The gargantuan, stunning Church of Ascension in Greenwich Village gave audience members a profound sense of place and history on April 8 as we gathered for “Voices of Mannahatta,” a prayerful tribute to Lenapehoking (the land beneath New York City) and the Lenape peoples who cared for her for millennia prior to colonization, and continue to care for her today. Featuring Voices of Ascension with artistic director/conductor Danielle Jagelski and the International Contemporary Ensemble, the concert was the final installment of the choir’s “Voices of the New” series curated by mezzo-soprano Hai-Ting Chinn.
The concert began with I Remember it, My Land, with Lenape text by Chief Urie Ridgeway of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribe based in southern New Jersey. Powerfully sung by Opalanietet Pierce accompanying himself on a hand drum, this short and powerful song about spreading love and wisdom set the tone for the evening.
Andrew Balfour’s “Vision Chant” – an excerpt from his larger choral work, Bawajigaywin – utilizes an Indigenous chant style and focuses on the Cree word for journey (“babamadizwin”). Wide, spacious harmonies in the sopranos were soon joined by the whole ensemble in long octave drones and beautifully sung, slowly merging harmonies that occasionally broke into chant. Mostly somber, with singular lines and suspensions, the work finally culminated in an almost unbelievably soft unison.
Written for pipe organ and large ensemble, Voiceless Mass won composer Raven Chacon the 2022 Pulitzer Prize. A deep meditation on the power of places and those who have access to them, this is a work meant to evoke rather than entertain. Beginning with one pointed spark of percussion, the work revels in long, dark antiphonal drones in the organ, double bass, bass clarinet, and bass drum interspersed by thinner, airier moments of sul ponticello strings and a wealth of glissandi and pitch bends that build up in the space as the work unfolds. The bleak minimalism allows generous space for the mind to wander and actively absorb the earth of pedal tones, the bright spatter of starry harmonics. Though composed specifically for a different cathedral, the Church of Ascension’s organ and architecture were direct and present characters in this performance, augmenting its gravity and expanding our hearing gaze both above and beyond the stage.
Cris Derksen’s Triumph of the Euro-Christ for chorus utilizes text from Joshua Whitehead’s poem “Mihkokwaniy,” a heart-stopping tribute to his grandmother. The poetry tells the story of her murder by white men and the odd dichotomy of so much hurt happening on the fertile and giving lands of Saskatoon. Though the cathedral acoustics and overlapping text settings often muddled the poem’s many consonants, the chanting of slurs, powerful harmonies, and catchy rhythms made this piece strike true.
With its sparkly harmonies and deliberately relaxed pacing, Derksen’s shorter choral work, “Prayer for Mist” from Mass for Nîpîy, was a delightful mood-booster. An undercurrent of exhales by choir members while onstage – and the handing out of single matches to random members of the audience as they walked back down the aisles – only added to the piece’s mystique. The last line on each stanza of Derkson’s poetry: “Water Remembers.”
Jagelski brought together texts by Charli Fool Bear-Vetter, E. Pauline Johnson, W. H. Auden, and Walt Whitman to create Holy Ground for five voices and percussion, which particularly highlighted the artistry of percussionist Colleen Bernstein. The world premiere performance opened in a smattering of metals, bowed vibraphone and suspended cymbal, and crotale strikes. A transition into soft marimba was paired with amplified pouring of water into bowls: a terrifically calming effect. An ethereal descant by Samantha Martin, high lovely sighs by Kirsten Kunkle, and a bright shock of silver by Damian Norfleet on slide whistle were some standout moments of the piece. Video art by Sage Ahebah Addington included ice structures melting and water flowing into gutters and onto sidewalks on the church grounds, adding an extra symbolic vein to this piece by highlighting the impermanence of ice yet the permanence of water as an element – and as an elemental part of our being.
We Are On Native Land by Brent Michael Davids followed with vivacious asymmetry, clapping, wide harmonies, and delicious pitch bends. The syllabic setting of text by members of the Mohican Writers Circle added to the chanting feeling. The evening ended with Lenape hymns, sung by choir members placed all around the hall, the call and response nature of the music encouraging the audience to sing along. I certainly did. There is a great deal of beauty in Lenapehoking’s history to be explored and reclaimed, and Jagelski and Chinn are doing the work to increasingly amplify those efforts.
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