CANTATA FOR A MORE HOPEFUL TOMORROW: PROGRAM, Credits, TEXTS, NOTES + ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
PROGRAM
Eugene Rogers, Artistic Director
presents
“Cantata for a More Hopeful Tomorrow”
Music by Damien Geter
Film by Bob Berg
Dedicated to all those around the world we’ve lost to COVID-19 - with hope for a better tomorrow.
With special guests:
Aundi Marie Moore, soprano
Seth Parker Woods, cello
And featuring:
Actors Kyle Greenlaw and Kim McKissack as Martin and Michelle Rogers
“Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form—no object of the world.
Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.”
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall not weep and lament,
but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful,
but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.”
World premiere livestream:
Saturday, November 14, 2020 / 7:30 pm Eastern
Cantata for a More Hopeful Tomorrow
Music by Damien Geter / Film by Bob Berg
Texts by Salomo Franck & Megan Levad (Movement I),
Traditional/Anonymous (Movement II), Aminata Sei (Movement III),
Traditional/Anonymous (Movement IV), and Walt Whitman (Movement V)
I. Fear
II. The Prayer
III. Breathe
IV. The Resolve
V. Hope
The Washington Chorus’ commission, recording, and streaming of the short music film “Cantata for a More Hopeful Tomorrow” is made possible by support from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs program, U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, and The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; with special thanks for additional “Cantata” project support from the Hand in Hand Fund of the Truman Heartland Community Foundation, Anonymous, and from our hundreds of generous annual supporters.
ARTISTS + TECHNICAL/PRODUCTION TEAM
Written, Directed, Filmed, and Edited by Bob Berg
Music composed by Damien Geter
Executive Producers: Stephen Beaudoin and Eugene Rogers
Associate Producer: Mary Kay Berg
Cast (in order of appearance):
Kim McKissack as Michelle
Kyle Greenlaw as Martin
Deborah Lee as Doctor
Michelle Aebersold as Doctor
Jeremy Nelson as Nurse
Anthony Williams as Nurse
Mary Kay Berg as Nurse
Eugene Rogers as Young Martin
Soloists:
Aundi Marie Moore, soprano
Seth Parker Woods, cello
Featuring The Washington Chorus / Eugene Rogers, Artistic Director
The Washington Chorus
Soprano I
Dana Boyle
Jill Campbell
Lisa Chensvold+
Caroline DiStefano+
Laura First Oehser
Laura Gross+
Leikny Johnson+
Amelia Kelly*
Daphne Kiplinger+
Catherine Law
Kaelyn Lowmaster
Chloe Malouf
Kara Morrissey
Beng Choo Ng
Raquel Perez-Arroyo+
Jane Recker+
Amy Rosander
Claire Scott
Abbey Smith
Deborah Sternberg
Madeline Twomey
Jessica Wabler*
Soprano II
Cynthia Nikas Berecz+
Kristen Blackman
Rebekah Bridges+
Lois Cecsarini*
Nora Connor
Alison Cooper
Kristal Daniels
Deepa Dhume Datta+
Chantal Davis
Mary Dohrmann
Annie Hopengarten
Mimi Kuester
Nancy Ortmeyer Kuhn♫+
Meghan McCabe
Anne Murphy
Kathy Peery+
Griha Singla
Rebecca Wise
Alto I
Katie Acton
Alison Combes
Sheri Economou+
Anne Finken
Christie Garton
Isabel Gross
Amy Hansen
Sandra Hoffmann
Claudia Hrvatin
Natalia Kojanova
Ann M. Kiplinger
Leslie Lewis*+
Laura Lilly+
Flora Lindsay-Herrera
Esha Maheshwari
Chloe McPherson
Julia Moore
Sarah Morgan
Bethany Bray Patterson•
Katherine Schneider+
Sarah Schuurman
Elizabeth Solem+
Constance Soves+
Alexis Stark
Larami Stephan
Karen Toth+
Alto II
Paula Albertson
Mary Amorosino
Latricia Brown•
Marie Colturi
Victoria Cooney+
Jeri Darling
Anna Doorenbos
Renae Erichsen-Teal+
Carol A. Farris*
Kelly J. Heatwole
Kirsten Jacobson
Ellie Jorling
Joanne Kelly+
Jessica Lichtenfeld+
Mary Lovejoy
Regan MacNay
Elizabeth Owen
Meredith Porter
Catherine Pruett
Jessica Pryde
Maureen Rafter
Karen Rappaport
Stephanie Rosch
Rebecca Schneider
Mackenzie Walker
Tenor I
Alex Baker
Alexander Carré
Bradley L. Cullen
Brian Hill
James Leathers•+
David Miranda
Arthur Paterson
Rob Porter
David Steadman+
Luke Wilson
Tenor II
Peter C.R. Clunie
Jeff Dauler
Kirby Knight*•+
Len Langrick
Michael Morris
Nicholas Moy+
Matthew Peters
Sam Zhao
Bass I
Michael Acocella+
Thomas Augustin+
David Cook*•
Benjamin Gitterman+
Knight Kiplinger
Paul Lee
Timothy Murphy
Luke Orphanides
Mark Rebstock+
Joseph Daniel Saliunas
Marco Santos
Thomas Sumner+
Stephen Swartzbaugh•
Ben Warfield
Steven Woods+
Bass II
Robert Bastian
Robert Bonistalli
William Chang
Jae Chong+
Andy Gallant*
Conor Kelly+
Kahaari Shakoor Kenyatta
William Kincaid
Michael Mason+
Richard McMillan
Lloyd Randolph
Larry Robertson
Craig Ruskin
Ralph Shafer
Ben Wallis
Alan Williams
*section leader
•chorus council
♫chorus president
+appears in video
FILM CREW
Michigan Media
Jeremiah Devlin-Ruelle, Videographer
SOUND DEPARTMENT
One Sample Media
Ruben Rengel, Recording Engineer
Miguel Silva, Audio Engineer
William Sigismondi, Mixing/Mastering
CASTING
Tony DiMambro, The I Group
Additional actors: Stephen Schram and Christa Quinn
Credits music: Vince Gabriel, DeWolfe Music
TEXTS
I. FEAR
Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen
J.S. Bach - BWV 12;
Text by Salomo Franck & Megan Levad
Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen,
Weeping, lamentation, worry, despair,
Angst und Not
Fear and need
II. THE PRAYER
I Want Jesus to Walk with Me
Traditional African American Spiritual
I want Jesus to walk with me.
All along my pilgrim journey,
III. BREATHE
Text by Aminata Sei
With effortless, simple repetitions,
No complex expectations shrouded by worry,
No disappointments imagined,
Just breathe.
IV. THE RESOLVE
There’s a Balm in Gilead/By and By
Traditional African American Spirituals
There is a balm in Gilead,
To make the wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead,
To heal the sin-sick soul.
V. HOPE
“Continuities”
Text by Walt Whitman
[From a talk I had lately with a German spiritualist.]
Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form—no object of the world.
PROGRAM NOTES
A note from composer Damien Geter about the work
This piece is modeled after Bach Cantata BWV 12 which takes the listener on a trajectory from despair to a more hopeful state. There is a repeated bass line that Bach used in Cantata BWV 12 that I used in my Cantata. In a Cantata for a More Hopeful Tomorrow, to acknowledge that the two pieces share a similar theme, I use many different permutations of that bass line. It is a fact that the pandemic has touched the Black community in a much more aggressive manner than other communities. To highlight this atrocity, I chose to pay homage to the ancestors and Black Americans by incorporating spirituals in this Cantata. There are five movements. The piece begins in a deep state of despair and moves emotionally upward towards a state of hope. The movements are as follows: Fear, The Prayer (I Want Jesus to Walk With Me), Breathe, The Resolve (There's a Balm in Gilead), and Hope (Poem by Walt Whitman "Continuity").
2020 has been a tough year. Not only because of the pandemic but because of the various other traumas that have been continuously inflicted on the Black community and our world at large. The recent events that have taken place will give our nation renewed hope and direction. Even though things may seem tough in the present moment, there is a light that shines towards the future.
–Damien Geter, November 2020
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
The Washington Chorus
Now in its 60th season, The Washington Chorus (TWC) is one of the foremost symphonic choruses in the nation. Noted for the superb artistry of its performances and recordings of the entire range of the choral repertoire, TWC is widely recognized as a cultural leader in the nation’s capital.
A three-time nominated and two-time Grammy Award winner – including in 2000 for its self-produced recording of the Britten War Requiem, led by then Artistic Director Bob Shafer – the 160-voice Washington Chorus presents an annual subscription series at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, regularly performs at the invitation of the National Symphony Orchestra, and appears annually at the Music Center at Strathmore in Maryland and Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Virginia.
TWC has appeared at the invitation of leading orchestras including the National Symphony Orchestra and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and has toured internationally. TWC is proud to have sung with the NSO in more than 300 performances, under the direction of many of the world’s greatest conductors, including Gianandrea Noseda, Christoph Eschenbach, Leonard Slatkin, Mstislav Rostropovich, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Neville Marriner, Kent Nagano, Marin Alsop, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Andrew Davis, and many others, and to have premiered works by many of today’s leading composers.
TWC has sung for numerous prestigious events throughout its history— inaugurations, papal visits, with the Rolling Stones during their 50th anniversary tour, and at the White House in 2013 and 2014 for the President and First Lady. The chorus is led today by Artistic Director Eugene Rogers and Executive Director Stephen Beaudoin.
Eugene Rogers, Artistic Director, The Washington Chorus
Dr. Eugene Rogers joins The Washington Chorus as the organization’s fifth Artistic Director. Through his work with Exigence Vocal Ensemble, the University of Michigan, guest conducting, published arranging, and service to the field, Rogers is widely regarded as one of the most acclaimed musical thought leaders today working at the intersection of classical music and social change. A 2015 Grammy Award nominee, 2017 Sphinx Medal of Excellence winner, and recognized in 2017 by Musical America magazine as one of the field’s “Movers and Shapers,” Rogers is a leading a conductor and pedagogue throughout the United States and abroad.
In 2015, Mark Foster Publishing began the Eugene Rogers Choral Series, a series featuring emerging composers who specialize in contemporary classical and folk music traditions, and the EXIGENCE Choral Series in 2018 which features folk and contemporary works by Black and Latinx composers. In 2011, Rogers traveled to and studied the choral traditions of East Africa (Tanzania).
Rogers holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in choral music education from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in choral conducting from the University of Michigan. He currently serves on the board of Chorus America and is the former national chair of the Diversity Initiatives Committee for the American Choral Directors Association.
Damien Geter, composer
Damien Geter is an acclaimed composer and diverse artist whose credits include performances ranging from the operatic stage to the television screen. As a composer, Damien infuses classical music with various styles from the black diaspora to create music that furthers the cause for social justice.
Damien’s growing body of work includes chamber, vocal, and orchestral works. Some recent highlights include commissions for Resonance Ensemble (An African American Requiem), The Washington Chorus (Cantata for a Hopeful Tomorrow), Washington National Opera, Opera Theater Oregon (Invisible), the University of Michigan (The Justice Symphony), and All Classical Portland (Neo-Soul). His large work, “An African American Requiem,” will premiere in 2021 in partnership with Resonance Ensemble and the Oregon Symphony.
Also a professionally trained classical singer (bass), Damien has appeared with the Metropolitan Opera, Seattle Opera, Portland Opera, among other regional companies across the nation.
Damien currently serves as the Artistic Advisor for the social justice-focused award-winning vocal ensemble Resonance Ensemble and was recently (July 2020) named Artistic Advisor for Portland Opera.
Bob Berg, filmmaker
As a producer/ director of photography and editor, for more than 35 years, Bob Berg has earned numerous awards, including a National Emmy, 63 Regional Emmys, and the National Press Photographers Association Photographer of the Year—twice. He started his own company, Palindrome Productions, in 1997, and has worked in all aspects of production including as director of photography for independent films, newsmagazine shows, documentaries, and reality productions like ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” and Spike TV’s “Bar Rescue.” Since joining the talented crew at Michigan Media, Bob has been honored to work with many U-M departments, producing successful marketing and promotional films.
Aundi Marie Moore, soprano
Award-winning Soprano Aundi Marie Moore is a proud native of Chesapeake, Virginia and quickly establishing herself as one of America's leading young sopranos, receiving accolades from audience and critics alike. She is a former member of the Cafritz Young Artists of Washington National Opera program. Celebrated for being the 2015 winner of The American Prize in Voice, Ms. Moore was recently hailed for possessing a voice of “clarion beauty” (The Washington Post) with “Tender effect…compelling” (Opera News), and noted for her “Bluesy Humming with a honeyed tone” (New York Times). She was singled out by The Richmond Times which reported “Now to the spectacular: Throughout the program, Moore was riveting- a dazzling stage presence. Her lyric soprano, more than powerful enough to fill the hall, displayed a shimmering luster, effortless flexibility and a remarkable range of color...one sensed that this woman could sing anything in any style, with stunning results.”
Career highlights on the opera stage include Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with L'Opéra de Monte Carlo for her international operatic debut, Nedda in Pagliacci with Sarasota Opera, Serena in Porgy and Bess with Atlanta and Virginia Operas, Young African American Soprano in the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon's Rappahannock County with Virginia Opera, Soprano 2 in the US Premier of Facing Goya with Spoleto Festival USA and Odessa Clay in the World Premier of Approaching Ali with Washington National Opera where The Baltimore Sun reported "Aundi Marie Moore nearly walked off with the opera in the supporting role of Ali's mother, Odessa. Her radiant soprano lit up the Terrace Theater even when she was just softly humming; her portrayal was remarkably detailed and touching.”
Photo credit Jame Napoli
Seth Parker Woods, cello
Hailed by The Guardian as “a cellist of power and grace” who possesses “mature artistry and willingness to go to the brink,” cellist Seth Parker Woods has established a reputation as a versatile artist straddling several genres. In addition to solo performances, he has appeared with the Ictus Ensemble (Brussels, BE), Ensemble L’Arsenale (IT), zone Experimental (CH), Basel Sinfonietta (CH), New York City Ballet, Ensemble LPR, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the Seattle Symphony. A fierce advocate for contemporary arts, Woods has collaborated and worked with a wide range of artists ranging from the likes of Louis Andriessen, Elliott Carter, Heinz Holliger, G. F. Haas, Helmut Lachenmann, Klaus Lang, and Peter Eötvos to Peter Gabriel, Sting, Lou Reed, Dame Shirley Bassey, and Rachael Yamagata to such visual artists as Ron Athey, Vanessa Beecroft, Jack Early, Adam Pendleton, and Aldo Tambellini.
In recent years, Woods has appeared in concert at the Royal Albert Hall—BBC Proms, Snape Maltings Festival, the Ghent Festival, Musée d’art Moderne et Contemporain, Le Poisson Rouge and the Bohemian National Hall, Cafe OTO, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Klang Festival-Durham, INTER/ actions Symposium, ICMC-SMS Conference (Athens, GR), NIME-London, Sound and Body Festival, Instalakcje Festival, Virginia Tech, La Salle College (Singapore), and FINDARS (Malaysia), among others. Recent awards include a DCASE artist grant, Earle Brown/ Morton Feldman Foundation Grant, McGill University-CIRMMT/IDMIL Visiting Researcher Residency, Centre Intermondes Artist Residency, Francis Chagrin Award, Concours [Re]connaissance-Premiere Prix, and the Paul Sacher Stiftung Research Scholarship.