Lincoln, Neb.—The Glenn Korff School of Music presents a vocal recital titled “Words Like Freedom” on Friday, Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. in Kimball Recital Hall.
The concert is free and open to the public. All the works on the concert are composed by Black artists.
The performers include Jamie Reimer, soprano, the Richard H. Larson Distinguished Professor of Music (Voice), and guest artists Byron Jones, baritone, and Stacie Haneline, piano.
The program includes two world premieres: “Words Like Freedom” by Shawn Okpebholo and “Undoing Poems” by André Myers.
“My research has always been in the music of Robert Owens, who is a black American composer,” Reimer said. “Because of my association with his music, I’ve been connected with other associations and workshops around the country. In 2017, at the African American Art Song Alliance Conference, Shawn Okpebholo won the Robert Owens Composition Award so, of course, I made it a point to meet him. I knew I wanted Shawn to be a part of a project that I was launching. Robert set 46 of Langston Hughes’ poems from the volume ‘Fields of Wonder.’ But there were three sets of poems that he did not set before he passed. It’s important to me to indeed have those poems set to song, and I wanted rising black composers to write them. Shawn was the perfect choice to do the first one.”
In addition to those world premieres, the program also includes “Miss Wheatley’s Garden” by Rosephanye Powell and “Lieder für bariton” (Hermann Hesse), Op. 20 by Robert Owens.
“Words Like Freedom” was made possible, in part, with support from the Hixson-Lied Endowment. It is a nine-movement song cycle for soprano and piano on a collection of poems (of the same name) by Langston Hughes.
“I was immediately drawn to ‘Words Like Freedom’ because of how he beautifully captured so much of what it means to be Black and, more broadly, human in a rich and timeless way: Freedom, Creation, Humility, Wonder, Protest, Oppression and Happiness,” Okpebholo writes the concert program notes. “The movements vary in complexity and music style, but unlike other song collections I have composed, ‘Words Like Freedom’ is meant to be performed as one complete cycle.”
“They are incredibly powerful pieces of music in such a varied musical language,” Reimer said. “Other than the opening piece and the reprise, nothing sounds the same, yet there is an aural line through the set that I think you can lock into and know this is a story being told. But I think the poems and the music leave lots of room for individuals to reflect on their own responses to the text, which has been interesting for me as a Midwestern white woman trying to get inside the mind of both the poet and the composer. I feel it’s an appropriate way to honor what Robert did during his life and carry on his legacy going forward.”
“Undoing Poems” by Myers is a joint commission for Reimer and Jones.
“That text reflects on the Parkland [Florida] shootings and responses to the recent gun violence tragedies in our nation,” Reimer said. “That’s been interesting to wrestle with that, too. I think the whole program is incredibly in tune with where we are as a society right now and the big issues that are facing us.”
Reimer is grateful for the support she has received to put this program together.
“I just think it’s tremendous that the Hixson-Lied College is so supportive of new works,” she said. “This wouldn’t have been possible without the grant funding that I received from the college, and I think it’s really poised to be impactful.”
She is excited for audiences to experience this program.
“I think audiences should expect some profoundly beautiful music with some ideas that will make them think,” Reimer said. “I think you could listen to all this music in a non-intellectual way and enjoy it. But if you come to the concert knowing there’s going to be something you might have to wrestle with a little bit, I think you’ll be better prepared for what you’re going to hear and take far more from it as an artistic experience.”
For more on the concert, visit https://go.unl.edu/60op.