The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess

by George Gershwin, DuBose and Dorothy Heyward, and Ira Gershwin

Kenneth Kiesler Conductor

University Symphony Orchestra Kenneth Kiesler / Music Director

U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance Chamber Choir Jerry Blackstone / Conductor

Willis Patterson Our Own Thing Chorale Willis Patterson / Conductor

Morris Robinson / Porgy Talise Trevigne / Bess Norman Garrett / Crown Chauncey Packer / Sporting Life Janai Brugger / Clara Reginald Smith, Jr. / Jake Karen Slack / Serena Rehanna Thelwell / Maria

Robert Swedberg and Daniel Washington / Staging Coordinators

Saturday Evening, February 17, 2018 at 7:30 Hill Auditorium Ann Arbor

66th Performance of the 139th Annual Season 139th Annual Choral Union Series This evening’s performance is supported by Lycera, Mr. and Mrs. Donald L. Morelock, and the Susan B. Ullrich Endowment Fund. Media partnership provided by WGTE 91.3 FM, WRCJ 90.9 FM, and Ann Arbor’s 107one. The Steinway piano used in this evening’s performance, donated to the Gershwin Initiative by the Gershwin family estates, is a 1933 Steinway Long A piano that was delivered to George in January 1934. It is highly likely to be one of two instruments upon which he wrote Porgy and Bess. Special thanks to all the members of the Porgy and Bess Artistic Planning Committee for their time and dedication to this production. Special thanks to Taylor Aldridge, Naomi André, Lisa Borgsdorf, Mark Clague, Clare Croft, Jessica Getman, Jennifer Harge, Billicia Hines, Elizabeth James, Seema Jolly, Amanda Krugliak, John Sloan, Ann Arbor Public Schools Community Education and Recreation, ARTS.BLACK, the U-M Gershwin Initiative, the U-M Institute for the Humanities, and the U-M Museum of Art for their participation in events surrounding this evening’s performance. Special thanks to Tom Thompson of Tom Thompson Flowers, Ann Arbor, for his generous contribution of lobby floral art for this evening’s performance. The worldwide copyrights in the music of George and Ira Gershwin® for this presentation are licensed by the Gershwin Family. Porgy and Bess is presented by arrangement with Tams-Witmark Music Library, Inc. Gershwin is a registered trademark and service mark of Gershwin Enterprises. Porgy and Bess is a registered trademark and service mark of Porgy and Bess Enterprises. In consideration of the artists and the audience, please refrain from the use of electronic devices during the performance. The photography, sound recording, or videotaping of this performance is prohibited. PROGRAM

Setting Charleston, South Carolina, ca. 1920

Act I, Scene 1 Catfish Row. A summer evening. Jasbo Brown Blues (Jasbo Brown, Chorus) Summertime (Clara, Women’s Chorus) Roll Dem Bones (Mingo, Sporting Life, Crap Shooters) Summertime, reprise (Clara, Crap Shooters) A Woman Is a Sometime Thing (Jake, Mingo, Sporting Life, Chorus) They Pass by Singin’ (Porgy) A Woman Is a Sometime Thing, reprise (Porgy, Bess, Chorus) O Little Stars (Porgy)

Act I, Scene 2 Serena’s Room. The following evening. Gone, Gone, Gone (Chorus) Overflow, Overflow (Porgy, Ensemble, Chorus) My Man’s Gone Now (Serena, Chorus) Leavin’ for the Promise’ Lan’ (Bess, Chorus)

Intermission

Act II, Scene 1 Catfish Row. A month later. It Take a Long Pull to Get There (Jake, Fishermen) I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’ (Porgy, Serena, Maria, Chorus) I Hates Yo’ Struttin’ Style (Maria) The Buzzard Song (Porgy, Chorus) Bess, You Is My Woman Now (Porgy, Bess) Oh, I Can’t Sit Down (Chorus)

Act II, Scene 2 Kittiwah Island — A palmetto jungle. Evening of the same day. I Ain’ Got No Shame (Chorus) It Ain’t Necessarily So (Sporting Life, Chorus) Shame on All You Sinners (Serena) What You Want Wid Bess? (Bess, Crown)

3 Act II, Scene 3 Catfish Row. The court before dawn. A week later. It Take a Long Pull to Get There, reprise (Jake, Fishermen) Oh, Doctor Jesus (Serena, Porgy, Peter, Lily) Street Cries (Strawberry Woman, Peter, Crab Man, Annie, Woman, Porgy, Maria) I Wants to Stay Here/I Loves You, Porgy (Porgy, Bess)

Act II, Scene 4 Serena’s room. Dawn of the following day. Six Simultaneous Prayers (Soloists, Chorus) De Lawd Shake de Heavens (Chorus, Ensemble) Summertime, reprise (Clara) Oh, Dere’s Somebody Knockin’ at de Do’ (Chorus, Ensemble) A Red-Headed Woman (Crown, Chorus) Six Simultaneous Prayers, reprise (Chorus)

Intermission

Act III, Scene 1 Catfish Row. The next night. Clara, Clara, Don’t You Be Downhearted (Chorus) Summertime, reprise (Bess)

Act III, Scene 2 Catfish Row. The next afternoon. There’s a Boat Dat’s Leavin’ Soon for New York (Sporting Life)

Act III, Scene 3 Catfish Row. Early morning, one week later. Interlude: Catfish Row Wakes Up (Orchestra, Chorus) Sure to Go to Heaven (Chorus) Bess, oh, Where’s My Bess (Porgy, Maria, Serena) Oh Lawd, I’m On My Way (Porgy, Chorus)

This evening’s performance runs approximately four hours in duration, including two intermissions.

4 CAST

Porgy, a disabled beggar (bass-baritone) / Morris Robinson Bess, Crown’s girl (soprano) / Talise Trevigne Crown, a tough stevedore (bass-baritone) / Norman Garrett Sporting Life, a dope peddler (tenor) / Chauncey Packer Robbins, a worker (tenor) / Camron Gray Serena, Robbins’ wife (soprano) / Karen Slack Jake, a fisherman(baritone) / Reginald Smith, Jr. Clara, Jake’s wife (lyric soprano) / Janai Brugger Maria, keeper of the cook-shop (mezzo-soprano) / Rehanna Thelwell Mingo (tenor) / Darius Gillard Peter, the honeyman (tenor) / Dorian Dillard II Lily, Peter’s wife (soprano) / Lenora Green-Turner Frazier, a “lawyer” (baritone) / Yazid Gray Annie (mezzo-soprano) / Goitsemang Lehobye Strawberry Woman, a peddler (mezzo-soprano) / Lenora Green-Turner Jim, a worker (baritone) / Edward Nunoo Undertaker (baritone) / Yazid Gray Nelson (tenor) / Darius Gillard Crab Man, a peddler (tenor) / Camron Gray Scipio, a small boy (boy treble) / Darius Gillard Jasbo Brown (piano) / Ellen Rowe Mr. Archdale, a lawyer (spoken) / Stephen West Detective (spoken) / Malcolm Tulip Policeman (spoken) / Steven Jean Coroner (spoken) / Ethan Haberfield Crap Shooters / Darius Gillard, Camron Gray, Yazid Gray, Julian Goods, Edward Nunoo A Man / Yazid Gray A Woman / Goitsemang Lehobye Orphans’ Band

5 ARTISTIC PLANNING COMMITTEE

Gershwin Initiative of the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance Mark Clague Jessica Getman Wayne Shirley

UMS of the University of Michigan Jeffrey Beyersdorf Mark Jacobson Michael Kondziolka

U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance Jerry Blackstone Paul Feeny Kathleen Kelly Kenneth Kiesler Willis Patterson Robert Swedberg Louise Toppin Daniel Washington

6 SYNOPSIS by Lena Leson

The curtain rises on Catfish Row. undertaker exits, Bess begins to sing Clara, a young mother, sings a lullaby “Leavin’ for the Promise’ Lan’”; the to her son (“Summertime”) as the chorus joins her in the gospel song as men of the community play a game of the first act comes to a close. craps (“Roll Dem Bones”). The devout Act II opens with Jake and the other Serena asks her husband Robbins not fishermen as they prepare for work (“It to play, but he ignores her protests. Take a Long Pull to Get There”). Clara, Clara’s reprise of “Summertime” in nervous about the stormy weather, counterpoint with the craps game asks Jake not to go, but he insists that leads into Jake’s rendition of “A they need the money. Porgy sings “I Woman Is a Sometime Thing” to their Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’,” a celebration child. Slowly, characters enter Catfish of his newfound happiness with Row, including Porgy, a disabled Bess. Sporting Life enters and starts beggar eager to gamble. Crown, a peddling happy dust, but Maria, the stevedore, arrives with his woman, proprietress of the cook-shop, gives Bess. The whiskey and “happy dust” him a tongue-lashing with “I Hates (cocaine) Crown and Bess purchase Yo’ Struttin’ Style.” Soon Frazier, a from the local drug dealer, Sporting self-styled lawyer, arrives to con Porgy Life, amplify the evening’s intensity. into purchasing a fraudulent divorce. When Robbins wins the craps game, Archdale, a white attorney, brings the inebriated Crown tries to stop him Porgy news about Peter’s impending from taking his winnings, and a brawl release. Suddenly, a buzzard — a ensues. Crown stabs Robbins with bad omen — flies over Catfish Row, a cotton hook and flees the scene, frightening the community (“The telling Bess that he’ll be back for her Buzzard Song”). soon. Rejected by all the residents of Sporting Life tries to tempt Bess Catfish Row as the police near, Bess with some happy dust. Bess refuses, takes refuge in Porgy’s shack. saying she’s given up drugs and The following evening, the changed her ways. Finally, Porgy community gathers to mourn grabs Sporting Life’s arm and scares Robbins and raise money for his him off. Left alone, Bess and Porgy burial (“Overflow, Overflow”). A white sing a romantic duet (“Bess, You Is detective enters, threatening Serena My Woman Now”). Eager to get to and accusing Peter of Robbins’s Kittiwah Island for the annual church murder. Peter pleads his innocence by picnic, the chorus re-enters, singing revealing that Crown is guilty, yet the “Oh, I Can’t Sit Down,” accompanied detective arrests Peter as a material by an orphans’ band. Maria makes a witness. Serena laments Robbins’s point of inviting Bess to the picnic. death in the moving “My Man’s Gone When Bess demurs, the community Now,” and then the undertaker arrives; matriarch insists, and all except Porgy although the saucer is 10 dollars short, head to Kittiwah as he sings a reprise he agrees to bury Robbins. As the of “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’.”

7 At the church picnic, Catfish Row suggestive song about Bess (“A Red- celebrates, singing “I Ain’t Got No Headed Woman”). Suddenly, Clara Shame.” Sporting Life critiques sees Jake’s capsized boat. She gives religion in “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” her baby to Bess and runs out into the As the community begins to pack up, hurricane. After tormenting Porgy for Crown corners Bess. She tells him that his disability, Crown agrees to go after she is Porgy’s woman now and needs her. The second act concludes as to get home to him (“What You Want the chorus prays for the storm to end Wid Bess”), but Crown refuses to let (a final reprise of “Six Simultaneous her go. He forces himself on Bess as Prayers”). the boat leaves without her. Act III begins with the community A week later, Jake and the fishermen mourning for Clara, Jake, and the prepare to ship out (“It Take a Long others killed in the hurricane (“Clara, Pull” reprised). Bess, still delirious Clara, Don’t You Be Downhearted”). after Crown’s attack, is in Porgy’s They assume that Crown has also room with a fever. Serena prays over perished in the storm, but Sporting her, promising the anxious Porgy Life suggests that he may not be that Bess will be well by five o’clock dead after all. Bess soothes Clara and (“Oh, Doctor Jesus”). A trio of vendors Jake’s baby with a tender reprise of passes through Catfish Row with “Summertime.” As night envelops their wares. As the clock strikes five, Catfish Row, Crown quietly steals in Bess miraculously recovers. Porgy to reclaim Bess. He is confronted by tells Bess that he knows she’s been Porgy and killed. As Bess surveys the with Crown, and Bess confesses that scene, Porgy declares, “You’ve got a Crown will be coming for her soon. man now. You’ve got Porgy!” Though Porgy does not pressure Bess The next afternoon, the white to stay, he asks her to imagine a life detective questions the residents of without Crown. Bess tells Porgy that Catfish Row about Crown’s murder. she loves him and begs him to protect Serena and her friends refuse to her in “I Loves You, Porgy.” answer, but Porgy admits that he Meanwhile, Maria tries to calm Clara, knows Crown and is ordered to identify who is fearful of the approaching the body. Porgy is dragged off by the storm. When the hurricane bell police, and Sporting Life makes his begins to ring, the residents shelter move. Telling Bess that Porgy will no in Serena’s room. Their prayers and doubt be locked up for a long time, hymns (“Six Simultaneous Prayers”) he offers her happy dust, and the bring some comfort, but Sporting Life seductive portrait he paints of life in continues to mock their faith. Clara’s “There’s A Boat Dat’s Leavin’ Soon for reprise of “Summertime” takes on New York” proves too much to resist. haunting significance as she waits for A week later, Porgy returns to word from Jake. A knock on the door Catfish Row. Flush with winnings from terrifies the group, and Crown makes playing craps with his cellmates, he a dramatic entrance. Having braved gives out gifts — but Bess is nowhere the storm to get to Catfish Row, Crown to be found. When he sees Serena taunts the community with a sexually with Clara’s baby, Porgy finally asks,

8 “Bess, oh, Where’s My Bess?” Maria and Serena explain that she’s gone off with Sporting Life, and Porgy resolves to find her. The opera concludes with the rousing “Oh Lawd, I’m On My Way” as the community prays for strength for Porgy on his impossible journey.

Lena Leson is director of education and undergraduate engagement at the Gershwin Initiative at the University of Michigan.

Photo (next spread): John Bubbles (Sporting Life) and Anne Brown (Bess), 1935; courtesy of the Ira & Leonore Gershwin Trusts.

9 10 11 CONFESSIONS OF AN EDITOR by Wayne Shirley

I have loved Porgy and Bess since Porgy and Bess we have known: the I was a child. My parents sang same things happen in the same “Summertime” (and, occasionally, order to music whose occasional “A Woman Is a Sometime Thing”) differences are, for the most part, to me when I was very young. As a noticeable only to those who know sub-teen, I saw the Cheryl Crawford the opera as performers. The most production — the production that easily recognizable difference is in started the tradition of Porgy-with- Act II, Scene 1, in which an 11-piece spoken-dialogue. As a teenager, I saw Orphans’ Band joins the residents the 1950s Leontyne Price/William of Catfish Row in marching off to Warfield/Cab CallowayPorgy which their picnic on Kittiwah Island. The later toured Europe. In my early 20s, I music is the same (“Oh, I Can’t Sit saw the remnants of that production Down”); the pit orchestra plays as as it toured summer theaters, with it has in previous productions, but only Calloway remaining of the original the Orphans’ Band weaves itself cast. In my late 20s, when I went to into the music, sometimes doubling, work in the music division of the sometimes giving the call (clarinet) Library of Congress, it was several to which the pit orchestra gives the days before I got up the courage response (flute and piccolo). The to take one of the three large blue- Jenkins Orphanage Band was a fixture bound volumes of Porgy and Bess of Charleston musical life in the first down from the shelf — Gershwin’s half of the 20th century (you can manuscript orchestral score of the hear them in outtakes from early Fox opera, the principal (though by no Movietone newsreels on YouTube), means only) source for this edition. but since the first production and Through the years I have lectured and the 1938 West Coast revival, the published on Gershwin in general, Orphans’ Band in Porgy and Bess has and on Porgy and Bess in particular, only been heard in the 2006 Nashville with emphasis on the notes-on-paper recording. The scoring of the Orphans’ which are the principal business of Band is Gershwin’s own; it is not in an editor. When the George Gershwin any performing materials that have Trust, the Ira and Leonore Gershwin circulated prior to this edition. It is Trusts, and the DuBose and Dorothy good to have it back. Heyward Trust decided to heed Ira Other, smaller changes were more Gershwin’s late-in-life declaration significant for me: You’ll hear an — “We must do right by Porgy” — by exchange between Porgy and Bess producing a published edition of the just before “Bess, You Is My Woman full orchestral score (I’ll call it the “full Now” that was mysteriously omitted score” from now on), I had the honor from the original piano-vocal score of being chosen to edit it. (and thus from the performance The edition you are hearing today material until now). This exchange does not differ radically from the beautifully sets up the duet.

12 Act II Scene 1: Folks are gathering and gives the women’s entrance the to go off to the picnic. Jake, the tiny bit of extra preparation which prosperous fisherman, has just told makes it utterly beautiful. I sometimes Bess, “Be sure to come ’long to the say that I edited Porgy and Bess to get picnic, Bess.” Today’s edition includes these two measures back into the following bit of dialogue, not heard the score. in any previous staged production of The truth, however, is that editors Porgy and Bess: edit in order to produce a clean, accurate, and readable musical text. Porgy [singing]: Yes, Bess, I feels you In this edition, the occasional wrong ought to go. note is repaired; slurs, ties, and Bess [speaking]: lf you ain’ goin’, I ain’ accents are regularized; dynamics goin’. are trued up (composers sometimes Porgy [singing]: Bess, you is my woman get weary of writing, say, “ff” on every now ... line in a full score); strings are vetted An’ you mus’ laugh an’ sing an’ to ensure that changes between dance for two instead of one.... arco (with the bow) and pizzicato (plucked) have been accurately Let me mention one further spot — a indicated. Sources previous to the mere two measures — which for me full score (sketches and the like) are is a welcome newcomer in this new checked to see whether important edition. This one was present in the dynamic, tempo, or expression marks first production, in the 1938 West have been accidentally omitted in Coast revival, and in the early-1940s the full score (were they omitted Cheryl Crawford production. But it’s by accident, or were they in fact not in the published vocal score, so discarded?); later sources (such it’s not in the performance material as early, surviving orchestral parts) that has been available until now. Let are also examined (was that change me describe it. made as an improvement or because At the start of Act III the women the player was not capable of playing have gathered to mourn those who the passage as written?). And, if the have died in the hurricane, singing edition is — like those produced by the chorus “Clara, Clara, Don’t You Be the Gershwin Initiative — a “critical Downhearted.” The men accompany edition,” the editor documents what them, humming. When Gershwin has been changed from the primary scored the beginning of the act he source, so that the music director added two measures of the men does not have to worry whether a spot humming before the women enter; is actually Gershwin’s as he wrote it or this changes a rather awkward whether it’s been adjusted by a 21st- joint between the instrumental century editor. All this the editor does introduction and the first choral entry with pleasure. Several decades ago, into a completely natural transition a British reviewer in Opera magazine,

13 reviewing a European production of Porgy and Bess, remarked that it was quite possibly the opera, closest to the core repertory, for which there was not a generally available orchestral score. Through this project, one will soon be available.

Wayne Shirley is the editor of this edition of Porgy and Bess. He was previously a member of the Music Division of the Library of Congress, from which he retired as senior music specialist in 2002.

14 THE GERSHWINS’ PORGY AND BESS AND THE QUEST FOR AMERICAN OPERA by Mark Clague

For me, the opera Porgy and Bess while stealing both mother and father (1935) is about resilience: about from an infant in whom hopes of a a community’s hope for a better bright future had been placed. Over future despite the cruel evidence of this past year, three major hurricanes experience. Catfish Row amplifies — Harvey, Irma, and Maria — hit the struggle of American society American shores, making the storm’s with racial injustice, poverty, sexism, warning bells in the opera that much addiction, sexual violence, natural more foreboding and frightening. When disaster, murder, and the divisions of Crown attacks Bess during the Kittiwah society into north and south, sacred Island picnic, it recalls the growing and secular, black and white. I wish list of sexual misconduct accusations that performing this very human in today’s news. At the end of the drama — written and premiered more opera, addiction enslaves Bess to a than 80 years ago — was simply an life of prostitution, while in 2016 opioid act of remembrance. I wish that it addiction killed more than 20,000 served only as a reminder of a past Americans. In facing these issues, forgotten at our peril, of inequities and performing Porgy and Bess offers an diseases vanquished, of civil rights opportunity for dialogue — not just heroes who, responding to injustice about the past, but about the present. across the nation, bravely confronted The insidious danger of Porgy and and solved these very American Bess as a cultural monument is that its problems. If this were true, Porgy and black characters can be interpreted as Bess would celebrate a transcendent caricatures, not dramatic personae. In a human spirit, while serving as a society in which whites are privileged warning about an era that should and blacks are not, the enthralled never return. Unfortunately, Porgy listener to Gershwin’s music can and Bess is not simply a memory, but experience Catfish Row uncritically. a living document. The injustices it Crown can be seen not as a troubled confronts remain. contradiction caught in a desperate It is thus with tragic intensity that cycle of survival and addiction, but as in 2018 Porgy and Bess still expresses a stereotype reinforcing white fears of a potent and contemporary urgency black violence. Read in racist terms, that resonates with our everyday lives. the poverty of Catfish Row becomes The opera’s plot is propelled by the emblematic of black (in-)capability bias of white law enforcement — false rather than a depiction of a community accusations, facile assumptions, a of working-class strivers facing a rush to judgment in the absence of mountain of inequality. real justice — while today, black men To sponsor a performance of Porgy in America are disproportionally killed and Bess, then, is to take on the by the police. In Act II, a hurricane kills responsibility for contextualizing and most of the men of the fishing village, informing the opera’s audience of

15 both its racist dangers and its artful that African American writers, lyricists, activism. and composers can tell their own As a white man leading the stories. And it cannot stop there. Gershwin Initiative at the University #OscarsSoWhite must give way to of Michigan, I have struggled with more than Selma, Moonlight, and Get the meaning of preparing the score Out. The theater must go beyond of Porgy and Bess for posterity. Hamilton. Works by women, Latin What is the opera’s legacy? I admit Americans, Native Americans, Asian that in 2013, when we began work Americans — any and all authors — on the new score only months deserve a chance to thrive on their after the re-election of the US’s artistic merits and message. first black President, the question Studying Porgy and Bess has seemed partially answered. Today, convinced me that its all-white the question is again critical. I am creative team, while writing from their enchanted by George Gershwin’s own necessarily limited perspective music and the collaborative work on and experiences, saw the opera as the libretto by the Heywards and Ira an opportunity to bring the talents of Gershwin, which combine to forge black artists to the cultural mainstream. what for me is the opera’s very human Their activism — if it can be called expression of passion, pain, and that — balanced entertainment with possibility. I was further driven by a focus on an American experience personal loyalty to my fellow scholar, typically excluded from popular Wayne Shirley, as I want to help bring production. While African American his virtuoso feat of scholarly editing composers such as Scott Joplin, to print. Harry Lawrence Freeman, and James Yet, ultimately, the answer to P. Johnson had written operas about this question cannot be mine. I am the black experience before Porgy sensitive to the call from former U-M and Bess came on the scene, the professor Harold Cruse (1916–2005) celebrity of George Gershwin was asking black artists of the 1960s to necessary in 1935 to bring the boycott Porgy and Bess. As described story of black America to Broadway. in his 1967 book The Crisis of the Negro That the composer turned down a Intellectual, Gershwin’s opera was $5,000 commission from New York’s “a symbol of that deeply engrained, Metropolitan Opera (about $100,000 American cultural paternalism” that in today’s dollars), in order to avoid the obscured black artists’ originality in use of white choristers in blackface, “Negro theater, music, acting, writing, speaks to the composer’s own growth and even dancing, all in one artistic since the failure of his 1922 blackface package.” For Cruse, the success of musical drama Blue Monday. Porgy and Bess became a barrier to the Countless musical moments in Porgy realization of other new works of black and Bess speak to the Gershwins’ and authorship. Heywards’ respect for black creativity. The way out of this paradox of The composer spent nearly 10 years appropriation is to democratize the preparing for the work, after reading controls of cultural production such DuBose Heyward’s novel Porgy in

16 1926. Gershwin’s creative gifts were so Heywards’ introduction to the play facile that such a period of study and Porgy, upon which the opera’s libretto preparation was unprecedented in his is based. However, it also reveals the professional life. He seemed to know playwrights’ excitement to invite black that Porgy and Bess would be the most actors into a collaborative process challenging project he had yet faced. in which they would contribute their The lullaby “Summertime” is the own creativity to the storytelling. In first aria heard in the opera. It gives fact, the vendors’ cries — selling voice to the dreams of a mother for deviled crab, honey, and strawberries her child. The beauty of its first note — were not part of the original novel, — a difficult entrance, soft and high but instead were added to the text in the soprano’s tessitura — reflects by the black actors themselves to the challenges facing Jake and Clara’s increase the drama’s realism. In newborn son. The song’s hope and the opera, singers can steal the soaring lyricism serves as a tragic foil show with these evocative calls. that foreshadows the loss to come, yet The Strawberry Woman and Crab its endless melody is also the seed of Man’s rising slides give voice to the the resilience that will allow Catfish day-to-day struggle for existence Row to carry on after tragedy. with virtuoso power and emotional Gershwin did not quote African eloquence. The collaborative legacy American music in Porgy and Bess hidden in these moments between verbatim, but created original art and artist continues to nourish music that evokes its style and the opera as a whole today, as a new sensibilities. His music draws from the generation of singers bring their performances of Cab Calloway in New own talents, character research, and York, and especially from the music of emotional understandings to some of the Gullah people, who lived on and the most demanding and artistically around the Georgia Sea Islands near challenging vocal roles in all of Charleston, South Carolina, where the opera’s repertory. opera is set. Gershwin resided on one Finally, Porgy’s climactic expression of these islands — Folly Island — for of duty in the face of the impossible — a month in the summer of 1934 to “Oh Lawd, I’m On My Way” — fulfills for experience its soundscape. Echoes of me the essential message of DuBose his research can be heard throughout Heyward’s novel and the newspaper the opera, as when Robbins is killed clipping that served as its inspiration. and his wife Serena sings “My Man’s Heyward had read a brief notice in a Gone Now,” an intimate cry of love lost Charleston paper about Samuel Smalls, and dreams thrown into disarray. In a local character and disabled beggar response, the Catfish Row community known as “Goat Sammy.” Smalls was rallies to support his widow and their apparently wanted by the police on children, mirroring their devastation the charge of attempted murder, and, in the spiritual-like anthem “Gone, for Heyward, the thought that a black Gone, Gone.” man, crippled both physically and The paternalism of which Cruse economically, could be so bold as to complained is evident in the attempt to take another’s life seemed

17 18 19 the inspiration for a powerful story. Born another waystation on a creative and raised in Charleston, the writer journey, an improbable quest to create changed “Sammy” to “Porgy,” resulting a credible American contribution to in the 1925 novel. It is a tale of the a European art form, using Broadway transformation of a weak beggar into a song and African American spirituals determined, strong, and dynamic force. as musical inspiration. Gershwin hoped Prior to studying Heyward’s novel, to forge a distinctively American music the ending of Gershwin’s opera always that gave voice to his age, with all its left me disappointed. Gershwin’s promise and problems. That quest optimistic music seemed to say it was does not end with Porgy and Bess. possible that Porgy could find Bess, This quest now belongs to all of us. but I heard Porgy’s determination as a delusion. Now, it seems to me that Mark Clague is editor-in-chief of the opera is really the tale of Porgy’s the George and Ira Gershwin Critical transformation. He begins the opera Edition, and associate professor of as a smart but impotent survivor musicology and interim associate dean who scrapes subsistence from coins for academic & student affairs at the dropped by sympathetic passersby. University of Michigan School of Music, By the end of the opera, however, he Theatre & Dance. has defeated Crown — the opera’s symbol of ultimate strength and manhood. Porgy inherits Crown’s mantle and becomes virile and powerful. Thus, I have come to see Porgy’s determination to rescue Bess not as fantasy but as his newfound duty, whatever the odds. Catfish Row, too, moves on. The community itself may, in fact, be the true hero of the opera. Its heroism lies in its resilience, the tireless inevitability of its resolve to continue in the face of repeated tragedy. I find this same resilience in the opera itself. Porgy and Bess is a survivor. While George Gershwin’s early death two years after the opera’s premiere made Porgy and Bess the heartbreaking finale of an American creative legacy, the composer certainly never intended this work to mark an endpoint. His “folk opera” was just

Photo (previous spread): “Oh, I Can't Sit Down,” Alvin Theatre, NY, 1935; photographer: Vandamm Studio NY, courtesy of the Ira & Leonore Gershwin Trusts.

20 “I LOVES YOU, PORGY”: REFLECTIONS ON THE COMPLEXITIES BEHIND LOVING PORGY AND BESS by Naomi André

There are many things to love rehabilitated Bess — end up dead about the 1935 opera Porgy and or broken by the end. In the finale, Bess. Most of the tunes are already when Porgy sings “Oh Lawd, I’m On familiar through jazz standards My Way,” we know that he — a poor, (“Summertime,” “I Got Plenty o’ disabled black man — will never Nuttin’,” “Bess, You Is My Woman make it to New York. Although the Now”) and George Gershwin’s music residents of Catfish Row sing about has that perfect combination of an the “Heav’nly Lan’” of promise and undulating Puccini-esque lyricism opportunity, we know they will most with catchy syncopations that capture likely not see it in their lifetimes. the rhythms of the English language. Porgy and Bess was written The music achieves many things in a historical moment that saw at once: it involves full-out operatic significant hope as well as deep racial singing, yet still has moments that conflict. After the Civil War, during feel like spontaneous outpourings of Reconstruction, post-Reconstruction, emotion. Serena’s “My Man’s Gone and beyond, Jim Crow practices Now” at the funeral of her husband developed into laws, and lynching in Act I showcases the singer’s became a regular threat. With the virtuosity and brings on the chills Great Migration of poor southern of a new widow’s wail. At the same blacks to the north for jobs and time, the “Six Simultaneous Prayers” better opportunities, Harlem emerged chorus during the hurricane in Act II as a place for great optimism and makes you feel like you have walked accomplishments. The Harlem into a black church vigil. The creators’ Renaissance was fueled by the insistence on a black cast makes coming of age of the first generation going to Porgy and Bess a unique born after slavery. Publications such experience, and one especially as W.E.B. DuBois’s The Souls of Black exciting for black audiences, for Folk (1903) and Alain Locke’s The nowhere else in the repertory do we New Negro (1925) outlined a new have the chance to see so many black construction of black identity in the people on the operatic stage — and in US and how a post-slavery society the audience. could thrive with members from Yet Porgy and Bess is also deeply all races. There was an energy and troubling. The most disheartening part excitement for black achievement in of the opera is the hopelessness of the arts — literature, music, dance, the characters’ fates. It is distressing and theater all had a place in the to see the drinking, gambling, murder, racial uplift movement. and sexual assault that take place. Gershwin wrote an opera in his Even more devastating is that the own style, on his own terms. He characters we cheer for — the young called Porgy and Bess an American loving family of Clara and Jake, the “folk opera,” a designation open

21 to interpretation and one that has African American Language, the quest caused much speculation. In using for representing black culture in this term, Gershwin brought together ways other than through the use of the connection to the people — in Standard English has resonance. The this case black people — and the principle of linguistic subordination, elevated genre of opera. The term where language variabilities “folk” had varied meanings in the associated with socio-economically beginning of the 20th century, as the oppressed groups are viewed as development of folklore societies in linguistic deficits rather than neutral Europe and the US were founded to linguistic variations, helps explain preserve oral traditions not written how attitudes about such language down. This energy was bolstered differences come about. Successful during the Depression in the 1930s precedents in the beginning of the when the US government sponsored 20th century go back to the poetry of several folk-related projects (such as Paul Laurence Dunbar, as well as to the Federal Music Project).1 “Folk” the art songs, spirituals, and choral also had a special resonance in the arrangements by John Wesley Work, black community. In The Souls of Black Jr. (as well as his son John Wesley Folk, DuBois centered this term in Work, III), Nathaniel Dett, Hall Johnson, his discourse, and then began each Undine Smith Moore, and Eva Jessye chapter with a few bars of a Spiritual — who was a composer as well as the in music notation, thus linking the choral director for the first production uplift of the race with the music of the of Porgy and Bess. What becomes people. Though Gershwin did not use tricky is when someone outside of the authentic Spirituals in his opera, he subordinated group — in this case and DuBose Heyward spent a month the black community — approximates on Folly Island, off the coast of South the structure and syntax of the non- Carolina, to be with Gullah and African standard version of the language, American people and learn about their and the result sounds and feels culture. uncomfortable to those who know One of the most complex issues the true tradition. In this way, the around the work is the representation language choices made by Porgy and of the characters’ speech and the Bess’s creators, however well-meant use of a language meant to express they may have been, are problematic. the dialogue and thoughts of the Such themes present a microcosm residents of Catfish Row. In a time of how representation is fraught when minstrelsy, radio shows (such as in Porgy and Bess. George and Ira Amos ’n’ Andy), and other media where Gershwin, alongside DuBose and white actors, singers, and novelists Dorothy Heyward, gave us a compelling rely on negative stereotypes of black picture of black southern life that people are shunned, Porgy and Bess by contrast, and in an uncommon sounds awkward and dated. But with practice for the time, was required to recent controversies around the use be portrayed by black performers in and importance of what is variously true-to-color casting (not blackface) called Black English, Ebonics, and when staged in the US. This provided

22 black artists — from a wide spectrum was represented in American opera of opera singers to the Broadway during the first decades of the 20th dancer John William “Bubbles” Sublett century. (the original Sporting Life) —­ the Over time, people have thought of opportunity to perform on stage to Porgy and Bess as the Great American larger and wealthier audiences. Black Opera, as well as a frustrating collection artists and composers from the early of stereotypes that emphasize a vision part of the 20th century did not have of black people who speak in dialect- the economic and social capital of the ridden English, drink and gamble too Heywards and Gershwins to pull off a much, and have a loose moral code. venture like Porgy and Bess — one that And to some extent, both of these would have incredible staying power. assessments are true. The opera Recent scholarship is helping touches on intensely human emotions to reveal a new historiography of that lead to both great passion and blackness in opera by uncovering heart-wrenching devastation. Yet it is the narratives of black opera the music that touches us and gets impresarios, such as the Theodore under our skin. And this is what makes Drury Grand Opera Company that Gershwin’s opera so easy to love and produced a few operas in the first so hard to hate. decades of the century, and Mary Cardwell Dawson’s music school Naomi André is associate professor of and National Negro Opera Company women’s studies, Afroamerican and that mounted a few productions in African studies, and the Residential the 1940s to early 1960s. Composers College at the University of Michigan. such as Scott Joplin and Harry Lawrence Freeman, both of whom wrote operas that are beginning to resurface, were accomplished in the Western European tradition and wrote in a musical style that expands our understanding of how black culture

1 Richard Crawford, “Where Did Porgy and Bess Come From?,” 706–708. One of the activities of the Federal Music project was to fund an index of American folk music and composers.

Select Bibliography André, Naomi, Karen Bryan, and Eric Saylor, eds. Blackness in Opera. Champaign Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2012. Crawford, Richard. “Where Did Porgy and Bess Come From?” Journal of Interdisciplinary History Vol. 36, No. 4 (Spring 2006): 697–734. Lippi-Green, Rosina. English With an Accent: Language. Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. London & New York: Routledge, 1997. Smitherman, Geneva. “African American Language and Education: History and Controversy in the Twentieth Century.” The Oxford Handbook of African American Language, edited by Jennifer Bloomquist, Lisa J. Green, and Sonja L. Lanehart. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

23 24 25 WORKING IN CONCERT TO TRANSFORM IMMUNOTHERAPY

A member of the Ann Arbor community since its founding in 2006, Lycera is proud to support the 2017-2018 UMS season

www.lycera.com

Photo (previous spread): George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward, and Ira Gershwin in Boston, September 1935; photographer: Vandamm Studio NY, courtesy of the Ira and Leonore Gershwin Trusts.

26 ARTISTS

Born of French and Austrian descent Maestro Kiesler has conducted an array in New York City, Grammy-nominated of operas including Britten’s Peter Grimes Kenneth Kiesler (conductor) leads an active and Rossini’s The Turk in Italy at the Opera international career. Recent engagements Theatre of St. Louis, Bright Sheng’s The include his Australia debut with the Silver River in Singapore, and operas of Queensland Symphony Orchestra (Mahler Puccini, Verdi, Mozart, Ravel, Menotti, Symphony No. 5), his four-concert debut and Donizetti. He has led premieres by with the Chamber Orchestra of Chile, and a Evan Chambers, Steven Stucky, Gunther return appearance with Orquesta Sinfônica Schuller, Leslie Bassett, Ben Johnston, da USP in São Paolo. As director of university Aharon Harlap, Gabriela Lena Frank, Kristin orchestras and professor of conducting at Kuster, Steven Rush, Sven Daigger, and U-M, he leads the renowned U-M orchestral Paul Brantley; the first performance of conducting program and conducts the Gershwin’s original jazz-band Rhapsody University Symphony Orchestra (USO). in Blue since 1925; the US premiere of As the music director of the Illinois Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 3; the Symphony Orchestra from 1980–2000, world premiere of James P. Johnson’s The Maestro Kiesler conducted concerts in Dreamy Kid; the first performance since Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and 1940 of De Organizer; and the non- founded the Illinois Chamber Orchestra European premiere and world-premiere and Illinois Symphony Chorus. He was recording of Milhaud’s L’Orestie d’Eschyle. named conductor laureate for life, and Maestro Kiesler’s recordings with the was music advisor from 2009–11. He has BBC, Third Angle, and USO are heard on the been music director of the South Bend Naxos, Dorian, Pierian, and Equilibrium labels. Symphony and New Hampshire Symphony, Recent recordings include Ginastera’s Three and principal conductor of the Saint Piano Concertos, and The Old Burying Ground Cecilia Orchestra. by Evan Chambers. Milhaud’s monumental Kenneth Kiesler has conducted L’Orestie d’Eschyle was released by Naxos orchestras on five continents, including and nominated for a Grammy Award for the National Symphony at the Kennedy “Best Opera Recording” in 2015. Center; Chicago Symphony at Orchestra Winner of the 2011 American prize in Hall; the Queensland Symphony; the Detroit, conducting, Maestro Kiesler was the silver Utah, and Indianapolis symphony orchestras; medal winner at Avery Fisher Hall’s 1986 the Chamber Orchestra of Paris and Stokowski Competition, and the 1988 Chamber Orchestra of Chile; the Jerusalem recipient of the Helen M. Thompson Award, Symphony and Haifa Symphony; the Osaka presented by the League of American Philharmonic; and the orchestras of New Orchestras to an outstanding American Jersey, Florida, São Paulo, Sofia, Puerto music director under the age of 35. His Rico, Daejeon, Pusan, Hang Zhou, Memphis, teachers and mentors include Carlo Maria San Diego, Albany, Virginia, Omaha, Fresno, Giulini, Fiora Contino, Julius Herford, Erich Long Beach, Long Island, Portland, and Leinsdorf, John Nelson, and James Wimer. Guadalajara; and the Aspen, Atlantic, Maestro Kiesler is one of the world’s Meadowbrook, Skaneateles, Sewanee, most sought-after and highly regarded and Breckenridge festivals. teachers and mentors of conductors.

27 His conducting students hold positions with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra with major orchestras, opera companies, (DSO) and the Ann Arbor Symphony. Choirs and music schools worldwide, and have prepared by Dr. Blackstone have appeared won major international conducting under the batons of Valery Gergiev, Neeme competitions including the Donatella Järvi, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Leonard Flick, Eduardo Mata, Nicolai Malko, and Slatkin, Hans Graf, Michael Tilson Thomas, Lorin Maazel competitions. He has led John Adams, Helmuth Rilling, James Conlon, conducting master classes in New York, Nicholas McGegan, Peter Oundjian, and Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris, Itzhak Perlman. Moscow, Vilnius, Leipzig, Berlin, Mexico Dr. Blackstone is considered one of the City, London, and São Paulo, as well as at country’s leading conducting teachers, and the Waterville Valley Music Center (New his students have been first-place award Hampshire) and the Conductors Retreat at winners and finalists in both the graduate Medomak (Maine), now in its 21st year. and undergraduate divisions of ACDA’s biennial National Choral Conducting Awards Grammy Award-winning conductor Jerry competition. GIA Publications recently Blackstone (conductor, U-M Chamber released his 2016 rehearsal techniques Choir) is director of choirs and chair of video, Did you hear that?, which deals with the conducting department at the U-M the conductor’s decision-making process School of Music, Theatre & Dance where during rehearsal. Santa Barbara Music he conducts the Chamber Choir, teaches Publishing distributes Dr. Blackstone’s conducting at the graduate level, and acclaimed educational video, Working administers a choral program of 11 choirs. with Male Voices, and publishes the Jerry In February 2006, he received two Grammy Blackstone Choral Series, a set of choral Awards (“Best Choral Performance” and publications that presents works by several “Best Classical Album”) as chorusmaster composers in a variety of musical styles. for the critically acclaimed Naxos recording of William Bolcom’s monumental Songs of Willis C. Patterson (conductor, Willis Innocence and of Experience. The recent Patterson Our Own Thing Chorale) is a U-M Naxos recording of Milhaud’s L’Orestie professor emeritus of voice and former d’Eschyle, on which Dr. Blackstone associate dean, and joined the faculty served as chorusmaster, was nominated in 1968 after having taught at Southern for a 2015 Grammy Award (“Best Opera University (Louisiana) and Virginia State Recording”). For significant contributions College. Dr. Patterson, born and raised in to choral music in the state of Michigan, Ann Arbor, was the first African American he received the 2006 Maynard Klein professor at U-M’s School of Music, Lifetime Achievement Award from the and was an active faculty member from ACDA-Michigan chapter and, in 2017, the 1968–1999. From 1969–1975, he was the National Collegiate Choral Organization music director of the U-M Men’s Glee Club, presented him with its prestigious Lifetime and spent summers as a faculty member Membership Award. at the National Music Camp at Interlochen, From 2003–2015, Dr. Blackstone served Michigan. While maintaining an active as conductor and music director of the concert career and fulfilling teaching UMS Choral Union, a large community/ duties, Dr. Patterson organized a Black university chorus that frequently appears American Music Symposium in 1985 and

28 compiled an anthology of Art Songs by Ferrando in Il Trovatore, the King in Aida, African American Composers that the New and in roles in Nabucco, Tannhäuser, and York Times described as a “groundbreaking the new productions of Les Troyens and anthology of black art songs.” He has since Salome. He has also appeared at the San published a second anthology of art songs Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and a collection entitled The New Negro Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Boston Spiritual. Dr. Patterson played an active role Lyric Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Opera in securing funding and mentorship for Philadelphia, Seattle Opera, Los Angeles minority and disadvantaged students, both Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Boston Lyric at U-M and in the Ann Arbor community. Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Teatro A singer (bass-baritone), editor, and alla Scala, Opera Australia, and the Aix-en- arranger, Dr. Patterson has extensively Provence Festival. His many roles include concertized in opera houses and concert the title role in Porgy and Bess, Sarastro in halls in the US and Europe, and has Die Zauberflöte, Osmin in Die Entführung appeared as soloist with major American aus dem Serail, Ramfis inAida , Zaccaria orchestras. Dr. Patterson served as in Nabucco, Sparafucile in Rigoletto, president of the National Association Commendatore in Don Giovanni, Grand of Negro Musicians and as executive Inquisitor in Don Carlos, Timur in Turandot, secretary of the National Black Music the Bonze in Madama Butterfly, Padre Caucus. He served as president of Guardiano in La Forza del Destino, Ferrando VIDEMUS, a nonprofit arts organization in Il Trovatore, and Fasolt in Das Rheingold. committed to producing concerts, Also a prolific concert singer, Mr. programs, and recordings of the concert Robinson recently made his debut at music of African Americans, women, and the BBC Proms in a performance of the under-represented composers. He is the Verdi Requiem with Marin Alsop and the founder and director of the Our Own Thing Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Chorale, an Ann Arbor choral organization, He also appeared in Carnegie Hall as part and the Our Own Thing Instructional of Jessye Norman’s HONOR! Festival. In Program, which has provided free music recital, he has been presented by Spivey lessons, both vocal and instrumental, to Hall in Atlanta, the Savannah Music Festival, area youth for more than 40 years. He is the National Academy of Sciences in also a founder and member of the African- Washington, DC, the Philadelphia Chamber American Endowment Fund of the Ann Music Society, and the Metropolitan Arbor Area Community Foundation. Museum of Art in New York City. Mr. Robinson’s first album, Going Home, Morris Robinson (Porgy) is considered was released on the Decca label. He also one the most interesting and sought-after appears as Joe in the newly released DVD basses performing today. Mr. Robinson of the San Francisco Opera production regularly appears at the Metropolitan of Show Boat, and in the DVDs of the Opera, where he is a graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Salome Lindemann Young Artist Program. He made and the Aix-en-Provence Festival’s his debut there in a production of Fidelio production of Mozart’s Zaide. An Atlanta and has since appeared as Sarastro in Die native, Mr. Robinson is a graduate of The Zauberflöte (both in the original production Citadel and received his musical training and in the children’s English version), from the Boston University Opera Institute.

29 American soprano Talise Trevigne (Bess) appearances in works by Jake Heggie begins the current season at Hawaii Opera include Pip the cabin boy in Moby Dick, Theatre in the role of Micaëla in Carmen a role specially written for her and which and travels to Canada to recreate the role she inaugurated at the world premiere of Clara in JFK at Opéra de Montréal. At of the piece at Dallas Opera in 2010, also Opera Omaha, she steps into the role of Ma appearing in the role at San Francisco in Proving Up and finishes the season in Opera, San Diego Opera, and Washington the title role of L’incoronazione di Poppea National Opera; and as Sister Rose in Dead at Cincinnati Opera. Man Walking. Recent highlights include performances at Kentucky Opera in the title role of American baritone Norman Garrett Madama Butterfly, a role which has brought (Crown), a native of Lubbock, Texas, is a her great success. In a return engagement recent alumnus of the Domingo-Cafritz with the City of Birmingham Symphony Young Artist Program at Washington Orchestra in the UK, she sang Strauss’s Four National Opera. In the current season, Last Songs and appeared in Jake Heggie’s Mr. Garrett will debut with Austin Opera, world premiere of It’s a Wonderful Life at performing Escamillo in Carmen, Crown Houston Grand Opera. Other highlights in The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess at U-M, include the role of Leila in Les Pêcheurs and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the de Perles at North Carolina Opera, and at Rogue Valley Symphony in Ashland, Oregon. Glimmerglass Festival in the role of Bess In the 2016–17 season, Mr. Garrett in Porgy and Bess in a new production by returned to the Glimmerglass Festival as a Francesca Zambello. Ms. Trevigne was principal artist as Crown and participated greatly honored to be nominated for a 2016 in Cincinnati Opera’s Opera Fusion: New Grammy Award in the category of “Best Works workshop of Intimate Apparel, Solo Classical Recording” for her rendition composed by Ricky Ian Gordon, based on of Christopher Rouse’s masterpiece Kabir the Lynn Nottage play of the same name. Padavali with the Albany Symphony. He also reprised the role of Escamillo Ms. Trevigne appeared in Ricky Ian with Opera Columbus. Highlights of Mr. Gordon’s Orpheus and Euridice; created Garrett’s 2015–16 season featured his the role of Clara in David T. Little and Royce European debut with the Wexford Festival Vavrek’s world premiere JFK; sang Kernis’s Opera in Ireland as the title role in a new Love Songs with Albany Symphony; and production of Delius’ Koanga by Michael appeared as Pamina in The Magic Flute Gieleta, conducted by Stephen Barlow, at Hawaii Opera Theatre. She sang the and a concert of American music with The world premiere of Jake Heggie’s song Cleveland Orchestra. cycle Pieces of 9/11 – Memories from Mr. Garrett is a winner of the 2014 Houston at Houston Grand Opera, and George London Foundation Competition. her solo CD, At the Statue of Venus (GPR In the past three years, he has garnered Records), written by Mr. Heggie and Glen top prizes in more than a dozen Roven, quickly climbed to the top of the international vocal competitions, including US record charts. She is featured on Jake the Gerda Lissner Foundation, the William Heggie’s CD release here/after: songs of Matheus Sullivan Foundation, the Jensen lost voices alongside Stephen Costello, Foundation, the Giulio Gari Foundation, Joyce DiDonato, and Nathan Gunn. Other Fort Worth Opera’s McCammon

30 Competition, and the Licia Albanese- role of Pamina in Die Zauberflöte. She Puccini Competition. He is a graduate performs in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 of the University of Cincinnati College- with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Conservatory of Music and Texas Tech. the Philadelphia Orchestra, and travels to her home city of Chicago to take on Chauncey Packer (Sporting Life) is an the role of Liù in Turandot at Lyric Opera exciting American tenor. He has sung of Chicago, and to star in Ask Your Mama the roles of Rodolfo (La Bohème), Alfredo with Chicago Sinfonietta. Ms. Brugger also (La Traviata), Pong (Turandot), Werther returns to U-M with a recital and a concert (Werther), Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), Sam performance as Clara in The Gershwins’ (Susannah), Ruggero (La Rondine), Dr. Blind Porgy and Bess. At Palm Beach Opera she (Die Fledermaus), and Tamino (The Magic sings Susanna in Le Nozze de Figaro and Flute). Mr. Packer has garnered rave reviews finishes the season at the Dutch National for his portrayal of Sporting Life with Tulsa Opera as Servillia in La clemenza di Tito. Opera, Atlanta Opera, Opera Birmingham, Recent highlights include performances San Francisco Opera (featured on the DVD at the Metropolitan Opera in several roles: release), and all across Europe. He recently Jemmy in Guillaume Tell, Micaëla in Carmen, made his debut with Teatro alla Scala as Pamina in The Magic Flute, and Marzelline Sporting Life. in Fidelio. The proud recipient of the 2016 Mr. Packer has performed concerts with Marian Anderson Award, she gave a recital the Baton Rouge Symphony, Grand Rapids at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, Symphony, Pensacola Symphony, Arkansas and later joined the Atlanta Symphony for Symphony, Boston Symphony Orchestra, the role of Amor in Orfeo in concerts and a Orquesta Sinfonica de Mineria, and Louisiana recording. She appeared in the Bonn AIDS Philharmonic. Most recently, Mr. Packer Gala in Germany and sang Beethoven’s was featured in a concert at Théâtre des Symphony No. 9 at Grant Park in Chicago. Champs-Élysées benefiting the organization Identified byOpera News as one of their Women of Africa. top 25 “brilliant young artists” (October Mr. Packer has also honed his craft on 2015 issue), Ms. Brugger appeared in the musical theater stages in the first national Metropolitan Opera’s Rising Stars concert post-Broadway tours of The Gershwins’ Porgy series and made several US concert and and Bess (2013–14) and Cinderella (2015– recital appearances, along with her highly 16). His most recent and future engagements successful debut as Norina in Don Pasquale include concerts with the Colour of at Palm Beach Opera. She revived the role Music Festival, National Philharmonic at of Musetta in La Bohème at Los Angeles Strathmore, and New Orleans Opera. He Opera under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel. is also featured vocalist on an upcoming Recent highlights include the role of Pamina recording with Paragon Ragtime Orchestra at Los Angeles Opera in the new production to be released in November 2017. by Barrie Kosky, and Liù in Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera, where she also sang Janai Brugger (Clara), a 2012 winner of the role of Helena in The Enchanted Island. Operalia and of the Metropolitan Opera A native of Chicago, she obtained a master’s National Council Auditions, began the degree from U-M, where she studied with current season returning to the Royal the late Shirley Verrett. Opera House–Covent Garden in the

31 Baritone Reginald Smith, Jr. (Jake) has Hailed for possessing a voice of been lauded as a “passionate performer” extraordinary beauty, a seamless legato, (New York Times) with an “electric, hall- and great dramatic depth, young American filling” The( Baltimore Sun) and “thrillingly soprano Karen Slack (Serena) was most dramatic” (Opera News) voice that is recently heard as Donna Anna in Don “one of the most exciting baritone sounds Giovanni with Nashville Opera, Serena in to come along in years” (Opera News). Porgy and Bess with the National Chorale A native of Atlanta, he is a Grand Finals and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, winner of the 2015 Metropolitan Opera Sister Rose in Dead Man Walking with both National Council Auditions, and a graduate Lyric Opera of Kansas City and Vancouver of the Houston Grand Opera Studio. During Opera, and Anna in Le villi in her debut with the 2016–17 season, Mr. Smith made the Scottish Opera. Additionally, Ms. Slack company debuts with the San Francisco portrayed a featured role in Tyler Perry’s Opera, the Dallas Opera, Opera Memphis, movie and soundtrack For Colored Girls and Opera Carolina, as well as his concert as the Opera Diva. Engagements for the debut with the Baltimore Symphony current season and beyond include Sister Orchestra and Marin Alsop. During the Rose in Dead Man Walking with Kentucky current season, Mr. Smith will make his Opera and Minnesota Opera, Serena in company debuts with Opera Hong Kong Porgy and Bess in concert with U-M, her as Amonasro in Aida, the Lyric Opera debut with New Orleans Opera as Emelda of Chicago as Senator Charles Potter/ Griffith inChampion , joining the Toruń General Airlie/Bartender in Gregory Spears’ Symphony Orchestra at the Toruń Music Fellow Travelers, and Portland Opera as Festival (Poland), Verdi’s Requiem with the Monterone in Rigoletto. He will return to South Bend Symphony, presenting a solo Opera Memphis to make his role debut as recital with pianist Scott Gendel at Emory Taddeo in Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri. & Henry College, as well as engagements In conjunction with U-M’s Gershwin with Mill City Summer Opera and Arizona Initiative research, Mr. Smith will sing Opera. Ms. Slack made her Carnegie Hall the role of Jake in the draft score of The debut as Agnes Sorel in Tchaikovsky’s Maid Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. Additionally, of Orleans, a role she also performed with he will make his concert debut with the the San Francisco Opera. She has sung the Windsor Symphony Orchestra as the bass title role in Aida with Lyric Opera of Kansas soloist for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, City. She made her Metropolitan Opera and as well as his Dallas Symphony Orchestra international radio broadcast debuts in the debut as the guest soloist and narrator for title role of Verdi’s Luisa Miller. the Dallas Symphony Christmas Pops. This spring, he will make his Lincoln Center Mezzo-contralto Rehanna Thelwell (Maria) debut as the bass soloist for Beethoven’s has been applauded for her “superb and Symphony No. 9 with the National Chorale. expressive power” in performance by Mr. Smith is thrilled to return to his alma South Florida Classical Review, while her mater, the University of Kentucky, to voice has been commended as “one of perform Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the beauty and distinction” with “rich vocal Lexington Singers and the University of qualities” by Palm Beach Arts Paper and Kentucky Chorale. the Arizona Daily Sun.

32 In her most recent performances, Ms. studied under Dr. Frederick Kennedy, Jr., Thelwell had the unique opportunity to and participated in several summer opera work alongside composer William Bolcom workshops in Boston, Washington, DC, for his newest opera, Dinner at Eight, and Mendocino, California. He is currently and performed as the alto soloist with completing his second year in the MM in U-M’s University Symphony Orchestra for vocal performance program of the School their performance of Mahler’s Symphony of Music, Theatre & Dance at U-M, studying No. 2. During the summer season, Ms. under professor emeritus George Shirley. Thelwell joined the Miami Music Festival Wagner Institute for a second time in Lenora Green-Turner (Lily/Strawberry their production of the Götterdämmerung Woman), a native of Macon, Georgia, is a prologue as Second Norn. In her first year DMA student at U-M’s School of Music, with the Wagner Institute, Ms. Thelwell Theatre & Dance. She recently completed had the privilege of sharing the stage her tenure as artist-in-residence for with soprano Christine Georke and bass- LeMoyne Owen-College, Stax Music baritone Alan Held for their rendition of Academy, and Opera Memphis. Her roles The Ride of the Valkyries. Ms. Thelwell also include Countess Susanna (Il Segreto di took part in OperaMODO’s 2016–17 season Susanna), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), as Mistress Quickly in Verdi’s Falstaff and Sister Angelica (Suor Angelica), and Florence Pike in Britten’s Albert Herring. Antonia (Les Contes d’Hoffmann). She Ms. Thelwell was actively involved has been awarded the Jane Willson with U-M’s Opera Theatre and Northern Emerging Artist Award and the Leo Arizona University Opera Theatre where Rogers Scholarship/Sarasota Opera Guild she performed the roles of Ulrica from Un Award. A student of Dr. Louise Toppin, Ballo in Maschera, La Principessa from she holds a master’s degree from U-M Suor Angelica, Cornelia from Giulio Cesare, and a performance diploma from Indiana Zita from Gianni Schicchi, and Ježibaba University. from Rusalka. Through the U-M Opera Theatre, Ms. Thelwell had the opportunity Goitsemang Lehobye (Annie/A Woman) to premiere the San Francisco opera was born in Ga-Rankuwa, South Africa, and workshop production of Bright Sheng’s first heard opera on television through a Dream of the Red Chamber as Lady Wang. performance of the South African Black Native to New Jersey, Ms. Thelwell began Tie Opera Ensemble. In 2011, she won her studies in 2009 at Northern Arizona a scholarship to study with Hanna van University under the instruction of Deborah Niekerk and Kamal Khan at the University Raymond. In 2014, she was accepted into of Cape Town’s College of Music. Her the graduate program at U-M and in 2016 productions include La Bohème, Postcards returned for her specialist degree. from Morocco, Don Giovanni, and La Traviata. In 2016, she toured as Serena in Camron Gray (Robbins/Crab Man/Crap the Cape Town Opera production of Porgy Shooter) was born and raised in Middle and Bess. In 2017, she played the role of Tennessee and studied at Tennessee Carlotta Vance in the U-M production of Tech University, receiving two bachelor’s Dinner at Eight. She is a student of Daniel degrees in music education and Spanish. Washington. During his time at Tennessee Tech, Mr. Gray

33 Tenor Darius Gillard (Mingo/Scipio/ playing the role of Gustave in William Nelson/Crap Shooter) is steadily gaining Bolcom’s opera Dinner at Eight. momentum on regional operatic circuits. Praised for his warm legato and charismatic Baritone Yazid Gray (Frazier/Undertaker/ presence, he excels in the lyric repertoire. A Man/Crap Shooter) is thrilled to be He has appeared in leading and supporting singing in his very first production ofPorgy roles with companies that include the and Bess. He is currently finishing his Connecticut Lyric Opera, Greenville MM in vocal performance at U-M, where Light Opera, Capitol Opera Raleigh, and he studies with Stephen Lusmann. As a Hartford Opera Theatre. He has also made student, he has performed multiple roles appearances with the Charleston Chamber with the university’s opera department; Orchestra, Flint Symphony Orchestra, most recently he was seen on stage and the Detroit Festival Camerata as a portraying the role of Oliver Jordan in U-M’s featured soloist in various oratorio works. fall production of Dinner at Eight by William He is presently preparing to debut with the Bolcom. Previous roles include Demetrius Michigan Opera Theatre as he concludes his (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Mercutio doctoral studies at U-M. (Roméo et Juliette). Before attending U-M, Mr. Gray earned his BM in vocal performance Dorian L. Dillard II (Peter), a young and from DePauw University. versatile performer on the rise, is currently a master’s student at U-M. A native of Detroit, Julian J. Goods (Crap Shooter) is a third- he has performed such roles as King Casper year undergraduate, studying choral music in Menotti’s opera Amahl and the Night education with a primary focus in voice Visitors, Rinucio in the opera Gianni Schicchi, at U-M. He is a member of numerous Tamino from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Snout professional organizations including the from Britten’s A Midsummers Night’s Dream, National Association of Negro Musicians, Tybalt from Gounod’s Romeo & Juliet, and, where he serves as the Central Region most recently, Larry Renault from William secretary. He serves as librarian and section Bolcom’s opera Dinner at Eight. His musical leader for the U-M Men’s Glee Club, director theater roles include Mister, Grady, and the for the Michigan Gospel Chorale, and is the African Chief in The Color Purple, and Curtis organist for the Cathedral Choir at Hartford and Tiny Joe Dixon in Dreamgirls. Memorial Baptist Church. Mr. Goods is an Eagle Scout and a Vigil member of the Order Edward Nunoo (Jim/Crap Shooter) is of the Arrow. currently a junior at U-M studying vocal performance with Daniel Washington at The University Symphony Orchestra the School of Music, Theatre & Dance. He (USO), considered one of the world’s finest was a member of the Young Musicians student orchestras, has been conducted Choral Orchestra, the first and only choral by its music director, Kenneth Kiesler, since youth orchestra in the US, from 2006–15. 1995. Its reputation was affirmed in 2005 As a sophomore, Mr. Nunoo was the bass when it received the Grammy Award for soloist for Mozart’s Requiem with the “Best Classical Album” for the premiere University Choir and the Detroit Symphony recording of William Bolcom’s Songs of Youth Orchestra in 2017. He recently made Innocence and of Experience; in 2011 when his operatic debut at U-M this November, named the recipient of The American Prize

34 for Orchestral Performance; as two-time The ensemble is comprised of graduate and recipient of the Adventurous Programming upper-level voice, choral music education, Award from the American Society of and conducting majors. In addition to its Composers, Authors, and Publishers performances on campus, in July 2014 (ASCAP); and in 2014 when its premiere the Chamber Choir presented concerts in recording of Darius Milhaud’s L’Orestie Brisbane, Australia and throughout New d’Eschyle was nominated for a Grammy Zealand, where they were the featured Award in the category of “Best Opera choir at the National Conference of the Recording.” New Zealand Choral Federation held in Under the auspices of the School of Hastings. In the US, the Chamber Choir Music, Theatre & Dance, the USO serves as has appeared with the Detroit Symphony a training ground for gifted young musicians, Orchestra at Orchestra Hall under many of whom go on to significant careers in conductors Nicholas McGegan, David major symphony orchestras, opera houses, Lockington, and Helmuth Rilling, and at and chamber music ensembles, and as national and division conventions of the leading educators. The USO has also been American Choral Directors Association. The at the core of U-M’s highly competitive and Chamber Choir was honored to perform sought-after graduate program in orchestral by special invitation at the 2006 inaugural conducting, ranked number one in the US by conference of the National Collegiate Choral U.S. News and World Report since 1997. Organization, held in San Antonio, Texas. USO tours have included performances in Carnegie Hall and at the festivals of Named for its founder and director, the Salzburg and Evian. The USO has premiered Willis Patterson Our Own Thing Chorale dozens of new works by contemporary began over 45 years ago as a vehicle composers, and has played the American for participation in music-making. The premiere of James P. Johnson’s The Dreamy Chorale seeks to preserve the exposure Kid, as well as the first performance since of traditional and contemporary choral 1940 of the same composer’s De Organizer. compositions, written and/or arranged by The USO also played the American African American composers and arrangers, premieres of Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto with special emphasis on the Negro No. 3 and music by the female Czech spirituals. The Chorale is comprised of composer Viteslava Kapralova. The USO individuals from the greater Ann Arbor area has several recordings currently available, and Flint who perform concerts to bring this including first-ever recordings of music by music to the community. U-M composers Leslie Bassett, Michael The Chorale also supports the Our Own Daugherty, and William Bolcom on the Thing Instructional Program, founded Equilibrium label. Audiences are invited in 1968, which provides assistance to to watch and listen to USO performances, area youth free-of-charge; allowing conducted by Kenneth Kiesler, on YouTube. them to pursue lessons (both vocal and instrumental), rent musical instruments, The premier choral ensemble at the U-M and attend Interlochen Center for the Arts. School of Music, Theatre & Dance, the The program has, throughout its existence, Chamber Choir performs a wide variety of provided music lessons to over 1,100 the most challenging repertoire, ranging students, of which more than 100 have from Renaissance to contemporary music. continued their involvement as performers

35 or teachers of music throughout Michigan served as executive editor of, and is now and across the country. Teachers for this co-editor-in-chief of, the critical editions program are students and professors from series Music of the United States of America, the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance. published by the American Musicological The Chorale has appeared annually in Society, and is chief advisor to the Music concerts in the greater Ann Arbor area of Black Composers series, a set of string and elsewhere, including the 1985 Black education books from the Rachel Barton American Music Symposium at U-M; the Pine Foundation. He has edited the music of 1994 Gershwin National Association of Alton Augustus Adams, Sr., Dudley Buck, and Negro Musicians Annual Conference in Arturo Toscanini, and is currently writing the Dallas, Texas (performing Duke Ellington’s book O Say Can You Hear?: A Tuneful History Sophisticated Lady and excerpts from of “The Star-Spangled Banner” for W.W. Porgy and Bess); the 2000 Symposium Norton. He is currently interim associate of Fine & Performing Arts of African dean of academic and student affairs for the American Educators and Performers at U-M U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance, and (performing Adolphus Hailstork’s I Will Lift serves as secretary on the board of UMS. Up Mine Eyes); and several of the annual George Shirley Scholarship fundraisers at Wayne D. Shirley (editor, Porgy and Bess) Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor. was born in 1936 in Brooklyn, New York. He earned a BA from Harvard, a MA from Stanford, and an ABD from Brandeis CREATIVE TEAM University. In 1963, he became joint American editor with John Vinton of the Musicologist Mark Clague (U-M interim Répertoire International des Sources associate dean of academic affairs) serves Musicales; in 1965, he became a member as editor-in-chief of The George and Ira of the music division of the Library of Gershwin Critical Edition and director of Congress, from which he retired as senior U-M’s Gershwin Initiative. His edition of music specialist in 2002. He now lives in George Gershwin’s orchestral tone poem retirement in Durham, New Hampshire. An American in Paris was premiered in He has edited works of Charles lves and Paris by the Cincinnati Symphony under Florence B. Price for publication, and works conductor Louis Langrée on September 9, of George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and 2017, and has since been performed by the Victor Herbert for performance. His ambition Atlanta, Detroit, National, and San Francisco to play the role of Mr. Archdale in today’s symphonies. As part of the Gershwin performance was not approved. Initiative, he teaches undergraduate and doctoral research seminars on the music Kathleen Kelly (U-M associate professor of the Gershwins, most recently a class of music) enjoys a wide-ranging and focusing on The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. dynamic musical life as a pianist, opera A specialist in the music history of the coach, conductor, and master teacher. The US, Dr. Clague holds faculty appointments first woman and first American named as in the departments of musicology, director of musical studies at the Vienna entrepreneurship and leadership, American State Opera, she joined the U-M faculty in culture, AfroAmerican and African studies, 2015 as the school’s first coach/conductor and non-profit management at U-M. He of opera. At U-M, she has led performances

36 of Giulio Cesare, Gianni Schicchi, L’heure tenured professor of music (voice) at the espagnole, Cosi fan tutte, and A Midsummer U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance, Night’s Dream. Since her return to the and an honorary professor (humanities) at US, Ms. Kelly has led performances of Le the University of Cape Town South African nozze di Figaro at Wolf Trap, the premiere College of Music. An award-winning artist, of Emmerich Kálmán’s Arizona Lady at teacher, mentor, scholar, and administrator, Arizona Opera, and Francesca Zambello’s Professor Washington is an expert on African critically acclaimed Ariadne on Naxos at American classical music and spirituals, the Glimmerglass Festival, a production Porgy and Bess, and diversity in the arts. that was a finalist in the 2015 International An active performer, Professor Opera Awards. She also conducted the West Washington’s career has taken him to the Coast premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s A world’s major opera houses and concert Coffin in Egypt, starring Frederica von Stade. stages. Highlights of his operatic career Ms. Kelly’s 2017–18 season features two include his Royal Opera Covent Garden notable return journeys, including a return debut in Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, to Carnegie Hall with mezzo-soprano conducted by Bernard Haitink; as Jochanaan Jamie Barton; their recital at Zankel Hall in Salome at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, in December was part of a six-city tour. Sicily (Italy); and as Porgy at Theater des In June, she will return as an alumna of Westens (Berlin) in the highly acclaimed San Francisco Opera’s Merola program to production directed by Götz Friedrich. He conduct the Schwabacher concerts. She sang in the world premiere of the song cycle also leads performances of Bill Bolcom’s Angel of Dreamers by Eric Ewazen with the Dinner at Eight at U-M, and Hänsel and Gretel Michigan Chamber Players and the Detroit for El Paso Opera. Chamber Winds and Strings, and portrayed She has performed internationally as Balthazar in Menotti’s Amahl and the Night a recital pianist at Weill Hall, the Terrace Visitors, directed by the composer. Theater at the Kennedy Center, and Vienna’s Professor Washington has received Musikverein; and in the Mahlersaal of the awards for artistry, including the first prize Vienna State Opera, in Manhattan’s Neue in the International Voice Competition of Galerie, on the Schwabacher Series in Toulouse, the first prize in the International San Francisco, at the Tucson Desert Song Competition of Lyric Singing in Verviers, and Festival, and at numerous universities the Bad Hersfeld Opera Prize. He recently and colleges across the US. Her recital launched the annual Lucy Washington partners have included Jamie Barton, Annual Vocal Competition in South Carolina. Christine Goerke, Michael Kelly, Troy Cook, Amber Wagner, Susan Graham, Albina Louise Toppin (voice teacher, U-M professor Shagimuratova, Valentina Nafornita, Joyce of music) has received critical acclaim DiDonato, and Thomas Hampson. She has for her operatic, orchestral, and oratorio curated art song series for the Houston performances throughout the US, Europe, Grand Opera and the Vienna State Opera, Asia, South America, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and and currently is artistic director of the the Caribbean. She has appeared in recital Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor. on many concert series, including those in Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, the Kennedy Daniel A. Washington (voice teacher, U-M Center, and Lincoln Center. Orchestral professor of music) is a bass-baritone, appearances include the Czech National

37 Symphony, Mälmo Symphony Orchestra the international stage, Mr. Swedberg has (Sweden), Tokyo City Orchestra (Japan), created productions in Macau and Beijing, and the Montevideo Philharmonic China; Mallorca, Spain; Ischia, Italy; and Hof, (Uruguay), with conductors such as Murry Bamberg, Pforzheim, and Bayreuth, Germany. Sidlin, Paul Freeman, Richard Aulden Clark, Justin Brown, James Meena, Vladimir American pianist and collaborator Kevin J. Ashkenazy, and Gearhart Zimmerman. Miller (rehearsal pianist) is acclaimed for Her operatic roles include the title role his dynamically artful performances. As in the world premiere of the opera Luyala a collaborator, Mr. Miller has worked with by William Banfield, Treemonisha in Scott many great artists, including in recital with Joplin’s Treemonisha, Maria in the world international tenor Joseph Calleja and premiere of Joel Feigin’s opera Twelfth Nadine Sierra at the Supreme Court of the Night, and both Bess and Clara in The US, as well as in an appearance with Mr. Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. Dr. Toppin Calleja on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series. was most recently contracted to sing He prepared soprano Jessye Norman Clara in The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess for performances of Laura Karpman’s for Baltimore Opera, Opera Carolina, and production of Ask Your Mama at Carnegie Piedmont Opera. Hall. Mr. Miller has collaborated with the Dr. Toppin serves on the summer internationally acclaimed countertenor faculties of The Vocal Course for The David Daniels in a recital at the Glimmerglass National Conservatory (Bogota, Colombia), Festival. He can be heard on the recording The Amalfi Coast Music Festival (Maiori, Been in da Storm So Long, which features Italy), and the Accra Symphony Operatic baritone Kenneth Overton with Mr. Miller at Course (Accra, Ghana). She is a much the piano. sought-after clinician for colleges and Mr. Miller has been a participant in some universities throughout the US. She is the of the country’s most prestigious festivals director of Videmus and the administrator and young artist apprenticeships, including for the George Shirley Vocal Competition the Tanglewood Institute of Music, Aspen on African American art song. She was Summer Music Festival, the Cleveland previously distinguished university Art Song Festival, San Francisco Opera’s professor of music and chair of the Merola Opera Program, Washington National department of music at the University Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Program, and the Glimmerglass Festival. Upon completion of his apprenticeship at Robert Swedberg (U-M associate professor the Glimmerglass Festival, he was invited of music) directs in the opera program to serve there as a vocal coach. at U-M, where he also teaches Opera Upcoming engagements include a recital Workshop, The Business of Music, and with countertenor John Holiday at the Yoga for Performers. Since his first year at Kennedy Center, and a recital with tenor U-M in 2008, he has also produced “Green Lawrence Brownlee at Opera Philadelphia’s Opera” productions, creating eco-friendly Perelman Theater. opera by taking steps to lower the carbon footprint in rehearsal and performance. He has directed over 150 opera productions for opera companies in the US. Working on

38 The University of Michigan Gershwin Initiative brings together a landmark public university with the Gershwins’ extraordinary cultural achievements to renew a legacy worthy of the attention of the nation and the world. Ira’s universal lyrics and George’s soaring melodies, in songs such as “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” “I Got Rhythm,” “Embraceable You,” “Love Is Here to Stay,” and “’S Wonderful,” capture the heart and soul of American life. In an exclusive arrangement with the Gershwin estates, the University of Michigan’s Gershwin Initiative offers a transformative opportunity to our scholars and students that will echo in concert halls across the globe. The U-M Gershwin Initiative is an ongoing, multi-decade scholarly examination of the Gershwins’ music in which researchers from U-M’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance, working with peers from across campus and around the world, document and analyze all of the Gershwins’ cultural treasures. The catalyst of this pioneering effort is The George and Ira Gershwin Critical Edition, the first scholarly edition of the Gershwins’ music ever published. This unprecedented work provides to conductors, musicians, performers, scholars, and audiences greater insight into George and Ira’s creativity, and in many cases, is creating the only published performance material to accurately reflect the brothers’ vision. The new U-M edition will include works like the potent American folk opera The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, the beloved jazz piano concerto Rhapsody in Blue, and the tone poem An American in Paris, along with many of the extraordinary songs that the brothers wrote side-by-side for more than two dozen Broadway and Hollywood musicals. For more information on the initiative, visit smtd.umich.edu/ami/gershwin. This project is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor, and through the efforts of private donors. For more information on donating to The George and Ira Gershwin Critical Edition, please contact Paul Harkins at [email protected] or by calling 734-764-4453, or visit giving.umich.edu/give/smtd-gershwin.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this book do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

39 UMS ARCHIVES

This evening’s performance marks the University Symphony Orchestra’s (USO) 94th appearance under UMS auspices. The USO performed as the orchestra in some of the first UMS concerts dating back to February 1880. This evening’s concert marks Maestro Kenneth Kiesler’s fourth UMS performance, following his UMS debut in January 2004 in Hill Auditorium conducting the USO in the Hill Re-Opening Concert. Maestro Kiesler and the USO most recently appeared under UMS auspices with Audra McDonald in September 2013 in Hill Auditorium. The U-M Chamber Choir makes its fifth UMS appearance this evening, following its UMS debut in October 1994 performing with the Martha Graham Dance Company as part of In the American Grain: The Martha Graham Centenary Festival in the Power Center, conducted by Theodore Morrison. The Choir most recently appeared under UMS auspices as part of the April 2013 performance of Milhaud’s L’Orestie d’Eschyle in Hill Auditorium conducted by Kenneth Kiesler with U-M musical ensembles and choruses. Jerry Blackstone makes his 41st UMS appearance this evening following his UMS debut in December 2003 in the Michigan Theater in performances of Handel’s Messiah. He most recently appeared under UMS auspices in February 2015 in Hill Auditorium in his final performance as music director of the UMS Choral Union in a performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Ann Arbor Symphony. Tonight’s performance marks Willis Patterson’s fourth UMS appearance, following his UMS debut in April 1969 in Hill Auditorium as soloist in Schubert’s Mass with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Thor Johnson. The Willis Patterson Our Own Thing Chorale makes its second UMS appearance this evening, following its UMS debut in November 1994 in Hill Auditorium as part of A Celebration of the Spiritual with Willis Patterson and the UMS Choral Union. Morris Robinson makes his third appearance under UMS auspices this evening, following his UMS debut in December 2012 in performances of Handel’s Messiah conducted by Jerry Blackstone in Hill Auditorium. This evening’s concert marks Janai Brugger’s seventh UMS appearance, following her UMS debut in performances of Handel’s Messiah in Hill Auditorium in December 2014 conducted by Jerry Blackstone. She most recently appeared under UMS auspices in a solo recital with Martin Katz in January 2018 in the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre. UMS welcomes Talise Trevigne, Norman Garrett, Chauncey Parker, Reginald Smith, Jr., Karen Slack, Rehanna Thelwell, and the rest of this evening’s soloists as they make their UMS debuts tonight.

40 UNIVERSITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Kenneth Kiesler / Music Director

Violin I Double Bass Percussion Brian Allen / Concertmaster Cindy Wei Xin / Principal Colleen Bernstein / Principal Teagan Faran / Associate Thomas Hawthorne / Associate Logan Frewen ^ Concertmaster Principal Tanner Tanyeri ^ Nathan Bieber Conor Flynn Ajay Wadhwani Stuart Carlson Daniel Kumapayi ^ Dana Johnson Timpani Chihiro Kakishima Flute Ajay Wadhwani / Principal Bram Margoles Ayana Terauchi / Principal Rebekah Ruetz Maria Castillo / Piccolo Piano Chase Ward Daniel Brottman / Principal Yu Chao Weng Oboe Tiffany Wilkins Laurel Wellman / Principal Banjo Nicole Joslin Bradley Phillips Violin II Benjamin Cormier / English Horn Isabella Amador / Principal Solo Piano in Act I Anita Dumar / Associate Clarinet Ellen Rowe Principal Harry Hwang / Principal Anna Berntson Allison Chu Rose Brown Emily Ji ^ Personnel Carmen Flesher Jordan Kauffman Daniel Brottman Laura Gamboa Mina Hong Bassoon Equipment Benjamin Jackson Matthew Wildman / Principal Simon Lohmann Brian Kosiadi Lindsey Sharpe Allison Taylor Saxophone Chance Stine / Alto ^ Librarian Viola Jonathan Hostottle / Alto ^ Alizabeth Nowland Gwendolyn Matias-Ryan / Matthew Koester / Tenor ^ Principal Production Caleb Georges / Associate Horn Jennifer Barretto / Stage Principal Arun Mangrulkar / Principal Manager Elizabeth Boyce Cassandra Eide / Assistant Colter Schoenfish /Assistant Zoie Hightower Michaela Clague Stage Manager Patrick Marsh Amy Su Bruna Davila / Assistant Staging Aimee McAnulty Coordinator Alice Risov Trumpet Madeline Warner Isaac Hopkins / Principal ^ Assistant Conductors Michelle Riechers ^ Chelsea Gallo Cello Kyle Mallari ^ Diego PIedra Pedro Sanchez / Principal Rotem Weinberg Nathan Walhout / Associate Trombone Tal Benatar Principal Scott Vanderbilt / Principal Charlotte Politi Nicole Chung Zongxi Li ^ Tim Edwards Jin Nakamura Tuba Lindsay Sharpe Evan Zegiel / Principal ^ Member of the Orphans’ Band

41 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN CHAMBER CHOIR

Jerry Blackstone / Conductor

Soprano Emilia Butryn Andrew Burgmayer Hayley Boggs Elise Eden Zion Jackson Hannah Clague Madison Montambault Andrew S. Kohler Jennie Judd Bryce McClendon Madeline Thibault Hayley Tibbenham Bass Catherine Moss Anjani Briggs Jabarie Glass Francesca Napolitano Eliana Barwinski Stephen Wynn Maitri White Amber Carpenter Andrew Schafer Suzanna Mathews Charlotte Politi Giovanni Bellegarde Madison Warren Jaime Sharp Jack Williams III Taylor Adams Tanner Hoertz Jessica Allen Tenor Yazid Gray Adrianna Tam Shohei Kobayashi Kurt Clare Goitsemang Lehobye Camron Gray Daniel Brottman Samira Plummer Wesley Fields Julian Goods Sarah Inendino Brent Doucette Samuel Kidd Lucas Alvarado Régulo Stabilito Alto Thomas Burton Jotaro Nakano Helen Hass Westley Montgomery Edward Nunoo Megan Wheeler Regis Haynes Antona Yost Jim Renfer Micaela Aldridge Yongmin Kim

WILLIS PATTERSON OUR OWN THING CHORALE

Willis C. Patterson / Conductor and Founder Darnell Ishemel / Associate Director Rebecca Jones / Accompanist

Soprano Alto Tenor Naomi André Francetta Ampey Daniel Kresh Jan BenDor Audrey Anderson Ronnie Lindsey Petreya Campbell Wanda Dawson Margaret Madagame Bonita Cowan-Tucker Pam Dent Bernard Patterson Lucy K. Hayden Brenda Doster Jeffrey Pickell Katherine Johnson Kathi Dvorin Connie Watts Nancy Konigsberg Kerner Janet V. Haynes Winnie Wood Edith Lewis Barbara Meadows Diane O’Connell Luanna Slay Bass Robbie Ransom Ruth Ann Small Senyo Adzei Anne Rueter Pam (Tia) Thomas Ronald Ampey Cathy Keresztesi-Stevens Robin Wilson Paul Haynes Kira Monae Turner Bob Patterson Sharon Vaughters Haleem Jamal Shaah Elizabeth O. Weil Joseph Vaughters-Sevig Ronald Woods

42 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Porgy and Bess Planning Scott VanOrnum Joshua Luty Committee Nicole Watson Jason Paige Naomi André Kathryn Pohl Stephen Berrey Editorial Board of the George Brandon Scott Rumsey Jeffrey Beyersdorf and Ira Gershwin Critical Ellen Sauer Sara Billmann Edition Christopher Sherwood Jerry Blackstone Mark Clague / Editor-in-Chief Gabrielson Marilou Carlin Ryan Bañagale Carlos Simon Mark Clague Jessica Getman / Managing Sarah Sisk Leah Claiborne Editor Frances Sobolak Angela Dillard James Kendrick Sarah Suhadolnik Tess Eastment Michael Owen Evan Ware John Ellis Loras Schissel Alyssa Wells Paul Feeny Karen Schnackenberg Kai West Shannon Fitzsimons Moen Wayne Shirley Rachel Francisco Gershwin Initiative Donors Jessica Getman Advisory Board of the George Marc George and Andrea Paul Harkins and Ira Gershwin Critical Gershwin (Arthur Gershwin, Freyja Harris Edition LLC) Sydney Hawkins Marc George Gershwin Michael and Jean Strunsky Robert Hurst Michael Strunsky (Ira and Leonore S. Gershwin Mark Jacobson Adam Gershwin Philanthropic Fund) Elizabeth James Todd Gershwin Alfred and Jane Wolin Kathleen Kelly William Bolcom Bruce and Lois Zenkel Ellen Kettler Richard Crawford Ronnie & Lawrence D. Ackman Kenneth Kiesler Michael Feinstein Ericka and Peter Bigelow Michael Kondziolka Walter Frisch Mark Clague and Laura Jackson Jim Leija Thomas Hampson Melissa Cox and Marie McCarthy Joseph Horowitz Shannon Saksewski Lisa Murray Laura Jackson Michael DiPietro and Stanford Olsen Christopher Kendall Alice Fishman Terri Park Andrew Litton Randall and Ellen Frank Scott Piper Joan Morris Adam and Amy Gershwin Margaret Reid Jessye Norman Paul Groffsky Ellen Rowe Howard Pollack DuBose and Dorothy Heyward Austin Stewart Melody Racine Memorial Fund Willie Sullivan Logan Skelton Kerry Humphrey Robert Swedberg Michael Tilson Thomas Ellen and Michael Kettler Kira Thurman Alfred and Jane Wolin Chris and Parky May Louise Toppin Bruce Zenkel Jennie and Richard Needleman Daniel Washington Rothman Family Foundation The Gershwin Initiative Maureen Schafer and Special Thanks Mark Clague / Editor-in-Chief David Klerkx Timothy Archer Jessica Getman / Managing Jane and Jerome Schultz Roger Arnett Editor Ari and Susan Spar Jack Bernard David Belkovski Lisa Borgsdorf Timothy Brewer Christopher Boyes Mathew Browne Robert Grijalva Sofia Carbonara Bridget Kennedy Allison Chu Kevin Miller Kristen Clough Brandon Monzon Rachel Fernandes Rebecca Morrow-Spitzer Anne Heminger Alizabeth Nowland Megan Hill Willis Patterson Lisa Keeney Emilio Rodriguez Andrew Kohler George Shirley Lena Leson

43 TONIGHT’S VICTORS FOR UMS:

Lycera — Mr. and Mrs. Donald L. Morelock — Susan B. Ullrich Endowment Fund

Supporters of this evening’s performance of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.

MAY WE ALSO RECOMMEND...

3/14 Piedmont Blues: A Search for Salvation 3/31 Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Chick Corea 4/15 Apollo’s Fire: Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo

Tickets available at www.ums.org.

ON THE EDUCATION HORIZON…

2/18 Talking About Porgy and Bess: A Post-Performance Discussion (Gallery, Hatcher Graduate Library, 913 S. University Avenue, 2:00 pm)

2/19 FRAME: A Salon Series on Visual Art, Performance, and Identity (202 S. Thayer Street Building, Atrium, 7:00 pm)

Educational events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.