{"id":3181,"date":"2022-01-04T01:43:17","date_gmt":"2022-01-04T06:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/?p=3181"},"modified":"2022-03-22T13:00:27","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T17:00:27","slug":"standing_witness_district_fray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/standing_witness_district_fray\/","title":{"rendered":"District Fray on A Standing Witness: a “collaborative foursome that redefines what it is to listen to fine music in the 21st century…an incomparable musical experience”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0<\/span>\u201cA Standing Witness\u201d Brings Opera + Poetry Together<\/h1>\n<\/header>\n
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Photo Dario Acosta, courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

November 9, 2021 <\/span>Rin Ryan<\/span><\/h4>\n<\/header>\n
The John F. Center Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts\u00a0saw an entirely unique compositional experience this past Thursday, November 4, when Grammy-award-winning mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and the Music from Copland House ensemble took the stage. Though well versed in French and Italian opera, Graham\u2019s performance was of a different ilk this time around; a 75-minute song cycle featuring thirteen movements, each representing an event or era in the past 50 years of American history.The cherry on top? These pieces were composed for Graham\u2019s voice and for Music from Copland House by former poet Laureate Rita Dove and world-renowned composer Richard Danielpour.Set as the evening\u2019s centerpiece, \u201cA Standing Witness\u201d is the first of its kind in many ways, a massive artistic undertaking that required the best collaboration between these individual artists. Dove took a break from her ongoing book tour promoting her newest collection \u201cPlaylist for the Apocalypse\u201d to see Graham perform the piece for the first time on Thursday.\u201cI am so excited,\u201d Dove gushes prior to the performance. A master of words and accomplished poet, she opts for a more relatable response when she tells us she\u2019s speechless.Dove and Danielpour spent several months writing together, a feat that Dove says required abundant patience and cooperation. \u201cA Standing Witness\u201d is historical timeline oriented, and by nature of that, forced to be linear. But poetic memory \u2014 and poetic motion \u2014 are rarely linear experiences. For Dove, it was all new.\u201cThe way I work best if I\u2019m doing anything poetic, is I work in fragments,\u201d she says. \u201cI let ideas and images hover, sometimes until they coalesce. So when I began working on this, I was working in a line here, a stanza there\u2026And [Richard] said \u2018Rita, Rita, Rita, I have to compose!\u2019 I realized that for him as the composer, he had to think of the entire trajectory of the evening and didn\u2019t have the luxury as I did, to nip and tuck as I go along. And so I had to really concentrate.\u201dDespite the difficulties of writing in interchangeable form, Dove and Danielpour had a common vernacular when it came to music. She played cello and viola da gamba until her multiple sclerosis made it difficult, before switching to voice lessons and dance.<\/p>\n

That background, combined with a deep understanding of poetry as spoken song, aided her in her writing process. She tells us that poetry is the closest thing that language has to music, her voice lighthearted yet adamant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was already unconsciously thinking of cadence\u2026 A line of poetry can translate in my head to two or three measures, or the length of a melodic phrase, or if a melodic phrase is going to be carried over with breath [in the next measure].\u201d<\/p>\n

Being a lover of music in all its many forms, Dove was also able to visualize how her words might take shape in Graham\u2019s song. Graham\u2019s voice is smooth, full, and perfectly rounded, dripping with richness like a cup of expensive black coffee. When combined with Dove\u2019s poetics and Danielpour\u2019s composition, Kennedy Center audiences were delivered an incomparable musical experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Standing Witness\u201d covers a vast swath of US history in 13 individual songs, called \u201ctestimonies,\u201d with subject matters ranging from Woodstock to Roe v. Wade to the \u201cgreed epidemic\u201d of the \u201890\u2019s. The song cycle ends on its most pertinent topic of the evening, Testimony 13; \u201cCovid-19. Black Lives Matter. A nation spiraling through fear, splintered by blame.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision to end on this realistic note is deeply impactful to both writer and audience. Despite its grimness, it allows for a shared understanding of how we move through history. Both the good and the bad are held to the same enduring, cosmic time signature. Dove pointed that reality out in several of the pieces.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Berlin Wall fell, we were jubilant, but at the same time things were starting up in Iran and Afghanistan,\u201d she says. \u201cIt just melts one into the other, all in one song.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a fascinating way to view history and a project that jumps easily between the micro and macro of worldviews. Dove talked about having to visualize how one choice can reverberate down through the decades or change the course of history, something acutely relevant to those who live in the District and watch these processes every day. The discussions over what to include between her and Danielpour were lengthy ones.<\/p>\n

Susan Graham and Music from Copland House\u2019s performance of \u201cA Standing Witness\u201d at the Kennedy Center came for Dove at a time when its relevance is undeniable, as Dove promotes her most recent collection of poems written over the past several years and compiled during Covid. Like many of us, Covid related cancellations forced her to sit with herself and her own emotions for months. Unlike many of us, she was able to channel it into a dazzling poetry collection that reflects life in this \u201cblistered, shiny republic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two seem to walk hand in hand; Dove\u2019s fresh, vulnerable assertion and Graham\u2019s deeply moving vocals. Richard Danielpour\u2019s composition acted as the conduit to link songwriter to songstress and instrumental ensemble, a collaborative foursome that redefines what it is to listen to fine music in the twenty-first century. If a world-class opera could come with required reading, \u201cPlaylist for the Apocalypse\u201d would be ours \u2014 but if we\u2019re to stand witness to an apocalypse, we\u2019d rather do it with this group.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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\u00a0\u201cA Standing Witness\u201d Brings Opera + Poetry Together November 9, 2021 Rin Ryan The John F. Center Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts\u00a0saw an entirely unique compositional experience this past Thursday, November 4, when Grammy-award-winning mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and the Music from Copland House ensemble took the stage. Though well versed in French and Italian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"related-artist":[40,11,18],"class_list":{"0":"post-3181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-press","8":"related-artist-a-standing-witness","9":"related-artist-michael-boriskin","10":"related-artist-music-from-copland-house","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3181"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3512,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3181\/revisions\/3512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3181"},{"taxonomy":"related-artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/related-artist?post=3181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}