Songs In Flight (2023)
A Song Cycle for Soprano, Countertenor, Baritone, and PIano
Duration: 50 minutes
Premiere: January 12, 2023 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Rhiannon Giddens, Will Liverman, Reginald Mobley, Karen Slack, and Howard Watkins.
Songs in Flight is a twelve-movement song cycle for soprano, countertenor, baritone, and piano, inspired by Freedom on the Move—a vast Cornell University archive of over 30,000 newspaper ads seeking to recapture self-emancipated individuals. These haunting historical documents often described enslaved people in heartbreaking detail, reducing them to property while inadvertently preserving their humanity. Curated by Tsitsi Ella Jaji, the text setting includes her own poetry, haiku sequences by Crystal Simone Smith, and a powerful poem by Pulitzer Prize-winner Tyehimba Jess. The music, while cohesive in structure and motif, reflects the poets’ varied voices—offering historical narrative, contemporary insight, and personal reflection. As noted by The New York Times, the work “illuminates… the person hidden in plain sight.” Songs in Flight was commissioned by Sparks & Wiry Cries and The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.