FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Helen Pinch, Performance Santa Fe
Phone: (505) 984 8759
Email: hpinch@performancesantafe.org
Promotional Photos
Full Press Release

Santa Fe, NM, January 10, 2022 – A Standing Witness is a monumental new collaboration between Grammy Award-winning composer Richard Danielpour and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove, created especially for the incomparable mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and the celebrated Music from Copland House Ensemble. The soaring music and probing poetry of this epic cycle for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble is a sweeping retrospective tracing enormous social, cultural, technological, and political upheavals in the U.S. since the watershed year of 1968. Rapturously received in premiere performances at the Kennedy Center, the University of Chicago, and elsewhere around the U.S., there is no more timely or provocative work for this pivotal moment in American history.

Program

Pierre Jalbert
Crossings

John Harbison
Songs America Loves to Sing

Richard Danielpour and Rita Dove
A Standing Witness

Presented through the generosity of Michelle Midyette and Heritage Hotels and Resorts
22–23 Season Sponsors: Ann Murphy Daily and William W. Daily; Leah Gordon

Details

Susan Graham and Music from Copland House Ensemble
Thursday, February 16 | 7:30 pm
This event includes a pre-concert lecture from 6:30–7 pm.
Lensic Performing Arts Center
211 W San Francisco St, Santa Fe, NM 87501
$35–$115

Save up to 50% off your ticket order with student and family discounts
$20 Rush tickets available the day of the performance for patrons under 30

To purchase tickets, visit PerformanceSantaFe.org or call (505) 984 8759.

This event will take place as a part of the Art + Sol Winter Arts Festival. For more information, visit www.artsolsantafe.org.

Susan Graham and Music from Copland House Ensemble. A presentation of works by American composers, including A Standing Witness. Presented by Performance Santa Fe at the Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W San Francisco St, Santa Fe, NM 87501. Thursday, February 16, 7:30 pm. Tickets: $35–$115. (505) 984 8759. PerformanceSantaFe.org.

Special Event

American History, Poetry, and Music in Conversation
Friday, February 17 | 12 pm| Private Home
$90

Enjoy an intimate luncheon with the incomparable mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove and learn more about their monumental new collaboration, A Standing Witness. Space is highly limited. To purchase tickets, call Performance Santa Fe at 505 984 8759.

About A Standing Witness

A Standing Witness is a major collaboration between Grammy Award-winning composer Richard Danielpour and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former-U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove. Intended for the acclaimed mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and the award-winning Music from Copland House ensemble, this cycle of thirteen songs is a sweeping retrospective on pivotal historical events and moments in the U.S. over the past half-century. The work can be perceived as a series of musical snapshots tracing the trajectory of American civilization since 1968, as well as an invitation to bring forth what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.”

Part One of the cycle begins in 1968; that watershed year of political, societal, and cultural turmoil saw the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy, the climax and, arguably, turning point of the Vietnam War, and the violence at the Democratic National Convention. Part Two revisits the Moon landing, Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, the Watergate scandal and collapse of the Nixon Presidency, and the end of the Vietnam War. Part Three journeys through recent decades, from the AIDs epidemic of the 1980s and the newly-unleashed culture of greed in the 1990s to the cataclysm of 9/11, the seminal advent of America’s first African American president, and the current political upheavals. The last song, an epilogue to the entire work, is sung in the first person, revealing the surprise identity of the title “character.”

Grammy-Award winning composer Richard Danielpour (b. 1956)is among the most gifted and sought-after composers of his generation. His music has attracted an illustrious array of champions, and, as a devoted mentor and educator, he has also had a significant impact on the younger generation of composers. He has been commissioned by some of the most celebrated artists and ensembles of our day, including Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham, Thomas Hampson, the Guarneri and Emerson String Quartets, the New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Music from Copland House, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. With Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, he created the opera Margaret Garner. He is one of the most- recorded contemporary composers, with many CDs on the Naxos and SONY Classical labels. Among his many honors are two awards from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships, and The Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin. He was a long-serving faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music and Curtis Institute of Music and is now a Professor of Music at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music.

Rita Dove (b. 1952) served as U. S. Poet Laureate (1993–1995), and Virginia Poet Laureate (2004–2006). Born in Akron, Ohio, she was a 1970 Presidential Scholar as one of the hundred top American high school graduates that year and was a graduate of Miami University of Ohio and the University of Iowa (where she attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop). Among her many honors are the Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities, the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, and the Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. She is the only poet to have received both the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts. She has authored numerous poetry collections (including The Yellow House on the Corner, On the Bus with Rosa Parks, and her new Playlist for the Apocalypse), a book of short stories, a novel, essays under the title The Poet’s World, and a play. She has inspired composers, many of whom have set her writing to music, including John Williams, Tania Leon, and Adolphus Hailstork. She has taught extensively and is Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia.

About the Performers

Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano
Carol Wincenc, flute
Benjamin Fingland, clarinet
Siwoo Kim, violin
Melissa Reardon, viola
Alexis Pia Gerlach, cello
Michael Boriskin, piano

Hailed as “America’s favorite mezzo” (Gramophone) and “an artist to treasure” (The New York Times), Susan Graham rose to the highest echelon of international performers within just a few years of her professional debut, mastering an astonishing range of repertoire and genres along the way. Her operatic roles span four centuries, from Monteverdi’s Poppea to Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, written especially for her. A familiar face at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, she also maintains a strong international presence. She sang the leading ladies in the Metropolitan Opera’s world premieres of John Harbison’s The Great and made her musical theater debut in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and Iat the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. In concert, she makes regular appearances with the world’s foremost orchestras, while her distinguished discography comprises a wealth of opera, orchestral, and solo recordings. Among her numerous honors are a Grammy Award, Opera News Award, and Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year. She has also been recognized with the French government’s “Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.”

Music from Copland House is the internationally acclaimed, touring resident ensemble based at Aaron Copland’s National Historic Landmark home near New York City, an award-winning creative center for American music. Hailed for its “absorbing concert experiences” (Opera News), gathered from its journeys across 150 years of America’s vast musical landscape, Music from Copland House (MCH) champions classic and forgotten voices from the nation’s past, and celebrates today’s established and rising creators of all backgrounds and identities. The ensemble has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, NPR, the European Broadcasting Union, and other major media; and engaged by North America’s foremost concert presenters, including Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, the Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, and University of Chicago. Founded in 1999, Music from Copland House boasts a stellar roster of Founding, Principal, and Guest Artists; as The Chicago Tribune raved, “Copland would have been proud of all of them.” www.coplandhouse.org

Lauded in over 30 countries, pianist and Copland House Artistic & Executive Director Michael Boriskin has performed as soloist with major international orchestras, guest artist with dozens of chamber ensembles, and recitalist at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, BBC, Berlin Radio, Theatre des Champs-Elysees (Paris), Teatro Colon (Buenos Aires), Arnold Schoenberg Center (Vienna), and other leading venues. He has recorded extensively for Naxos, SONY Classical, Harmonia Mundi, New World, Bridge, and other labels, and been a frequent presence as performer or commentator on NPR and American Public Media. He has also served as Music Director of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s fabled White Oak Dance Project, and was a program advisor for the New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, U.S. State Department, Lincoln Center, and other major institutions.

About Performance Santa Fe

Performance Santa Fe has been bringing the very best of music, dance, and theater to iconic Santa Fe locations since 1937. Now in its 86th season, the organization upholds excellence in the performing arts and brings joy and enrichment to the community. Alongside its extensive performance season, the organization runs three dynamic, exciting, and inclusive educational programs for students in the community— Arts for Life, the Masterclass Series, and the Field Trip Series. PSF’s 2022-2023 season brings 27 performances to Santa Fe and celebrates the diverse possibilities of artistic expression. Learn more at PerformanceSantaFe.org. Performance Santa Fe is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.

###

Posted in Press Releases