Program notes, texts, & translations
Hymn to Freedom — Oscar Peterson, arr. Seppo Hovi
This iconic composition by Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, written in 1962, is a testament to the power of intergenerational unity and radical community to inspire and uplift.
Originally conceived as a jazz tune inspired by African-American spirituals, "Hymn to Freedom" quickly became an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement, resonating with people around the world. The song's enduring popularity reflects its ability to transcend cultural and political boundaries, offering a message of hope and resilience in the face of adversity.
When every heart joins every heart and together yearns for liberty,
That's when we'll be free.
When every hand joins every hand and together molds our destiny,
That's when we'll be free.
Any hour any day, the time soon will come when all will live in dignity,
That's when we'll be free.
When everyone joins in our song and together singing harmony,
That's when we'll be free.
What Happens When a Woman? (2020) — Alexandra Olsavsky and Artemisia
As a founding member of the Chicago-based vocal trio Artemisia, Olsavsky harnesses the power of women's voices to tell stories through the vocal traditions of the world. "What Happens When a Woman?" is a testament to the strength, resilience, and agency of women, featuring empowering lyrics, body percussion, and a fiery musical energy. This piece is a stark reminder of the transformative power of collective action.
What happens when a woman takes power?
What happens when she won't back down?
What happens when a woman takes power?
What happens when she wears the crown?
What happens when she rules her own body?
What happens when she sets the beat?
What happens when she bows to nobody?
What happens when she stands on her own two feet?
Woah, we rise above.
Woah, we lead with love.
Woah, we have won.
We are one.
We've just begun.
We Wear the Mask — Paul Laurence Dunbar
Nancy Munn, reader
Paul Laurence Dunbar was a pioneering African American poet, born in 1872 to parents who had been enslaved. Dunbar gained national fame with his 1895 collection “Majors and Minors”, and his works often explored themes of identity, race, and the Black experience in post-slavery America. Despite struggles with health and financial hardships, he left a significant literary legacy before his death in 1906 at just 33 years old.
Truth Tones (2009) — Trevor Weston
Truth Tones was commissioned by the Boston Children’s Chorus for a “Raising the Roof” MLK Jr. Celebration on Jan 19, 2009. Instead of using excerpts from speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr., I decided to focus on an important issue across many of Dr. King’s speeches: the revelation of hidden truths. He so often spoke to the universality of humans and the beauty of living in a society where the truth of equality was actually celebrated.
Rather than using Dr. King’s words, I thought that it would be more interesting to draw from both the famous African Saint Augustine and a poem entitled “The Poet” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, an important African American. Dr. King’s speeches demonstrated a broad historical perspective, so I sought to honor the legacy of his scholarship by using texts that span a millennium and a half. “The Poet” by Dunbar seems to describe Dr. King’s message as poetry, not just informing the population but teaching and encouraging reflection through the beauty of his words.
The St. Augustine quotes deal more specifically with the title. In his Confessions, St. Augustine discusses the difficulty humans have in hearing the truth and the adverse reactions many people who speak the truth receive from society. Throughout the piece the spiritual “Wade in the Water” appears in the alto voices, as a melodic and thematic statement of the familiar.
– Trevor Weston
Book 10, Chapter 26 (adapted)
O Truth, you give hearing to all who consult you...You answer clearly, but all men do not hear you...
Book 10, Chapter 23 (adapted)
Why is it, then, that “truth begets hatred?” Why is your man who preaches truth to men become an enemy in their eyes…
– St. Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions
The Poet
He sang of life, serenely sweet,
With, now and then, a deeper note.
From some high peak, nigh yet remote,
He voiced the world’s absorbing beat.
He sang of love when earth was young.
And Love, itself, was in his lays.
But ah, the world, it turned to praise
A jingle in a broken tongue.
– Paul Laurence Dunbar
The Republic of Poetry — Martín Espada
Asher Davison, reader
Born in Brooklyn in 1957, Martín Espada has published more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator. His honors include an Academy of American Poets Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. A former tenant lawyer, Espada is a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Two Partsongs (2024) — Chris Castro, texts by Ruben Darío and Johann Wolfgang Goethe
Chris Castro is a composer and double bassist from Brooklyn, New York, and a recipient of Chamber Music America's 2021 Classical Commissioning Award. Castro joined the faculty of Chapman University as Assistant Professor of Composition in August 2022, and holds a PhD in composition and theory from UC Davis, and a bachelor’s degree in music from the Juilliard School in both double bass and composition.
"Two Partsongs" is a testament to the power of radical community and intergenerational unity. Inspired by the lives and legacies of César Chavez and Dolores Huerta, composer Chris Castro explores the concept of doubles and mirrors. By setting two different poets in two different languages, the piece invites us to consider the interconnectedness of our experiences in creating a more just and equitable world.
The first text setting (Rubén Darío's "De Otoño") reflects on the potential apathy and disillusionment that poets and change makers confront. The second text setting from Goethe’s Faust urges us to recreate the world in a more beautiful way.
“Two Partsongs” was commissioned by 21V in 2023, and celebrates the power of collective action and the enduring spirit of hope.
I. De Otoño
Yo sé que hay quienes dicen: Por qué no canta ahora
con aquella locura armoniosa de antaño?
Esos no ven la obra profunda de la hora,
la labor del minuto y el prodigio del año.
Yo, pobre árbol, produje, al amor de la brisa,
Cuando empecé a crecer, un vago y dulce son.
Pasó ya el tiempo de la juvenil sonrisa:
Dejad al huracán mover mi corazón!
– Rubén Darío
In Autumn (Translation by Alberto Acereda & Will Derusha)
I know that there are those who say, “Why don’t you sing now
with that harmonious madness of old?”
They don’t see the profound work of an hour,
the labor of a minute, and the prodigy of a year.
I, a poor tree, produced, out of love for the breeze,
when I began to grow, a vague and sweet sound.
The time for youthful smiles has long passed:
Let the hurricane move my heart!
II. Choir of Spirits from Faust
Alas! Alas! You destroyed her
the beautiful world
with a mighty fist.
It falls, it falls apart
by a demigod destroyed.
We carry the ruins
into nothingness
and wail over beauty undone
and lost.
Earth’s mighty sons
rebuild it magnificent,
and start a new life, a new way,
and sound new songs.
– Johann Wolfgang Goethe (translation by the composer)
Instructions on Not Giving Up — Ada Limón
Yiting Jin, reader
In 2022, Ada Limón was appointed the United States poet laureate. Born in 1976 in Sonoma, she was greatly influenced by the visual arts and artists, including her mother. Of Limón’s work, the poet Richard Blanco writes, “Both soft and tender, enormous and resounding, her poetic gestures entrance and transfix.” Limón splits her time between Lexington, Kentucky, and Sonoma, California.
My Dearest Ruth (2023) — Stacy Garrop
The letter upon which “My Dearest Ruth” is based was my father’s last written statement. My parents celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary in my father’s room at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on Wednesday, June 23, 2010. The following day, my mother called to say Dad had taken a turn for the worse. I flew to Baltimore the next morning (Friday) and met Mom at Dad’s room. The doctors came in and told us there was nothing more they could do—the cancer had progressed too far. All this time, Dad kept repeating one word: “Home.” So, we made arrangements to bring him back to our apartment in Washington, D.C. While collecting his belongings from the hospital room, Mom pulled open the drawer next to Dad’s bed and discovered a yellow legal pad on which Dad had written this a week earlier:
My Dearest Ruth –
You are the only person I have loved in my life, setting aside, a bit, parents and kids and their kids, and I have admired and loved you almost since the day we first met at Cornell some 56 years ago.
What a treat it has been to watch you progress to the very top of the legal world!!
I will be in JH Medical Center until Friday, June 25, I believe, and between then and now I shall think hard on my remaining health and life, and whether on balance the time has come for me to tough it out or to take leave of life because the loss of quality now simply overwhelms. I hope you will support where I come out, but I understand you may not. I will not love you a jot less.
Marty
My sister Jane and I commissioned Stacy Garrop to adapt the letter and set it to music as one of three songs by different women composers to be presented in 2013* as an 80th birthday tribute to our mother, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Soprano Patrice Michaels sang the premiere at the Supreme Court with pianist Dana Brown on Saturday, April 6, 2013.
– James Ginsburg
*The treble choir version was commissioned in 2023 by 21V; Martín Benvenuto, Artistic Director.
No te salves/Don’t save yourself — Mario Benedetti
Miguel Angel Solá, reader
Mario Benedetti (1920-2009) was a celebrated Uruguayan poet, novelist, and essayist, renowned for capturing the essence of urban life and the struggles of the Latin American middle class. His novel “La tregua” (1960), an introspective tale of love and loss, brought him international fame and was later adapted into a film. Benedetti’s works were deeply influenced by his political beliefs, especially after the 1973 military coup in Uruguay forced him into exile.
When the Dust Settles (2019) — Mari Esabel Valverde, text by Amir Rabiyah
We look to the intersections between those in the margins for humanity’s nerve endings—our vastest source for empathy and nuanced outrage. There we find Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, holding the door open for “the forgotten ones, the discarded, and misunderstood,” asking us all to stay “strong and delicate.” A former grassroots organizer and lifelong transgender and intersex rights activist from coast to coast, Miss Major is a “veteran” of the Stonewall Riots. Hearing her speak today, you would not perceive within her voice the years of surviving our historically transphobic, racist, and often violent systems of oppression. And her fight to liberate her trans and queer descendants continues. At age 78, she opened the House of GG, the Griffin-Gracy Educational Retreat and Historical Center for the transgender and gender non-conforming community, in Little Rock, Arkansas. For more information please visit: https://HouseOfGG.org
“When the Dust Settles” is a culmination of trans stories brought to life through singing, written in homage to Miss Major. Amir Rabiyah’s original poem, created expressly for this song, synthesizes themes of intersectional identity, survival, and humanity, striving to share a bit of Miss Major’s perspective. Phrases such as ‘when the dust settles,’ and ‘we are still here,’ are direct quotes, while other statements and themes are paraphrased. The text points toward a trans woman’s right to life and to pleasure.
The choice of Db major, the key of the earth, hearkens back to “Our Phoenix,” my first collaboration with Rabiyah, memorializing the lives of our trans siblings who are murdered across America every year. But now, we celebrate trans lives and mold the relative minor into its parallel major, with Bb carrying along tones of Db major as badges for what we have survived to get to our “honeyed” days.
Commissioned jointly by Peninsula Women's Chorus—as part of their Trailblazers Project—and VOX Femina Los Angeles in 2019, I am now honored to have 21V bring "When the Dust Settles" back home to the San Francisco Bay Area this spring.
– Mari Esabel Valverde
You opened your arms for the forgotten ones
the discarded & misunderstood
you showed them a mother's love
enveloped them in a delicate
and powerful embrace, beautiful star
when the dust settles, we'll always remember
how you showed us how to fight
even while the jagged blade of sorrow
pressed on us, to fight
ceaselessly, to tend to one another
You said, when the dust settles
I hope my girls will be okay
You cried out from the cells of Attica
and outside Stonewall's battered streets
Do you hear me? Are you listening?
How many more have to die?
your heart bigger than any cage
even in the midst of so much loss
you remind us to dream
to hold tomorrow between our lips
we deserve to kiss without fear
to grow old
to sway our hips
to wear what we wish
to relish in the pleasure of our bodies
the seeds you planted continue to grow
into blooming song
when the dust settles, we will raise our voices
just as you have always done, in glorious proclamation
we will let everyone know—
We are still here!
We are still here!
Bright Morning Stars Are Rising — Traditional Appalachian Song, arr. Shawn Kirchner
“Bright Morning Stars” is one of my favorite American folksongs. In addition to its beautiful words and gracefully arching phrases, I appreciate the song’s irregularity of meter on the final phrase of each verse. There’s something “alive” about song material that unfolds beyond the careful borders of symmetry.
I learned “Bright Morning Stars” from my college roommate during a road trip as we shared songs in turn — the old-fashioned way of passing time. I had never heard it before, and I made everyone in the car sing it again and again in harmony. I especially liked the way the song linked the “external” imagery of dawn and morning stars to the corresponding “internal” movements of renewal that we all experience — “day a-breaking in my soul.” Years later, in the tender time following my mother’s untimely death, I wrote the original SATB setting for chorus, soloist, and piano. The SSAA version was commissioned by WomenSing in 2012.
I made one addition to the original lyrics which ask, in turn, “O where are our dear fathers? O where are our dear mothers?” (The response: “They are down in the valley praying. They have gone to heaven shouting.”) I added a final verse, in which the long-departed father and mothers have a chance to ask: “O where are our dear children?” The response: “They’re upon the earth a-dancing.” I like the image of those who have passed on and those who are yet present upon the earth calling to each other “across eternity.”
– Shawn Kirchner
Bright morning stars are rising,
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.
Oh, where are our dear fathers?
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.
They are down in the valley praying;
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.
Oh where are our dear mothers?
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.
They have gone to heaven shouting;
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.
Oh where are our dear children?
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.
They’re upon the earth a-dancing;
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.
Bright morning stars are rising;
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.