‘A Standing Witness’ explores tumultuous America in song cycle set to poetry

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Center for the Performing Arts will present “A Standing Witness,” a song-cycle set to poetry, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 21, in Eisenhower Auditorium.

The performance is a monumental collaboration between Grammy Award-winning composer Richard Danielpour and former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove, sung by mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and accompanied by Music from Copland House.

Visit “A Standing Witness” online or call 814-863-0255 for more information.

Multiple “testimonies” are narrated by a figure embedded in American history, the standing witness revealed only at the end of the program. Each testimony reflects on an era in our country’s tumultuous past, including the Vietnam and Gulf wars, the ongoing fight for civil rights, the rise and fall of the American Dream, and the overripe 1990s.

These are “songs America needs to hear,” Opera News wrote. “Powerful, serious and important poems … The music is gorgeous,” Musical America reported.

Music from Copland House is the internationally acclaimed resident ensemble at Aaron Copland’s National Historic Landmark home in New York. The ensemble champions composers classic and niche, and celebrates established and rising artists of all identities and backgrounds.

Graham was called “America’s favorite mezzo” by Gramophone and “an artist to treasure” by The New York Times. She has performed with operas, orchestras, in musical theater and around the world.

“Perhaps more of a monodrama with instrumental partners (not accompanists) than a song cycle, this sweeping retrospective — both historical and artistic in nature — is an invitation to bring forth what Abraham Lincoln called ‘the better angels of our nature,’” Danielpour said. “It asks two questions: Where have we come from as Americans, and where are we going? It is ultimately written for those who are, as our witness intones, ready to listen.”

The Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State co-commissioned “A Standing Witness” through its membership in the national consortium Music Accord.

After the performance, the artists will speak with interested audience members.

Acknowledgements

Elinor C. Lewis and Pieter W. and Lida Ouwehand sponsor the performance. A grant from the University Park Student Fee Board makes Penn State student prices possible.

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