Digital Program

MetLiveArts presents
Handel: Made in America
WORLD PREMIERE

Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 7 pm
Friday, February 16, 2024 at 7 pm
          (pre-concert discussion on Friday at 6 pm featuring
          Fredara Hadley and Ellen T. Harris, moderated by Eric V. Copage)
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

This program is made possible by Betsy and Edward Cohen / Areté Foundation, the Adrienne Arsht Fund for Resilience through Art, and Lulu C. and Anthony W. Wang.

Additional major support is provided by the estate of Katherine Walter Stein, an Anonymous Foundation, The Patterson Fund, Douglas Dockery Thomas, the Frank and Lydia Bergen Foundation, the William H. Wright II and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts. 

Commissioned by MetLiveArts

Creative Team

Terrance McKnight, co-creator and performer
Pat Eakin Young, co-creator and director
Ellen T. Harris, co-creator and dramaturg

Malcolm J. Merriweather, music director and conductor

Cast and Musicians

Terrance McKnight, narrator

Soloists (in order of vocal appearance)
J'Nai Bridges, mezzo-soprano
Davóne Tines, baritone
Noah Stewart, tenor
Latonia Moore, soprano

Additional Staff for Handel: Made in America

Creative Staff
Burke Brown, lighting designer
Carla Thomas, stylist
Kim Whitener, creative producer
Megan Young, supertitles

Music Staff
Seth Velez, assistant conductor
J. David Moore, orchestrations
Emery Kerekes, librarian
Jason Wirth, rehearsal pianist
Jeanne-Minette Cilliers, workshop pianist

Production Staff
Samantha Greene, stage manager
Nicole Nilsson, assistant stage manager
Mary Kate Baughman, production assistant

Creators' Statement

—Terrance McKnight, Pat Eakin Young, and Ellen T. Harris, co-creators

Musical Selections

George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)
Passacaglia (from Suite No. 7 in G minor, HWV 432)
Nicole Keller

Traditional Spiritual, arr. Damon H. Dandridge
Lord, I Know I've Been Changed
J'Nai Bridges, Chorus
I Know I’ve Been Changed (AMP 0370), arr. Damon H. Dandridge, Copyright 2000, JEHMS, Inc. – used by permission

G. F. Handel, arr. Wilhelm Kempff
Minuet in G minor, HWV 434/4
Nicole Keller, Malcolm J. Merriweather

G. F. Handel
Tears, such as tender fathers shed (from Deborah)
Davóne Tines, Orchestra

Traditional Spiritual, arr. Wendell Whalum
Amazin' Grace
Company

G. F. Handel
Comfort ye (from Messiah)
Noah Stewart, Orchestra

G. F. Handel
Concerto Grosso in B-flat major, Op. 3, No. 2, HWV 313
        Vivace—Grave
        Largo
Orchestra

G. F. Handel
O take me from this hateful light (from Alexander Balus)
Latonia Moore, Orchestra

G. F. Handel
Convey me to some peaceful shore (from Alexander Balus)
Latonia Moore, Orchestra

Traditional Spiritual, arr. Moses Hogan
Old Time Religion
Latonia Moore, Chorus

G. F. Handel
Come rouse yourselves to vengeance (from Giulio Cesare in Egitto)
J'Nai Bridges, Orchestra

Margaret Bonds
I, Too
Davóne Tines, Nicole Keller

G. F. Handel
Total eclipse (from Samson)
Noah Stewart, Orchestra

Traditional Spiritual, arr. André J. Thomas
The Drinking Gourd
Davóne Tines, Latonia Moore, Chorus, Nicole Keller

G. F. Handel
How strange their ends, and yet how glorious (from Theodora)
Chorus, Orchestra

Traditional Spiritual, arr. Margaret Bonds, adapt. Malcolm J. Merriweather
He's Got the Whole World in His Hand
Company

About the Artists

Terrance McKnight (co-creator, performer) is a radio host, commentator, curator, writer, pianist, storyteller and actor. In every engagement, it is his commitment to classical music and community building, combined with his humanity and respect for his subject matter, that audiences find riveting and memory-making. He is the weekday evening host for WQXR Radio in New York which aired Every Voice, his 2023 podcast series that investigated representations of Blackness in opera. Prior audio documentaries he authored, voiced and produced for the station featured Langston Hughes, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Hazel Scott, Florence Price, Leonard Bernstein and Harry Belafonte. Another series, All Ears with Terrance McKnight, received an ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award. He has hosted concerts for the Atlanta Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts, gave a keynote address at the 2022 Music Teachers National Association Conference and participated in the Bang on a Can Summer Festival journalism symposium in 2022 and 2023. In association with the 2019 exhibition Charles White: A Retrospective at Museum of Modern Art, Terrance curated a series of concerts and audio tours. Upcoming is his book, “Concert Black’ for Abrams Press, which will explore the lives of classical artists of color in the 20th and 21stcenturies. McKnight is a member of the Artistic Council for The Hermitage Artist Retreat, serves on the board of MacDowell and is the Artistic Advisor to the Harlem Chamber Players.

—

Pat Eakin Young (co-creator, director) is a director and dramaturg specializing in interdisciplinary projects, particularly music- and sound-driven performance and installation. Between 2007–2019, she was the artistic director of performance company ERRATICA, whose work ranged from stagings of Baroque opera to multimedia installations and newly devised music theater. Highlights included La Celestina (2015), a site-specific piece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Velez Blanco Courtyard; the holographic puppet opera Toujours et Près de Moi (2019), presented at the Operadagen Festival, Rotterdam; and Remnants (2017), which toured to the euro-scene Festival, Leipzig. During the pandemic, she created the Instagram opera Among the Flowers (2021) for the Royal Opera House, and launched Soundworlds: a podcast of new sonic theater (available on all podcasting platforms!) As a dramaturg, Pat has led collaborations between teams of artists from diverse disciplines, bringing together performance vocabularies and musical genres to push the boundaries of musical storytelling. She has helped to develop composer- and artist-led projects with organizations including the Royal Opera House, Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the V&A Museum, among others. Outside of theater, Pat is a personal trainer for women, trans, and non-binary people. She lives in London, England with her partner and two children.

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Ellen T. Harris (co-creator, dramaturg) is Professor Emeritus at MIT in Music and Theater Arts and Visiting Professor at The Juilliard School. Her research has focused largely on the music of Handel and Purcell. Her work includes the award-winning books George Frideric Handel: A Life with Friends (Norton, 2014) and Handel as Orpheus: Voice and Desire in the Chamber Cantatas (Harvard, 2001). December 2017 saw the release of the revised (30th anniversary) edition of her book Henry Purcell: Dido and Aeneas. Her articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications including Journal of the American Musicological Society, Music & Letters, Händel-Jahrbuch, and The New York Times. Her article “Handel the Investor” (Music & Letters, 2004) won the 2004 Westrup Prize. Harris was elected a Fellow of the American Philosophical Society (2016), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1998) and made an Honorary Member of the American Musicological Society (2011). She was a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar in 2013-14 and President of the American Musicological Society in 2015-16. She has worked as musicological consultant for Renée Fleming (Handel) and Fabio Bonizzoni (Le Cantate Italiane di Handel, 7 vols. and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas), and as dramaturg at the Santa Fe Opera. 

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GRAMMY®-nominated conductor Malcolm J. Merriweather (conductor) is Director of the New York Philharmonic Chorus and Music Director of New York City’s The Dessoff Choirs and Orchestra. He is a sought-after interpreter of symphonic choral works most recently conducting grand performances of Bach’s St. John Passion, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Handel’s Messiah. In addition to core symphonic repertoire, he is known for the world premiere recordings of The Ballad of the Brown King, Credo, and Simon Bore the Cross by Margaret Bonds (AVIE Records) with The Dessoff Choirs and Orchestra. A frequent guest conductor, he has conducted the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Novus Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Ensembles under his baton have performed at venues that include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Madison Square Garden, Brooklyn Academy of Music Westminster Abbey, and at the Vatican before Pope Francis. At the invitation of Solange Knowles, he joined the interdisciplinary studio and creative agency, Saint Heron, for performances with Voices of Harlem and The Clark Sisters in Glory to Glory: A Revival of Devotional Art. Dr. Merriweather has earned degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, and Syracuse University and was a fellow at Tanglewood. He is on the faculty at Brooklyn College. Connect with him on Twitter and Instagram @maestroweather and at malcolmjmerriweather.com.

Considered one of the greatest sopranos in the world today, Latonia Moore (soprano soloist) performs on the most important stages worldwide, such as Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Opernhaus Zürich, Opera Australia, Teatro Colón, English National Opera, New National Theatre Tokyo, Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Hamburg State Opera, among others. She sang the roles of Serena (Porgy and Bess), Musetta (La Bohème), Aida, Tosca, Leonora (Il Trovatore), Cio Cio San (Madama Butterfly), Elisabeth (Don Carlo), Desdemona (Otello). She opened the 2023-2024 season of the Metropolitan Opera as Sister Rose with Dead Man Walking (new production) and also opened the Met’s 2021-2022 season as Billie, in the New York premiere of Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones, a role she reprised for her debut at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Internationally acclaimed for her Aida, she performed this role for her debut at the LA Opera. She performed Emelda Griffith in the New York premiere of Blanchard's Champion. Orchestral highlights include the role of Lady Macbeth in a recording of Macbeth with Edward Gardner for Chandos, Mahler's Symphony No 2 with the Vienna Philharmonic and Gilbert Kaplan for Deutsche Grammpohon, Vivetta in L'Arlesiana and Fidelia in Edgar with the Opera Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall, and Bess in Porgy and Bess with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

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Two time GRAMMY® Award-winning American mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges (mezzo-soprano soloist), known for her “plush-voiced mezzo-soprano” (The New York Times), and “calmly commanding stage presence” (The New Yorker) has been heralded as “a rising star” (Los Angeles Times), gracing the world’s top opera and concert stages. A leading figure in classical music’s shift toward conversations of inclusion and racial justice, she was also announced as one of Kennedy Center’s NEXT 50 cultural leaders in 2022. The 2023-24 season spotlights Ms. Bridges in the world premiere of Intelligence by Jake Heggie, where she takes on the role of Lucinda at the Houston Grand Opera. Bridges will make her subscription debut with the New York Philharmonic and Boston Symphony Orchestra, performing Julia Perry's Stabat Mater and Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette, respectively. She will be returning to the Metropolitan Opera in John Adams' El Niño conducted by Marin Alsop, as well as taking one of her signature roles of Carmen to the Hamburg State Opera. Other highlights include the 2022 Grammy® Award-winning Metropolitan Opera production of Akhnaten, performing at the National Library of Congress to honor legendary fashion designer Diane von Furstenburg as she received the 2022 Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award, her sold-out Carnegie Hall Recital debut, and being named one of Kennedy Center’s Next50 cultural leaders.

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Tenor Noah Stewart (tenor soloist) has performed as a guest artist with many of the most distinguished opera companies, in the United States, the United Kingdom & Europe. His repertoire includes: Cavaradossi, Don Alvaro (Indian Queen), Don José, Faust, Hoffmann, Luigi (Il tabarro), Nadir, Pinkerton, Radames, Rodolfo, Romeo, Samson, Tamino & Tony (West Side Story); and he has been engaged by: Atlanta Opera, the Bolshoi Opera, the Bregenzer Festspiele, English National Opera, the Glimmerglass Festival, Göteborg Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Nederlandse Reisopera, New Orleans Opera, Opera Holland Park, Opera Perm, the Royal Opera Covent Garden, San Francisco Opera, Scottish Opera, Teatro Real Madrid and the Wexford Festival. Most recently, he debuted with The Seattle Symphony and will perform with The RTÉ Orchestra to celebrate The Centennial of Giacomo Puccini. Mr. Stewart trained at Julliard and the Academy of Vocal Arts and is an alumnus of the Merola Program at San Francisco Opera.  He is a DECCA recording artist and appears on the Sony DVD of The Indian Queen. In 2012, his solo album, Noah, topped the classical charts for 7 weeks and was nominated for 2 Classical Brit Awards. Off-stage, Noah has been featured on PBS’s Pinkalicious & Peteriffic, as the role of an opera singer.

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Davóne Tines (baritone soloist) is a pathbreaking artist whose work encompasses a diverse repertoire, ranging from early music to new commissions by leading composers, while exploring the social issues of today. A creator, curator, and performer at the intersection of many histories, cultures, and aesthetics, he is engaged in work that blends opera, art song, spirituals, contemporary classical, gospel, and protest songs as a means to tell a deeply personal story of perseverance connecting to all of humanity. Tines is an artist who takes full agency of his work, often devising new programs and pieces from conception to performance. He has premiered numerous operas by today’s leading composers, including John Adams, Terence Blanchard, and Matthew Aucoin; and his concert appearances include performances of works ranging from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to Kaija Saariaho’s True Fire. This spring, he makes his Metropolitan Opera debut performing in John Adams’ El Niño. Tines is Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Artist-in-Residence and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale’s first-ever Creative Partner. He is Musical America’s 2022 Vocalist of the Year, a winner of the 2020 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and the recipient of the 2018 Emerging Artists Award from Lincoln Center. He is a graduate of The Juilliard School and Harvard University. 

Leadership support for MetLiveArts provided by: 

The Adrienne Arsht Fund for Resilience through Art 

Jody and John Arnhold, Frank and Lydia Bergen Foundation, Betsy and Edward Cohen / Areté Foundation, the Director’s Fund, Kathryn O. Greenberg, The Kaplen Brothers Fund, New York State Council on the Arts, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky, The Howard and Sarah D. Solomon Foundation, the estate of Katherine Walter Stein, Douglas Dockery Thomas, Barbara Tober

Additional major supporters: 

Sarah Arison, The David Berg Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Fund, the Adbul Latif Jameel Community Initiatives Fund, the Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Fund, the Grace Jarcho Ross and Daniel G. Ross Concert Fund, Peter Steinberg and Kathrine Gehring, Helen Lee Warren and David Warren, William H. Wright II

Firebird Fellows and Firebirds:

Jenny Gerard Brown and Barry L. Brown, Magda Dvir, Constance Emmerich, Kenneth Koen, Deborah Paul, Barbara A. Pelson, Rajika and Anupam Puri, Douglas and Jean Renfield-Miller, Meryl Rosofsky and Stuart H. Coleman, Bonnie J. Sacerdote, Melanie Shorin and Greg S. Feldman, Beatrice Stern, Douglas Dockery Thomas, Lulu C. and Anthony W. Wang

Produced by The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Department of Live Arts

Limor Tomer, Lulu C. and Anthony W. Wang General Manager of Live Arts
Art Priromprintr, Senior Administrator
Nunally Kersh, Senior Producer
Harrison Corthell, Production Manager
Emery Kerekes, Program Coordinator
Madyson Barnfield, Production Associate
Audrey Rosenblith, Associate for Administration
Ricardo V. Barton, Associate for Administration
Kerrigan Quenemoen, Production Associate
Emma Claire Gibson, Artist Management Associate

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is on the island known as Mannahatta—now called Manhattan—in Lenapehoking, the homeland of the Lenape people.