#4600, American Oratorios: David T. Little and Julia Wolfe

Listen to music from two American oratorios, Am I Born by composer/librettist team of David T. Little and Royce Vavrek and Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Anthracite Fields. While an oratorio definitely tells a story a la Handel’s Messiah, and many of the well-known ones happen to be sacred, the form is a concert piece, and not staged.

Hear most of composer, drummer, and bandleader David T. Little and librettist Royce Vavrek's Am I Born which is set across centuries in the Brooklyn neighborhood “plowed under to build the Brooklyn Bridge,” (Bright Shiny Things.) Am I Born draws inspiration from both Francis Guy’s Winter Scene in Brooklyn and the hymn from 1816, Idumea, whose melody is associated with text called, “Am I Born To Die.”  The recording, released in 2022, features the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, and NOVUS NY, led by Julian Wachner, and soprano Melissa Hughes.

Taking as its subject the conditions and ultimate consequences of the Pennsylvania coal mining industry, Julia Wolfe’s Anthracite Fields for chorus and instrumental sextet won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015. The recording features the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and amplified sextet the Bang on a Can All-Stars and remembers workers caught in mining accidents, the child-labor practices of the era, union labor leaders, and how our modern lives were shaped by coal (Daniel Stephen Johnson, New Sounds.) Hear two selections from that work. – Caryn Havlik

Program #4600, American Oratorios: David T. Little and Julia Wolfe (First aired, 3/9/2022) 

ARTIST: The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Rebel Baroque Orchestra, Owen Burdick, conductor
WORK: Handel's Messiah: For Unto Us [1:13]
RECORDING: Handel's Messiah
SOURCE: Naxos
INFO: naxos.com

ARTIST: The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, NOVUS NY, Julian Wachner, Melissa Hughes, soprano
WORK: David T. Little:  Prelude Am I Born -- I. Born by Brushstroke [7:12]
RECORDING: Am I Born
SOURCE: Bright Shiny Things
INFO: brightshiny.ninja/am-i-born

ARTIST: The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, NOVUS NY, Julian Wachner, Melissa Hughes, soprano
WORK: David T. Little: II. The Sound of Cold [5:01]
RECORDING: Am I Born
SOURCE: Bright Shiny Things
INFO: brightshiny.ninja/am-i-born

ARTIST: The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, NOVUS NY, Julian Wachner, Melissa Hughes, soprano
WORK: David T. Little: III. To Be Seen, A View [2:57]
RECORDING: Am I Born
SOURCE: Bright Shiny Things
INFO: brightshiny.ninja/am-i-born

ARTIST: The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, NOVUS NY, Julian Wachner, Melissa Hughes, soprano
WORK: David T. Little:  IV. A Tree Falls in Brooklyn, Part I  [1:12]
RECORDING: Am I Born
SOURCE: Bright Shiny Things
INFO: brightshiny.ninja/am-i-born

ARTIST: Bang on a Can All-Stars and The Choir of Trinity Wall Street
WORK: Julia Wolfe: Appliances [12:31]
RECORDING: Julia Wolfe: Anthracite Fields
SOURCE: Cantaloupe Music 21111
INFO: bangonacan.org

ARTIST: Bang on a Can All-Stars and The Choir of Trinity Wall Street
WORK: Julia Wolfe: Flowers [6:38]
RECORDING: Julia Wolfe: Anthracite Fields
SOURCE: Cantaloupe Music 21111
INFO: bangonacan.org

ARTIST: The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, NOVUS NY, Julian Wachner, Melissa Hughes, soprano
WORK: David T. Little: VI. A Tree Falls in Brooklyn, Part II [1:54]
RECORDING: Am I Born
SOURCE: Bright Shiny Things
INFO: brightshiny.ninja/am-i-born

ARTIST: The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, NOVUS NY, Julian Wachner, Melissa Hughes, soprano
WORK: David T. Little: VII. A Picture Quite Curious [9:13]
RECORDING: Am I Born
SOURCE: Bright Shiny Things
INFO: brightshiny.ninja/am-i-born