Join Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Albany Symphony Convergence Curating Artist and Kennedy Center Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact, for a special performance preview and conversation about his upcoming American Music Festival World Premiere Forgiveness Suite for Spoken Word and Orchestra, co-created by Bamuthi and composer Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR). Lunch and fellowship to follow.
I have been working with the writer, director, poet, and spoken word artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph for over 15 years. In that time, we have created many works that have focused on protest, social justice, morality, and freedom. We are friends, fathers, and educators, and I think we both have always thought about the role and particular responsibilities of Black artists expressing themselves — fully. For us, forgiveness holds the promise of change and begs this question: 'Is my capacity for forgiveness held captive by my race and my rage?' For me, my age has given me a new perspective, and I see forgiveness as a journey that I can share with my friends, family, and audience.
This work is a marriage between Marc’s words, my music, and our ideas of how words and (orchestral) music can have impact and power as we navigate the roles we have to play within a culture of terror and frequent inability to see, hear, and forgive one another. Each of the four movements presents Marc’s ideas on forgiveness (i.e., 'Redemption', Reconciliation', ‘Discernment', and 'Grace'). The music responds to these concepts in various ways at various points: as underscoring; as commentary; as a raucous, percussive crowd; or as a 'Greek Chorus', where Marc’s call elicits a response from the brass, woodwinds and string sections. All voices are heard, and there are moments where we hear Marc’s voice, alone — the orchestra, and all of us, are still and listening. One of my favorite moments occurs near the end of the piece, where the sounds of the orchestra are fading away, and Marc offers us a guide towards the work of forgiveness:
“Steps to grace…Face the hurt…Unthread the truth…Choose mercy.”
As a Black, male composer, in which I feel the weight of being both 'privileged' and 'prey', I choose to make the move towards forgiveness in my words and in my work. I hope this piece can serve as an important example of how Black classical music is as broad, complex, and limitless as the eternity of our never-ending human stories.
DBR
March 2023