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 completely from younger residing composers, together with eight commissions written for her — an astounding feat to arrange, and to internalize.
Wielding a deep, heartfelt conviction for this program, Slack was an incredible storyteller, with glorious 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 reality,” filled with braveness and susceptible love, have been fastidiously grouped, taking the pin-drop quiet viewers into the lives of those queens by vibrant new works with a lot selection in fashion and harmonic language, in that particular American songbook fashion.
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 Millar’s delicate soundscape, earlier than accelerating with gusto, as she known as for Aminata, to “lead your girls to peaceable battle”. Slack moved seamlessly from speech to singing, using excessive on Millar’s quick, energetic groove, then sinking low into the depth of 1’s coronary heart, together with the attractive resonance and tranquility from the piano. Her spectacular vocal vary — each excessive and low — was filled with quicksilver color adjustments, with ease and generosity.
On the top of her energy, Slack’s voice, with impeccable diction, took us from track to a different. Such very good musicianship takes us away from observing — usually obsessing — in regards to the mechanics of the singing, of remodeling from one track by to a different. As we dwell in a society the place dissociation of issues, and consumption in small random chunks have grow to be 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 have been superbly crafted, with three excellent works specifically. The primary of the three, Jessie Montgomery’s The Tune of Nzingha, the place Queen Nzingha’s wrestle between the 2 gods — of Christianity, and the normal Kongolese beliefs — burned from the sparse ember speckle by a Messiaen-esque development, the place Slack’s finely tuned pacing by this inhumanely lengthy construct up introduced a very 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 enjoying, carrying Slack’s unimaginable phrase portray with all issues between the uncertainty of life and the conviction that we search:
You’re magnificence
Your are life and
We’re mild
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 stored the night a high-octane affair proper to the top.
Remaining Ideas
Slack sang a compelling, technically and musically very good recital this night, and Miller’s implausible musicianship and partnership crammed this night with magnificence and style. 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 undertaking.
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 circulate from the goals of generations way back — to us, in twenty first century Toronto, by new residing voices, is phenomenal.
It is extremely thrilling to see the place she would possibly lead us by her lifetime, and past.
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Cecilia tumbled into ‘severe’ music examine when she determined to keep away from attending medical college. Presently working within the discipline of classical music, recording, and Korean-English interpretation, she tends to get her nostril soiled in many various issues within the metropolis. Cecilia holds a DMA in Piano Efficiency from the College of Nebraska-Lincoln.