Moravec: Sanctuary Road
SOLOISTS: Laquita Mitchell, Raehann Bryce-Davis, Joshua Blue, Malcolm J. Merriweather, Dashon Burton; Oratorio Society of New York Chorus and Orchestra, Kent Tritle, Conductor
COMPOSER: Paul Moravec, Mark Campbell (librettist)
LABEL: Naxos | 636943988428
GRAMMY® NOMINATED IN: BEST CHORAL PERFORMANCE
After the success of their opera The Shining, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec once again collaborated with Pulitzer Prize- and GRAMMY Award-winning librettist/lyricist Mark Campbell to create the second of his “American historical oratorios.” Sanctuary Road draws on the astonishing stories to be found in William Still’s memoir, The Underground Railroad, which documents the network of secret routes and safe houses used by African- American slaves to escape into free states and Canada during the early to mid- 1800s. The epic nature of these stories of courage, perseverance and sacrifice is transformed into an enthralling saga, heard here at its world premiere performance at Carnegie Hall—a performance acclaimed by BroadwayWorld for its “riveting, pulsating wall of sound and stellar soloists.”
Composer
Photo Credit: Joanna Eldredge
Paul Moravec
Paul Moravec, recipient of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Music, has composed numerous orchestral, chamber, lyric, choral and operatic works. Frequently commissioned by major ensembles and musical institutions, he is best known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tempest Fantasy, The Time Gallery, and operas The Letter and The Shining. His extensive discography spanning more than three decades includes six albums on Naxos America Classics.
His catalog of nearly 200 published compositions is available at www.subitomusic.com and his website is www.paulmoravec.com
LIBRETTIST
Mark Campbell
Mark Campbell has written thirty-eight opera librettos, seven musicals, six song cycles and two oratorios. His best-known operas are Silent Night (2012 Pulitzer Prize for Music) and The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs (2019 GRAMMY Award). Other successful works include Elizabeth Cree, As One, Songs from an Unmade Bed, The Shining, and Later the Same Evening.
www.markcampbellwords.com
Performers
Laquita Mitchell
Laquita Mitchell has earned acclaim on international stages including the Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera, and the New York Philharmonic. In addition to global live performances, she is seen in her signature role as Bess in Porgy and Bess on DVD from San Francisco Opera and PBS broadcast.
www.laquitamitchellsoprano.com
Raehann Bryce-Davis
Mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis’s recent credits include Don Carlos, Satyagraha, Sadko, Der fliegende Holländer (Opera Vlaanderen); La Favorite (Teatro Massimo, Palermo); Elgar’s Sea Pictures (Musikverein Wien); Verdi’s Requiem (Carnegie Hall); and Die Ring-Trilogie (Theater an der Wien). She is a 2018 recipient of the prestigious George London Award.
Photo Credit: Arielle Doneson
Joshua Blue
British-American tenor Joshua Blue’s career has taken him to The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival. He has sung with the Washington National Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and with the National Symphony Orchestra. Blue attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and The Juilliard School. He is currently a Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist with the Washington National Opera.
www.joshuabluetenor.com
Malcolm J. Merriweather
Conductor and baritone Malcolm J. Merriweather is music director of The Dessoff Choirs and assistant professor at Brooklyn College. He has conducted ensembles in venues from Carnegie Hall to the Vatican before Pope Francis, and has been featured as a baritone soloist throughout the US.
www.malcolmjmerriweather.com
Photo Credit: Daniel Delang
Dashon Burton
Critically acclaimed by The New York Times, bass-baritone Dashon Burton has established an international career in opera, recital, and in many works with orchestra. He is also active in education, activism, and is interested in music of all kinds.
www.dashonburton.com
Photo Credit: Tim Dwight
Oratorio Society of New York Chorus and Orchestra
Since its founding by Leopold Damrosch, the Oratorio Society of New York has been an essential part of New York City’s cultural fabric, and is one of the city’s oldest cultural organizations. The Oratorio Society presented its first concert on December 3 1873. One year later, on Christmas night, the Society began what has become an unbroken tradition of annual performances of Handel’s Messiah, given at Carnegie Hall since its opening in 1891. The Oratorio Society has given world, US, and New York premieres of works as diverse as Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem (1877), Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette (1882), a full-concert production of Wagner’s Parsifal at the Metropolitan Opera House (1886), Britten’s The World of the Spirit (1998), Filas’s Requiem (2015), Moravec’s The Blizzard Voices (2013) and Sanctuary Road (2018), and Ranjbaran’s We Are One (2018). On its 100th anniversary the Oratorio Society received the Handel Medallion, New York City’s highest cultural award, in recognition of these contributions.
Photo Credit Jennifer Taylor
Kent Tritle (conductor)
Kent Tritle is one of America’s leading choral conductors. Music director of the Oratorio Society of New York since 2005, he is also director of cathedral music and organist at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City and music director of Musica Sacra, the longest continuously performing professional chorus in New York.
www.kenttritle.com
Press
“...an admirable recording of a powerful new work."
“...Moravec’s largely tonal score is deeply affecting and conveys the many voices represented in Still’s writings...”
– Kate Wakeling, BBC Music magazine, April 2020
“The relevance of Sanctuary Road (2017) in our present century cannot be overstated, analogous to that of Tippett’s A Child of our Time to wartime Britain. Much credit for this goes to conductor Kent Tritle and the Oratorio Society of New York, who commissioned the work; their haunting premiere performance, at Carnegie Hall in 2018 with a finely balanced quintet of soloists, forms the basis of this marvellous recording. Recommended." – Guy Rickards, Gramophone, April 2020
“The journeys depicted are fraught with danger. Between the longer stories, Moravec and Campbell insert three frenzied chase scenes, featuring tenor Joshua Blue and depicting the enslaved Wesley Harris' breathlessly running through woods and avoiding roads.
The chorus in Sanctuary Road both comments on the action and participates in it. As angry slave holders, the singers cry out, offering rewards for runaways.
Moravec's music for Sanctuary Road doesn't try to push any envelopes. Its sweeping lyricism, à la Samuel Barber, sounds solidly American, fitting comfortably with the libretto crafted by Mark Campbell, which was drawn from Still's book" – Tom Huizenga, NPR, January 2020
“On Sanctuary Road Still’s narratives rise to a rarefied realm thanks to compelling performances by its soloists. Soprano Laquita Mitchell is radiant, mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis is mesmerizing, and tenor Joshua Blue, baritone Malcolm J. Merriweather and bass-baritone Dashon Burton are spellbinding. Each of the soloists palpably evokes the suffering and joy of those who escaped to freedom from the American South into Canada." – Raul da Gama, The WholeNote, February 2020. Read Complete Review
“Tritle leads a moving performance… The soloists inhabit their various characters with complete conviction… each time I returned to Moravec’s new composition my admiration for his work grew, and the music stayed with me long after I stopped listening. There is surely no better indicator of how successfully the work expresses its profound and still timely message." – The Classic Review, January 2020
Podcast
Write It - Reflections on Sanctuary Road
Episode Description
On January 10, 2020, Naxos releases Sanctuary Road, the world-premiere recording of composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell’s incisive, deeply moving tribute to the men and women of the Underground Railroad and to one heroic man in particular, conductor William Still, a chronicler of the inspiring stories of its “passengers” and their valiant flights north from slavery to freedom. Naxos Classical Spotlight presents a 20-minute audio documentary featuring interviews with the oratorio’s two Pulitzer Prize–winning creators, its conductor, and its five solo singers by popular WQXR radio host Terrance McKnight.