings are the Texas Folklife Resources Gospel Music Collection, the John Henry Faulk Field Recordings Collection, the William A. Owens Collection, and the John A. Lomax Collection. Future efforts by the American Spirituals project to bring public attention to these one-of-a-kind collections include organizing conferences and symposia; sponsoring and promoting research by students and faculty; engaging in publications and outreach; and continuing to build, catalogue, and preserve the Briscoe Center's music collection.

Conrad's role as an ambassador for the American Spirituals Collection is a testament to her love for performing songs from the Negro spiritual tradition. In November 2005, she played a major role in the Briscoe Center's vision for the endowment with her campus concert, "Celebrating the American Spiritual, An Evening with Barbara Conrad." In 2006, through the University's Oral History Project, the Briscoe Center conducted a series of interviews with Conrad that captured rich details of her life, from her first explorations of Negro spirituals as a child in the piney woods of east Texas to her ascension to international acclaim as an opera diva. In 2007, in conjunction with her work for the endowment, Conrad returned to her hometown to perform, teach master classes, and reunite with friends and family during a homecoming celebration at the Center Point Baptist Church, depicted in When I Rise.

"In donating her papers to the Briscoe Center, Conrad has provided future scholars the opportunity to study materials that document not only her contributions to civil rights and other causes, but also the breadth of her career: as a star of the Metropolitan Opera between 1982 and 1989, her leading operatic roles with the Vienna State Opera, the Teatro Nacional in Venezuela, the Houston Grand Opera, the New York City Opera, and many other opera houses across the United States and Europe," said Alison Beck, the Center's co-executive producer of the documentary. "The video footage used to produce the documentary will also become a part of her collection and made available for research."