“Dramatically tight and musically transporting — a work made to last, though it’s also undeniably timely... “Dolores” has the frisson of a masterfully paced thriller — there’s not an extra word sung. Benavides’ score keeps the story on the boil with sharp rhythms in the vocal lines and a gamut of styles and emotions.”
“The strongest argument in favor of Dolores’ catchall approach, though, is Benavides’ resourceful and wonderfully eclectic score, skillfully conducted by Mary Chun. Wherever the story turns, Benavides stands ready to infuse it with just the musical expression it needs.”
Featured Press
By Joshua Kosman
““The strongest argument in favor of Dolores’ catchall approach, though, is Benavides’ resourceful and wonderfully eclectic score, skillfully conducted by Mary Chun. Wherever the story turns, Benavides stands ready to infuse it with just the musical expression it needs. When Chavez (bass-baritone Phillip Lopez) endangers his own life by embarking on a hunger strike to further the union cause, he gets a vivid leitmotif associated with personal sacrifice. The hard-bitten Itliong (baritone Rolfe Dauz) declaims in short, punchy bursts of tough-guy dialogue; Nixon (tenor Sam Faustine) sings a glib, slightly nauseating waltz. There are mariachi strains and potent choruses, a sweetly ingratiating duet for Dolores and Ethel Kennedy (soprano Chelsea Hollow) in which they bond over the tribulations of motherhood, and a sudden burst of horrifying noise in the aftermath of Kennedy’s assassination.”
By Michael Zwiebach
West Edge Opera unveiled another triumphant world premiere, opening its season with Nicolás Lell Benavides and Marella Martin Koch’s opera “Dolores.” Telling the story of a pivotal year in the life of labor activist Dolores Huerta, the show is dramatically tight and musically transporting — a work made to last, though it’s also undeniably timely.
…
“Dolores”has the frisson of a masterfully paced thriller — there’s not an extra word sung. Benavides’ score keeps the story on the boil with sharp rhythms in the vocal lines, and a gamut of styles and emotions. The composer and librettist are not above adding comedy and dance into the mix…. Benavides’ orchestration sounds much more opulent than its 15-player ensemble would suggest. His accompaniments are varied but also rhythmically layered, and conductor Mary Chun extracted every ounce of juice from this expansive score.
By Tom Jacobs (cross post with SF Classical Voice)
The nation is tense, and California’s Central Valley farm fields have become an unlikely flash point. The workers — mostly immigrants — who harvest the fruits and vegetables that feed much of the country are scared and angry. They labor to the point of physical exhaustion for low pay. Protests against these conditions are organized and soon gain widespread support.
This may sound like a dispatch from the front lines of 2025, a year that’s been marked by the Trump administration’s immigration raids and arrests across the state’s agricultural industry. But it’s also the historical backdrop for Dolores Huerta, who in the mid-1960s spearheaded a nationwide boycott of table grapes in solidarity with striking farmworkers. Alongside fellow labor leaders Cesar Chavez and Larry Itliong, she played an integral role in the era’s civil rights movement.
By Michael Zwiebach
West Edge Opera unveiled another triumphant world premiere, opening its season with Nicolás Lell Benavides and Marella Martin Koch’s opera “Dolores.” Telling the story of a pivotal year in the life of labor activist Dolores Huerta, the show is dramatically tight and musically transporting — a work made to last, though it’s also undeniably timely.
…
“Dolores”has the frisson of a masterfully paced thriller — there’s not an extra word sung. Benavides’ score keeps the story on the boil with sharp rhythms in the vocal lines, and a gamut of styles and emotions. The composer and librettist are not above adding comedy and dance into the mix…. Benavides’ orchestration sounds much more opulent than its 15-player ensemble would suggest. His accompaniments are varied but also rhythmically layered, and conductor Mary Chun extracted every ounce of juice from this expansive score.
COVER STORY By Janis Haashe for East Bay Express and East Bay Magazine
At 95, Dolores Huerta could rest on her laurels with no reproaches. Labor leader, tireless fighter for immigrant rights and civil rights, as well as feminist, Huerta has continued her work for decades.
But, said Nicolás Lell Benavides, composer of the new opera, Dolores, Huerta knows there is always more to do. The fight for justice is ongoing. And even when a life-altering tragedy occurs, Huerta does not give up, but finds a way to persevere…
By Andrew Gilbert for KQED.
A New Dolores Huerta Opera Brings a Labor Struggle to the Stage
A landmark labor struggle might seem like difficult terrain to explore in an opera, but Long Beach-based composer Nicolás Lell Benavides knew that he had a riveting tale to tell in Dolores.
…
On today’s episode of music/Maker with Tyler Kline, Tyler is joined by composer Nicolás Lell Benavides.
Nicolás is a 2024–25 Guggenheim Fellow whose music has been commissioned by the LA Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Eighth Blackbird, West Edge Opera, and many more. His work spans opera, orchestral, and chamber music, often drawing on cultural history, folk storytelling, and regional memory. Upcoming projects include Dolores, an opera about civil rights icon Dolores Huerta premiering in 2025, as well as new commissions for Eighth Blackbird, the LA Phil, and an album with Friction Quartet and mezzo-soprano Melinda Martinez Becker.
In this conversation, Nicolás reflects on why his music is rooted in curiosity and dialogue rather than autobiography. He shares stories of writing about cottonwoods and irrigation, sage grouse and New Mexican Catholic folk figures — and how that exploration connects to his own family and heritage. He also speaks candidly about the opera process, the challenge of revision, and how working with brilliant collaborators has helped him embrace humility, growth, and a sense of purpose in the work.
By Tom Jacobs (cross post with SF Chronicle)
The nation is tense, and California’s Central Valley farm fields have become an unlikely flash point. The workers — mostly immigrants — who harvest the fruits and vegetables that feed much of the country are scared and angry. They labor to the point of physical exhaustion for low pay. Protests against these conditions are organized and soon gain widespread support.
This may sound like a dispatch from the front lines of 2025, a year that’s been marked by the Trump administration’s immigration raids and arrests across the state’s agricultural industry. But it’s also the historical backdrop for Dolores Huerta, who in the mid-1960s spearheaded a nationwide boycott of table grapes in solidarity with striking farmworkers. Alongside fellow labor leaders Cesar Chavez and Larry Itliong, she played an integral role in the era’s civil rights movement.
By Joshua Kosman (On a Pacific Aisle)
At a time when the political situation in the United States can seem intractably hopeless, perhaps we could all use a bit of uplift. Or at any rate, we could use a reminder that although things have looked bleak before, some visionaries seized the moment to forge a popular resistance even in the face of daunting obstacles. And that at least one of those people still walks among us!
Dolores, a new opera by composer Nicolás Lell Benavides and librettist Marella Martin Koch that’s scheduled for its world premiere next month with West Edge Opera, promises something along these lines. It’s a musical and theatrical portrait of Dolores Huerta, the legendary labor leader and civil rights activist who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, helped spearhead the Central Valley strikes of the 1960s and ’70s, and coined (or at least popularized) the slogan “¡Sí, se puede!”
By Janis Haashe for East Bay Magazine (cross posted with East Bay Express)
At 95, Dolores Huerta could rest on her laurels with no reproaches. Labor leader, tireless fighter for immigrant rights and civil rights, as well as feminist, Huerta has continued her work for decades.
But, said Nicolás Lell Benavides, composer of the new opera, Dolores, Huerta knows there is always more to do. The fight for justice is ongoing. And even when a life-altering tragedy occurs, Huerta does not give up, but finds a way to persevere…
All Press
By Patrick Joseph Vaz
“I go to as many new operas as I can & few of them have struck me as so musically & dramatically complete as Dolores. This is a meaty work that audiences will be pondering for quite a while.”
By Mia Casas
Dolores Huerta is a Chicana activist icon from New Mexico. Her influence in the 1960s farm worker strikes created waves across the country and ultimately led to the creation of the National Farm Workers Association. Her story is not unheard of, but a young composer from New Mexico has brought this slice of time to life with a contemporary opera piece.
Nicolás Benavides is originally from Los Ranchos in Albuquerque and has collected a variety of music degrees from schools across California. He spoke with KUNM about the creation of his newest opera.
By Melissa Torres (video+article)
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Coming this fall to the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the legacy of labor leader Dolores Huerta brought to life on stage. This revolutionary opera closely follows how Huerta shaped the farm workers’ movement of the mid-twentieth century. “This is a truly American story about American heroism, and I will continue to say that because it’s true,” emphasized composer of Dolores, Nicolás Benavides.
By Joshua Kosman
““The strongest argument in favor of Dolores’ catchall approach, though, is Benavides’ resourceful and wonderfully eclectic score, skillfully conducted by Mary Chun. Wherever the story turns, Benavides stands ready to infuse it with just the musical expression it needs. When Chavez (bass-baritone Phillip Lopez) endangers his own life by embarking on a hunger strike to further the union cause, he gets a vivid leitmotif associated with personal sacrifice. The hard-bitten Itliong (baritone Rolfe Dauz) declaims in short, punchy bursts of tough-guy dialogue; Nixon (tenor Sam Faustine) sings a glib, slightly nauseating waltz. There are mariachi strains and potent choruses, a sweetly ingratiating duet for Dolores and Ethel Kennedy (soprano Chelsea Hollow) in which they bond over the tribulations of motherhood, and a sudden burst of horrifying noise in the aftermath of Kennedy’s assassination.”
By Michael Zwiebach
West Edge Opera unveiled another triumphant world premiere, opening its season with Nicolás Lell Benavides and Marella Martin Koch’s opera “Dolores.” Telling the story of a pivotal year in the life of labor activist Dolores Huerta, the show is dramatically tight and musically transporting — a work made to last, though it’s also undeniably timely.
…
“Dolores”has the frisson of a masterfully paced thriller — there’s not an extra word sung. Benavides’ score keeps the story on the boil with sharp rhythms in the vocal lines, and a gamut of styles and emotions. The composer and librettist are not above adding comedy and dance into the mix…. Benavides’ orchestration sounds much more opulent than its 15-player ensemble would suggest. His accompaniments are varied but also rhythmically layered, and conductor Mary Chun extracted every ounce of juice from this expansive score.
By Michael Anthonio
“There was a lot to recommend in Benavides’ music, from his assured mode of juggling many musical genres (jazz, musical theater, Latin, and even mariachi influences), his unusual scoring for the tiny orchestra (which included electric guitar), and, particularly, his ability to achieve a balance between the heavy and light moments by peppering the score with many humorous and almost comical scenes…”
By Alex Heigl
Composition grad Nicolás Lell Benavides is behind the opera, which features five SFCM alumni in seven of the opera's main roles.
By Tom Jacobs (cross post with SF Classical Voice)
The nation is tense, and California’s Central Valley farm fields have become an unlikely flash point. The workers — mostly immigrants — who harvest the fruits and vegetables that feed much of the country are scared and angry. They labor to the point of physical exhaustion for low pay. Protests against these conditions are organized and soon gain widespread support.
This may sound like a dispatch from the front lines of 2025, a year that’s been marked by the Trump administration’s immigration raids and arrests across the state’s agricultural industry. But it’s also the historical backdrop for Dolores Huerta, who in the mid-1960s spearheaded a nationwide boycott of table grapes in solidarity with striking farmworkers. Alongside fellow labor leaders Cesar Chavez and Larry Itliong, she played an integral role in the era’s civil rights movement.
By Michael Zwiebach
West Edge Opera unveiled another triumphant world premiere, opening its season with Nicolás Lell Benavides and Marella Martin Koch’s opera “Dolores.” Telling the story of a pivotal year in the life of labor activist Dolores Huerta, the show is dramatically tight and musically transporting — a work made to last, though it’s also undeniably timely.
…
“Dolores”has the frisson of a masterfully paced thriller — there’s not an extra word sung. Benavides’ score keeps the story on the boil with sharp rhythms in the vocal lines, and a gamut of styles and emotions. The composer and librettist are not above adding comedy and dance into the mix…. Benavides’ orchestration sounds much more opulent than its 15-player ensemble would suggest. His accompaniments are varied but also rhythmically layered, and conductor Mary Chun extracted every ounce of juice from this expansive score.
By Emma Garcia
Watch our first opera dispatch! Labor rights icon Dolores Huerta is commemorated in a new opera at @westedgeopera in Oakland, CA. Written by @NLBenavides and @marellawrites, the production opened August 2 and returns August 10 & 16. It tells the story of Dolores’ leadership in the 1968 Delano Grape Strike. We spoke with doloreshuerta about today’s fight for justice and asked composer Nicolás Lell Benavides how opera connects to Mexican cultural traditions.
By Caroline Crawford
“…In West Edge’s premiere, created in collaboration with BroadStage in Santa Monica, Opera Southwest, San Diego Opera and Campo Santo at The Magic Theatre, composer Nicolás Lell Benavides’ pulsing, percussive, melodic music drives the point home. The persistent theme performed by a 16-piece orchestra led by Mary Chun has the tonal heft of a constant march which the excellent chorus brings home again and again… “
By Michael Strickland
“…Benavides is an extraordinarily sophisticated composer and he offered up complex, varied music that was performed brilliantly by a 16-person chamber orchestra led by conductor Mary Chun.”
COVER STORY By Janis Haashe for East Bay Express and East Bay Magazine
At 95, Dolores Huerta could rest on her laurels with no reproaches. Labor leader, tireless fighter for immigrant rights and civil rights, as well as feminist, Huerta has continued her work for decades.
But, said Nicolás Lell Benavides, composer of the new opera, Dolores, Huerta knows there is always more to do. The fight for justice is ongoing. And even when a life-altering tragedy occurs, Huerta does not give up, but finds a way to persevere…
By Azucena Rasilla
Berkeley’s West Edge Opera is kicking off its 46th season in August with three performances at Oakland’s Scottish Rite Center of a show based on the life of one of the Bay Area’s iconic civil rights leaders.
The opening night for Dolores, by composer Nicolás Lell Benavides, with a libretto by Marella Martin Koch, is on Aug. 2. The muse for the new production, Dolores Huerta, is expected to be in attendance. The opening night performance will be followed by a fundraiser reception at Lake Chalet with Huerta for the Dolores Huerta Foundation and the United Farm Workers Union.
By Georgia Rowe
It’s been years in the making, but West Edge Opera is finally presenting the world premiere of “Dolores” — and the opera’s namesake, the renowned activist and labor leader Dolores Huerta, will be in the audience to experience her story on an operatic scale.
A West Edge Opera commission created by composer Nicolás Lell Benavides and librettist Marella Martin Koch, this new work traces the remarkable life of Huerta, who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, coined the phrase “Sí se puede” (Yes we can), and has been a lifelong champion for workers’ rights. The West Edge production is directed by Octavio Cardenas and conducted by music director Mary Chun.
Watch clip on NBC Bay Area, featuring mezzo-soprano Kelly Guerra singing the role of Dolores.
By Charlise Tiee
“West Edge Opera gave the world premiere of Nicolás Lell Benavides' Dolores yesterday in Oakland. Set in 1968, the opera is about labor leader Dolores Huerta during the Delano Grape Strike. The piece is timely, moving, and, at times quite funny.
The music has a lot of interesting textures, and Maestra Mary Chun kept everyone together. There was a particularly lovely viola solo near the end of Act I with the title character singing alone. The pacing is good, everything moves at a fine clip.”
By Andrew Gilbert for KQED.
A New Dolores Huerta Opera Brings a Labor Struggle to the Stage
A landmark labor struggle might seem like difficult terrain to explore in an opera, but Long Beach-based composer Nicolás Lell Benavides knew that he had a riveting tale to tell in Dolores.
…
On today’s episode of music/Maker with Tyler Kline, Tyler is joined by composer Nicolás Lell Benavides.
Nicolás is a 2024–25 Guggenheim Fellow whose music has been commissioned by the LA Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Eighth Blackbird, West Edge Opera, and many more. His work spans opera, orchestral, and chamber music, often drawing on cultural history, folk storytelling, and regional memory. Upcoming projects include Dolores, an opera about civil rights icon Dolores Huerta premiering in 2025, as well as new commissions for Eighth Blackbird, the LA Phil, and an album with Friction Quartet and mezzo-soprano Melinda Martinez Becker.
In this conversation, Nicolás reflects on why his music is rooted in curiosity and dialogue rather than autobiography. He shares stories of writing about cottonwoods and irrigation, sage grouse and New Mexican Catholic folk figures — and how that exploration connects to his own family and heritage. He also speaks candidly about the opera process, the challenge of revision, and how working with brilliant collaborators has helped him embrace humility, growth, and a sense of purpose in the work.
By Tom Jacobs (cross post with SF Chronicle)
The nation is tense, and California’s Central Valley farm fields have become an unlikely flash point. The workers — mostly immigrants — who harvest the fruits and vegetables that feed much of the country are scared and angry. They labor to the point of physical exhaustion for low pay. Protests against these conditions are organized and soon gain widespread support.
This may sound like a dispatch from the front lines of 2025, a year that’s been marked by the Trump administration’s immigration raids and arrests across the state’s agricultural industry. But it’s also the historical backdrop for Dolores Huerta, who in the mid-1960s spearheaded a nationwide boycott of table grapes in solidarity with striking farmworkers. Alongside fellow labor leaders Cesar Chavez and Larry Itliong, she played an integral role in the era’s civil rights movement.
By Joshua Kosman (On a Pacific Aisle)
At a time when the political situation in the United States can seem intractably hopeless, perhaps we could all use a bit of uplift. Or at any rate, we could use a reminder that although things have looked bleak before, some visionaries seized the moment to forge a popular resistance even in the face of daunting obstacles. And that at least one of those people still walks among us!
Dolores, a new opera by composer Nicolás Lell Benavides and librettist Marella Martin Koch that’s scheduled for its world premiere next month with West Edge Opera, promises something along these lines. It’s a musical and theatrical portrait of Dolores Huerta, the legendary labor leader and civil rights activist who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, helped spearhead the Central Valley strikes of the 1960s and ’70s, and coined (or at least popularized) the slogan “¡Sí, se puede!”
By Janis Haashe for East Bay Magazine (cross posted with East Bay Express)
At 95, Dolores Huerta could rest on her laurels with no reproaches. Labor leader, tireless fighter for immigrant rights and civil rights, as well as feminist, Huerta has continued her work for decades.
But, said Nicolás Lell Benavides, composer of the new opera, Dolores, Huerta knows there is always more to do. The fight for justice is ongoing. And even when a life-altering tragedy occurs, Huerta does not give up, but finds a way to persevere…
“Last April, NOVA Chamber Music Series presented the world premiere of a work that incorporated the sounds of the mating rituals of the greater-sage grouse and sharp-tailed grouse. Commissioned by the Fry Street Quartet, whose members serve collectively as music director for the series, Lek by Nicolás Lell Benavides, was a delightful, witty, appealing on-the-spot audio documentary, with plenty of live music and birdsong…”
Read more at Utah Review
A Crescendo of Achievements
Nicolás Lell Benavides ’10 shares how his Santa Clara experience and passion for composition led to the creation of his largest project to date: “Dolores.”
By Francesca D’Urzo
https://magazine.scu.edu/magazines/fall-2023/a-crescendo-of-achievements/
Based on a New Mexican morality tale about a poor woodcutter whose greed gets the best of him when he defies “Lady Death,” Nicolás Lell Benavides’s Doña Sebastiana made an entrancing impression in its commissioned premiere. As it moved from layered sliding harmonies to brooding and pungent passages and sweet bird sounds, the story the composer had described in charming opening remarks took shape in a listener’s imagination.
Lightly percussive touches (the cellists slapping the bodies of their instruments) and a wittily abrupt ending made for an evocative, effectively concise work of musical storytelling. It all happened in eight minutes. The orchestra… gave a warm and responsive reading under Music Director Daniel Hope on lead violin.
-Steven Winn, SFCV
With operatic flourish, activist Dolores Huerta and younger cousin receive USC doctorates on same day
COMMENCEMENT: Hers is an honorary degree; his is a doctorate of musical arts. The conferral is a prelude to an operatic interpretation of Huerta’s remarkable life, which the composer calls “a microcosm of loss and perseverance.”
(Excerpt, from Les Roka)
The Libby Gardner Hall audience for NOVA Chamber Music Series’ Connect with the West received the full ASMR sound treatment of the mating rituals of the greater-sage grouse and sharp-tailed grouse in the outstanding world premiere of Lek by Nicolás Lell Benavides. Commissioned by the Fry Street Quartet, whose members serve collectively as music director for the series, Lek was thoroughly entertaining as it was enlightening.
Benavides scored the work for string quartet and electronics featuring edited recordings of these ‘thirsty’ bird species in the midst of their own natural club for hooking up. The composer recorded the birds in Utah last year. The result was a delightful, witty, appealing on-the-spot audio documentary, with plenty of live music and birdsong.
Nicolás Lell Benavides is a Nuevomexicano who now lives and works in California and, like Chuaqui and Frank, has a creative identity that comprises many layers.
“It has been forever interesting,” Benavides says, when asked about his family’s history. “They had one foot in Latin America and one foot in the U.S.,” he adds. His family history includes many fascinating elements. His grandfather, as a teenager, hitchhiked to Oakland, California, saying “good riddance” to Albuquerque (only to return later) and was drafted into the Korean War. His grandfather epitomized the loose-fitting zoot suits, the unique Spanglish dialect of the Pachuco culture, and the music and steps of the Mambo, Rumba and Cha Cha dance styles.
There was a lot of music in his family’s household when he was growing up. With an accordionist in the home, Benavides heard traditional corridos and rancheras, along with jazz and funk, folk and pop songs. He was in a progressive rock band but in high school, he could not differentiate Mozart from Beethoven. The transforming experience came in his senior year of high school when he heard the Albuquerque Youth Symphony perform Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.
Recuerdos: Orchestra of St. Luke's plays Benavides
Friday, February 24, 10 am
The closing piece of St. Luke's concert in 2022 was Nicolas Lell Benavides' Recyclate, a piece inspired by Hovor II, which is a 15-foot by 15-foot “tapestry” created by El Anatsui, a Ghanian artist living in Nigeria. El Anatsui is particularly intrigued by recycled materials, and this monumental work served as a basis for Recyclate.
San Diego Symphony has announced its 2023-24 season.
For the purposes of this article, we will only focus on vocal and operatic performances.
Jacobs Masterworks Season
It all kicks off with Rafael Payare leading performances of Strauss’ “Til Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks,” the west coast premiere of Billy Children’s Saxophone Concerto,” Mozart’s “Exsutate, jubilate,” Debussy’s “La Mer,” and the world premiere of Texu Kim’s “Welcome Home!!”
Soprano Liv Redpath and saxophonist Steven Banks will be the soloists.
Performance Date: Nov. 4, 2023
Soprano Angela Meade and mezzo Anna Larson will headline Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. Payare conducts a performance which also includes a new work by Carlos Simon. The performance also features the San Diego Symphony Festival Choir.
Performance Date: Nov. 11 & 12, 2023
Bass-baritone Dashon Burton will lead a performance featuring music by Michael Tilson Thomas, who conducts. The performance also features two symphonies by Sibelius.
Performance Date: March 23 & 24, 2024
Currents Series
Nicolas Lell Benavides and Marella Martin lead Martin Koch’s “Tres Minutos” in co-production with Music of Remembrance.
Performance Date: Jan. 5, 2023