This vibrant showcase will highlight some of the world’s best-known operatic arias, art songs, and spirituals, paying homage to the eternal legacies of operatic legends Marian Anderson and Jessye Norman. Created and directed by composer, conductor, and multi-genre musician Damien Sneed, this powerful program symbolically passes the torch to two of today’s most exciting operatic voices, Justin Austin and Brandie Inez Sutton, and features works by African American composers past and present — including Margaret Bonds, Harry T. Burleigh, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, and Damien Sneed — plus works by Copland, Mozart, Puccini, Gershwin, and Strauss.

Program
Hale Smith: Evocation

Arr. by Shawn Okpebholo: Oh Freedom
Arr. by Damien Sneed: Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Wynton Marsalis: The Lord’s Prayer from Abyssinian Mass

Terence Blanchard: There was a Storm from Fire Shut Up In My Bones
Giacomo Puccini: Ch’il bel sogno from La Rondine
Damien Sneed: It Is Done from Treemonisha
George Gershwin: Summertime from Porgy & Bess
Terence Blanchard: Duet from Fire Shut Up In My Bones

Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson: String Quartet, No. 1 “Calvary” – Allegro
Richard Strauss: Morgen, Op. 27, No. 4
Aaron Copland: Little Horses from Old American Songs, Set 2
Harry T. Burleigh: Till I Wake
Margaret Bonds: Minstrel Man from Three Dream Portraits
Damien Sneed: I Hear The Stars Still Singing from The Earth Sings
Damien Sneed: I Dream A World
Arr. by Margaret Bonds & Damien Sneed: He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands