The Concert Singers of Cary Chamber Choir presents music of Caroline Shaw and Margaret Bonds, featuring the Lyricosa Quartet and pianist Allen Bailey, under the direction of conductor Nathan Leaf.

A highlight of this program will be a performance of Margaret Bonds’ Credo, a setting of text by W. E. B. Du Bois from 1920 outlining his vision for change in a world torn by segregation and division.

Margaret Bonds was an accomplished musician and composer, awarded the prestigious Wanamaker Award at age 19 for one of her compositions, and the first African-American woman to perform as a soloist with a major American orchestra. Many of her works were inspired by the notions of justice and equality, and incorporated traditionally “black” musical genres such as jazz, blues, calypso, and spirituals.

While Bonds was a prolific composer, many of her works have not been performed and recorded, as the traditional systems of classical music at the time focused instead on promoting composers like Barber, Bernstein and Copland. Her work is only now getting the broad recognition it deserves.

This program also features a performance of To the Hands by Caroline Shaw, the youngest composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for music. This work focuses on America’s promise of welcome as inscribed at the Statue of Liberty with the words “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” and the current issues surrounding refugees and immigration.

Program Order:

To The Hands (Caroline Shaw, b. 1982)

1. Prelude
2. in medio
3. Her beacon-hand beckons
4. ever ever ever
5. Litany of the Displaced
6. i will hold you

Intermission 

Credo (Margaret Bonds, 1913-1972)

1. I Believe in God
2. Especially Do I Believe in the Negro Race
3. I Believe in Pride of Race
4. I Believe in the Devil and His Angels
5. I Believe in the Prince of Peace
6. I Believe in Liberty
7. I Believe in Patience

https://www.facebook.com/events/461510562828382/

Who

Concert Singers of Cary Chamber Choir