In August 2021, De Ritis and the poet Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, an English and Africana studies professor at Northeastern, received a grant from the Boston Foundation for a musical adaptation of Bertram’s 2020 poetry collection, Travesty Generator. Even in the realm of newer opera, the source material is radical…

“An eclectic whose other works draw on popular and electronic music, [De Ritis] based “The Legend of Cowherd and Weaver Girl” (2018) on an ancient tale of forbidden love between celestial beings… it is also a concerto for a large array of Chinese percussion instruments, and that aspect, thanks to the high-energy virtuosity of Beibei Wang, is what captured the attention in this colorful, 20-minute score.”