Brooklyn Youth Chorus
Silent Voices: If You Listen
Friday, April 27th – 7pm & 9:30pm
About the Show
In this performance of the Silent Voices series, eight composers, all women, collaborate with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus to confront the challenges of division and categorization, racism, sexism, social and economic disparity, immigration, our environment, and threats to our understanding of truth, moving towards a more inclusive and compassionate vision of the future. Featured composers include National Sawdust Artistic Director Paola Prestini, along with Julia Adolphe, Olga Bell, Anna Clyne, Toshi Reagon, Shelley Washington, and Bora Yoon.
Silent Voices is a multimedia, multi-composer series of concert works with spoken word conceived, produced and performed by the sensational voices of Brooklyn Youth Chorus. If You Listen, the second installment in the Silent Voices series, builds on the success of its 2017 premiere at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House, co-commissioned with Brooklyn Academy of Music, and WQXR, New York.
Produced and Performed by: Brooklyn Youth Chorus and International Contemporary Ensemble with special guest Shaina Taub Conceived and Conducted by: Dianne Berkun Menaker
If You Listen Composers: Julia Adolphe, Olga Bell, Anna Clyne, Paola Prestini, Toshi Reagon, Shaina Taub, Shelley Washington, and Bora Yoon
If You Listen Librettists: Caitlin Doyle, Maija Garcia, Jane Hirshfield, Toshi Reagon, Brenda Shaughnessy, Safiya Sinclair, Shaina Taub, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Shelley Washington
Director: R. B. Schlather
Video Designer: S. Katy Tucker
Sound Designer: Garth MacAleavey
Dramaturg: Peter McCabe
Chorister interviews: Helga Davis
Chorus costumes provided by rag & bone
About the Artists
Brooklyn Youth Chorus
Named WQXR’s 2016-17 Artists-in-Residence, Brooklyn Youth Chorus is an award-winning city-wide music education, voice training, and performance program for children ages 7-18 of all levels of experience. As a collective of young singers and vocal ensembles, Brooklyn Youth Chorus is reimagining choral music performance through artistic innovation, collaboration, and an incredibly versatile range and repertoire. Acclaimed for their distinctively beautiful sound, the Chorus’s artistic excellence and achievement has made it the go-to chorus for leading New York orchestras, popular recording artists including Barbra Streisand and Elton John, and arts presenters in the U.S. and abroad.
