PAUL ROBESON: MAN OF THE PEOPLE
A NEW JAZZ POETRY OPERA

Chicago Premiere: FRIDAY, JUNE 7th 2024
Free performance at Hamilton Park District Fieldhouse, Chicago, Illinois.

Paul Robeson: Man of the People is a new jazz poetry opera chronicling the life, artistic legacy, and activism of the most important and iconic figure of the twentieth century. This live, multimedia presentation explores the life, creative ethos, and inclusive social vision of concert artist, stage and film actor, athlete, and activist, Paul Robeson. Educator and civil rights leader Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune referred to Mr. Robeson as “the tallest tree in our forest.”

Co-created by librettist Lasana D. Kazembe and composer Ernest Dawkins, Paul Robeson: Man of the People will have its Chicago premiere on Friday, June 7, 2024, from 6-7:30 pm in the Fieldhouse at Hamilton Park District, 513 W 72nd St, Chicago, IL. Admission is free, with no reservation or ticket required. This will be the work’s second performance, after an earlier performance in Indianapolis on May 31, 2024. 

The production serves to introduce contemporary audiences to the art, creative legacy, and social justice activism of Mr. Robeson via creative interpretation and artistic engagement with his musicianship, stagecraft, intellectual spirit, writings, political speeches, and his tireless global activism. Mr. Robeson’s epic life story is rendered in a multimedia stage production that features original poetry, operatic storysong, a jazz/blues-infused original score, dramatic narration, video animation, and live visual art. 

PERFORMERS INCLUDE 

Lasana D. Kazembe,  spoken word/narration; librettist
Ernest Dawkins, saxophone; score; musical director
Corey Wilkes, trumpet
Isiah Keith, piano/vibes
Staci McCrackin, vocalist
Kevin King, flute/clarinet/oboe/saxophone
Gaylon Morriss, bass
Isiah Spencer, drums; percussion
Caitlin Edwards, violin
Edith Yokley, violin
Wilfred Farquharson, viola
Tahirah Whittington, cello

The opera develops across six movements. The music, songs, and dialogue develop sequentially to reflect Mr. Robeson’s development and maturation into a global icon for freedom. 

This extended original work is made possible through the Indiana University Presidential Arts & Humanities Fellowship program.

On May 28, 2024,  Elevation, non-profit Elevate Vocal Arts’ flagship ensemble of 39 vocal artists, releases their second album, Are You Looking For Me? at the Meyer Media label produced by GRAMMY award-winning Andreas Meyer. Available at all major online download and streaming sites. Preorder is now available on Apple Music and Amazon.

Are You Looking For Me? is an introspective work with nine world premiere tracks that explores the depths of faith. Through a meticulously curated repertoire that blends ethereal melodies with raw, emotive lyrics, the album invites listeners on a profound journey inward and outward. It questions the essence of belief in the divine, in the goodness within people, in the transformative power of art, and in the relentless march of time. And, it challenges us to reflect on our own convictions and human potential.

At its core, Are You Looking For Me? is a dynamic canvas for artists to explore the complex narratives of faith, resilience, and identity. Elevate Vocal Arts‘ unwavering commitment to nurturing talent and providing platforms for historically marginalized communities is evident in the range of vocal artistry showcased in this album. Through music, storytelling, and spoken word, the choir’s talent is on full display, a testament to the power of song and story. 

Album Teaser:

The works included on this album span centuries of choral stylings and landscapes. From “Laus Trinitati,” Faith Zimmer’s reworking of chants from the High Middle Ages, to “Were You There?” a Negro spiritual first published in 1899, sacred compositions are recontextualized for modern understanding. In keeping with the theme of modernity, contemporary works such as Dominick DiOrio’s newly commissioned piece “Are You Looking For Me?” and Reginal Wright’s “Tides” speak to modern meanings and expressions of faith in everyday life, while also commenting on timely social issues such as political division and police brutality.

Compositions on the album incorporate texts from diverse sources such as Indian mystic poet and saint Kabir, and writer and civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson. Further inspiration is drawn from musical sources ranging from 11th-century Benedictine abbess Hildegard of Bingen, Hip-Hop looping, and even Westminster Chimes, the ubiquitous set of pitches used by clocks around the world to toll the hours of the day.

The team that produced Are You Looking For Me? is led by Artistic Director & CEO, Arreon A. Harley-Emerson, along with Dr. Jillian Harrison-Jones, Associate Artistic Director, L. Jay Besch, Operations Manager and Assistant Conductor, and Erik Meyer, Collaborative Keyboardist.

WORKS (ALL WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS) INCLUDE:

I. Divine Commentary
1. Laus Trinitati, Faith Zimmer
2. Were You There, Christopher H. Harris
II. Searching For Faith
3. Are You Looking For Me, Dominick DiOrio
4. Tides, Reginal Wright
III. Odes to Joy
5. Joy Never Leaves, Christopher H. Harris
6. Elevate, Lori C. Hicks
IV. Infinite Song
7. The Gift To Sing, Erik Meyer
8. Hymn to Time, Lee R. Kesselman
V. The Majestic
9. You Are Worthy of All The Praise, Kevin B. James

Elevate Vocal Arts (EVA)
Arreon A. Harley-Emerson
Andreas K. Meyer

**As of May 10, 2024 this concert is postponed indefinitely. it will not take place on June 5, 2024.**

Pianist Haskell Small has toured key cities in US in the 2023-24 season with his program Celebration of Healing, performing Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. His next stop will be at Weill Recital Hall located in the celebrated Carnegie Hall in New York City on June 5.

In 2021, Composer and Pianist Haskell Small suffered a debilitating stroke that rendered his left hand and foot paralyzed. At the time, Small feared his accomplished professional career would come to an end. Three years later, he is not only playing piano again (with both hands!) but has embarked on a nationwide Celebration of Healing tour that launched in his hometown of Washington, DC in September 2023 and is not hitting Carnegie Hall. He will be the subject of a documentary film entitled Small Steps directed by Christopher McGuinness to be released later this year. The trailer can be viewed here.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024, 8PM
Weill Recital Hall: Carnegie Hall
154 W 57th St, New York, NY

Tickets are $25 and are available at carnegiehall.org, the Carnegie Hall Box Office at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue, or by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800. Carnegie Hall is located at 881 Seventh Avenue in New York City.

More information available at www.haskellsmall.com

As captured in The Washington Post, Small used his painstaking journey of rehabilitation as a creative muse. Unwilling to stay away from music, he began arranging and performing classical masterworks for his right hand alone, as well as writing and performing a new composition, Diary of a Stroke: The Adventures of Herb and Pete (playful nicknames Small gave to his paralyzed hand and foot). Today, Small’s rehabilitation has further progressed and he has returned to playing with full use of both hands. Small’s Celebration of Healing Tour will not only mark his full recovery, but fulfill his life-long dream of performing Beethoven’s immensely difficult and sublime Diabelli Variations.

“To go from thinking my career might be over, to touring the country with one of the most demanding and sublime works in the repertoire has become a life-saving journey,” says Small. “I’m hoping that my story can resonate with others who have suffered setbacks and offer inspiration that you should never give up on your dreams. Sometimes what seems like a disaster can in fact be an opportunity to grow and challenge yourself in a whole new way.”

Adding to Haskell’s challenges and augmenting his “celebration of healing,” this spring (2024) he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, fortunately caught early and curable with a big surgery called a ‘Whipple procedure’ that he is presently recovering from.

Haskell Small

On Thursday, June 13, 2024, at 8 pm, composer Elliott Sharp presents the US Premiere in English of his opera Die Grösste Fuge (The Greatest Fugue) – a time travel opera – at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn. This opera features the virtuosic bass/baritone Nicholas Isherwood as Ludwig van Beethoven with DGF String Quartet, prerecorded electroacoustic backing tracks, and projection design by Janene Higgins.

Tickets: $25 in advance ($20 Student/Senior w/ID) and $30 at the door.  Tickets available at roulette.org. A live stream will be available free of charge on YouTube at 8 pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing. 

Recently, Infrequent Seams released the double CD of Die Grösste Fuge, which is available for streaming. It received rave reviews from sources such as The Moderns: “The performances are every bit as grand and in-your-face as the work’s subject deserves” and Touching Extremes: “Isherwood masterfully portrays Beethoven’s torment.”

One may imagine Ludwig von Beethoven in the 1820s in ill health and nearly deaf, bitter and lonely with his economy in tatters, and clinging to his delusions of nobility. He must escape but it is impossible. Yet escape he does but not by his own agency. He becomes unmoored from the tethers of his daily life and mind to travel in time to an incomprehensible future, surprisingly both magnificent and horrendous. Once he has returned to his normal life he processes his experiences in “this greatest fugue” (die grösste Fuge) and begins to create a string quartet, Die Grösse Fuge. 

In writing the libretto for Die Grösste Fuge, Elliott Sharp drew inspiration from Beethoven’s letters and notes as well as from works by Schiller and Goethe. These excerpts were never used verbatim but translated, often multiple times from German to English and back again using AI translation software. In addition, some texts were run through “cut-up” software that would simulate strategies invented by Brion Gysin and often used by William Burroughs to reveal layers of meaning within a text by literally cutting up the printed words and phrases on a page and resequencing them. Some of these same strategies were employed in creating the music. Melodic materials would be extracted and turned into seeds that could then be expanded and layered to form vocal melodies and contrapuntal accompaniment. Rhythmic motifs would be looped and reversed, recombined and transformed. However, first and foremost, the settings of the songs are designed to flow from the words themselves so that the meaning, while layered, is always in bas-relief.

Elliott Sharp
Nicholas Isherwood
Janene Higgins

On Monday, March 25, 2024, at 8 pm, violinist-composer Dan Flanagan (danflanaganviolin.com) makes his Carnegie Hall debut at Weill Hall with The Bow and the Brush (thebowandthebrush.com): an evening of solo violin and Carnegie Hall Premiere compositions. With music directly inspired by paintings, pastels, mixed media, and sculptures from Flanagan’s personal collection, the program highlights pieces by the likes of Raffaëlli, Guillaumin, Pinchon, Pissarro, as well as living artists including Paul Gibson, Nikki Vismara, and Elaine Pratt.

Celebrated for his exquisite violin tone and stellar musicianship, Flanagan brings his enthusiasm for music and art to Weill Hall. Created and conceptualized by Flanagan, the program includes two of his own compositions alongside several commissioned works written by 18 celebrated living New Music composers (with intermission). This concert is the centerpiece of Flanagan’s tour, taking The Bow and the Brush to audiences in the United States and across Europe. Select compositions are included on a critically acclaimed album released on MSR Records, with visual video accompaniment of the art on thebowandthebrush.com. “The intrepid violinist puts on a master class of exemplary technique, insightful interpretations and an immediately felt devotion to canvases of both sound and art.” (James Wegg Review)

Tickets are $35-45 and are available at carnegiehall.org, the Carnegie Hall Box Office at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue, or by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800. Carnegie Hall is located at 881 Seventh Avenue in New York City.

WORKS INCLUDE (all Carnegie Hall premieres, some are New York premieres mentioned below):
The Collection / Shinji Eshima / mixed media by Paul Gibson
Raven’s Dance / Linda Marcel / painting by Nina Fabunmi
Pastel Lake (NY Premiere) / Michael Panther / pastel drawing by George Manzana Pissarro
Émergence / Jacques Desjardins / painting by Susan Bostrom-Wong
Blue Swan / Evan Price / sculpture by Sean O’Donnell
Notre Dame au milieu de l’eau et du ciel / Trevor Weston / painting by Albert-Marie Lebourg (NY Premiere)
Into the Light / Cindy Cox / painting by Victoria Veedell
Island / Maija Hynninen / painting by Elaine Pratt
Shadow Breaking / Nathaniel Stookey / painting by Rachel Dwan
An Animated Street in Autumn / Dan Flanagan / painting by Jean-François Raffaëlli
Guillaumin / James Stephenson / pastel drawing by Armand Guillaumin
Same Old Sadness / Peter Josheff / painting by Peter Canty
Splits (Le Grand Ècart) / Edmund Campion / pastel drawing by Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro
And miles to go… (NY Premiere) / Jessica Mays / painting by Albert Malet
Danses (NY Premiere) / Catherine Neville / lithograph by Henri Fantin-Latour
Couple au Lit / David Mecionis / painting by Jean-Louis Forain
LeGato au Chocolat (World Premiere) / Dan Flanagan / painting by Cynthia Alvarez
The Only Way Through is Slow / Libby Larsen / painting by Nikki Vismara
Cadenza II / José González Granero / painting by Robert Antoine Pinchon