African Queens: Dave Ragland (b. 1978), Precatio; Carlos Simon (b.1986), Behold, The Queen; Dave Ragland, The Queen of Sheba; Jessie Nzinga Montgomery (b.1981), The Tune of Nzingah; Fred Onovwerosuoke (b.1960), Luwah (Bitter Tears); Shawn Okpebholo (b.1981), A Letter From Queen Ufua, Fred Onovwerosuoke, Duniya (Mystic Universe); Jasmine Arielle Barnes (b.1991), I Am Not Your God; Will Liverman (b.1988), A Prayer; Joel Thompson (b.1988), Queen Nanny’s Lullabye; Damien Geter (1980), Amanirenas. Karen Slack, soprano–John R. Stratton Customer in Music, and Kevin Miller, piano; Walter Corridor, Toronto, March 20, 2025.
Soprano Karen Slack and pianist Kevin Miller’s recital: African Queen, on the Walter Corridor was a real exultation and celebration of Black womanhood and management. Specializing in the historical past and legacy of seven African queen figures, Slack curated this system solely from younger residing composers, together with eight commissions written for her — an astounding feat to prepare, and to internalize.
Wielding a deep, heartfelt conviction for this program, Slack was an incredible storyteller, with wonderful partnership from pianist Kevin Miller.
Ranging from close to darkness, Miller set the temper from the piano as Slack merely started to speak- “…of homage to unlocking of tales, of longing to inform new tales.” Her illustrations of the queens all through this system as “mom of magic and fact,” filled with braveness and weak love, had been fastidiously grouped, taking the pin-drop quiet viewers into the lives of those queens by means of vibrant new works with a lot selection in type and harmonic language, in that particular American songbook type.
Opening this system with the traditional textual content of Solomon: Nigra sum, et formosa (“I’m Black and exquisite”), Slack began the night with a quiet invocation inside Miller’s delicate soundscape, earlier than accelerating with gusto, as she referred to as for Aminata, to “lead your girls to peaceable warfare”. Slack moved seamlessly from speech to singing, using excessive on Miller’s quick, energetic groove, then sinking low into the depth of 1’s coronary heart, together with the gorgeous resonance and quietness from the piano. Her spectacular vocal vary — each excessive and low — was filled with quicksilver color modifications, with ease and generosity.
On the peak of her energy, Slack’s voice, with impeccable diction, took us from tune to a different. Such excellent musicianship takes us away from observing — usually obsessing — concerning the mechanics of the singing, of reworking from one tune by means of to a different. As we stay in a society the place dissociation of issues, and consumption in small random chunks have develop into the norm, Slack’s supply of those tales, the weaving collectively of so many feelings, from pleasure to wrath, and the indescribable messiness of life, is really particular.
African Queens
All works had been superbly crafted, with three excellent works particularly. The primary of the three, Jessie Montgomery’s The Tune of Nzingha, the place Queen Nzingha’s battle between the 2 gods — of Christianity, and the normal Kongolese beliefs — burned from the sparse ember speckle by means of a Messiaen-esque development, the place Slack’s finely tuned pacing by means of this inhumanely lengthy construct up introduced a really dramatic and climactic finish.
A Letter From Queen Ufua, by Shawn Okpebholo, closing the primary half, was fairly particular. Ranging from the traditional blessing from the queen to her progenies with a timeless starry piano soundscape, the magic took us to sphere of pleasure, alive with Miller’s rhythmic and hovering piano taking part in, carrying Slack’s unbelievable phrase portray with all issues between the uncertainty of life and the conviction that we search:
You might be magnificence
Your are life and
We’re gentle
(by poet Tsitsi Ella Jaji)
The closing work, Amanirenas by Damien Geter, was substantial in its size and dramatic depth. Regardless of the general demand of this system, each Slack and Miller had loads of fireplace left in them; as soon as once more, seamlessly fusing talking narrative and full-out operatic singing, Slack’s supply of highly effective excessive notes and extremely lengthy phrases saved the night a high-octane affair proper to the top.
Last Ideas
Slack sang a compelling, technically and musically excellent recital this night, and Miller’s improbable musicianship and partnership crammed this night with magnificence and beauty. Nonetheless, probably the most distinctive level is Slack’s intelligence, ardour and management that fueled her to the conception and execution of such an infinite venture.
Her creation of the African Queens, and her embodiment of the tales — as if she’s simply pulling out these legends from her coronary heart as a pure circulation from the desires of generations way back — to us, in twenty first century Toronto, by means of new residing voices, is phenomenal.
It is extremely thrilling to see the place she may lead us by means of her lifetime, and past.
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Cecilia tumbled into ‘severe’ music research when she determined to keep away from attending medical college. At the moment working within the subject of classical music, recording, and Korean-English interpretation, she tends to get her nostril soiled in many alternative issues within the metropolis. Cecilia holds a DMA in Piano Efficiency from the College of Nebraska-Lincoln.
