Paths to Dignity: Music of Hunger, Homelessness and Hope

The NC State Department of Music presents

Raleigh Civic Chamber Orchestra

Paths to Dignity: Music of Hunger, Homelessness
and Hope

Peter Askim, Conductor

with
Mitchell Newman, Violin
Jennifer Beattie, Mezzo-Soprano
and the NC State Chorale
Dr. Nathan Leaf, Conductor

Program

Coriolan Overture, Op. 62
Ludwig Van Beethoven

Erbarme dich, mein Gott
from St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244
Johann Sebastian Bach
Mitch Newman, Violin
Jennifer Beattie, Mezzo-Soprano

Urlicht (Primeval Light)
from Des Knaben Wunderhorn
Gustav Mahler
Jennifer Beattie, Mezzo-Soprano

The Raw Heart of the Spinning World
for Chamber Orchestra (World Premiere)
Peter Askim

Take What You Need
Reena Esmail
with the NC State Chorale
Jennifer Beattie, Mezzo-Soprano
David Prater, Decorba White and Kirk Long, Speakers

Concerto for Violin: Paths to Dignity
World Premiere

• III. Shelter For My Child
• IV. Finding Home

Lucas Richman
Mitch Newman, Violin

A panel discussion will follow the concert featuring these panelists:

Lucas Richman, Composer
Mitchell Newman, Violin Soloist
Dr. David Fitzpatrick, Teaching Associate Professor, NC State School of Social Work
Mary Jean Seyda, Senior Advisor with Mission Advancement at CASA
Decorba White

This performance is dedicated to orchestra violinist and Raleigh Civic Symphony Association Board Member Dadan Chavis, who passed away suddenly this fall.

This program is funded in part by the City of Raleigh based on recommendations of the Raleigh Arts Commission, and by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. www.NCArts.org

NC State Raleigh Civic Chamber Orchestra

Flute/Piccolo

Logan Burtis
Cindy Chastang

Oboe

Shannon Neu
David Reiner

Clarinet

Laura Dugan
Shirley Violand-Jones

Bassoon

Brenda Balazs-Reylek
Bill Coye

French Horn

Matt Behrhorst
Paula Dilanchian

Trumpet

Joshua Aycock
Jacob Simon

Trombone

Jordan Key

Percussion

Elijah Helms
Drew Moore

Harp

Catherine Clodfelter

Violin

Lindi Wang
Harry Cogdill
Angela Feldman
Catherine Hall
Francine Hunter
Patrick Jones
Levi McLaughlin
Bethany Mostert

Viola

Brant Johnson
Sagar Malekar
Evan Martin
Riley Partin

Cello

Sonny Enslen
Charlotte Frazier
Stephen Hahn

Bass

Gianni Absillis

State Chorale

Soprano

Sharanya Ananth
Patricia Costes
Lindsey Cox
Sofia Leander
Margaret Lucas
Maddie Martin
Emily Morris
Anna Muchukot
Mollie Powell
Kaitlyn Riley
Mary Schrader
Jade Vogelsong

Alto

Kathryn Adams
Francesca Balestrieri
Elise Boorom
Lily Campbell
Sonia Dubiansky
Sammie Graff
Nizhoni Henry
Katherine Hunt
Liz Marsh
Charmaine Pereira
Tsedey Pretto
Lily Rowland
Zoë Smith
Day Steed
Sara Trimesh

Tenor

Michael Clark
Drew Colven
Justin Farmer
Dylan Magistrado
Devon Olds
Mason Sluder
Samuel Tucker

Bass

Niko Ayers
Kevin Ballesteros
Jack Bishop
Ryan Bishop
Coltan Compton
Ryan Faucette
Parker Klinck
Trevor Libner
Ian McGregor
Noel Osagie
Landon Perry
Radim Ptak
Benjamin Radspinner
Alex Yoshizumi

Texts and Translations

Erbarme dich, mein Gott (Bach)

Erbarme dich, mein Gott, 
Um meiner Zähren willen! 
Schaue hier, 
Herz und Auge Weint vor dir bitterlich. 
Erbarme dich, mein Gott.

Have mercy, my God,
For the sake of my tears!
See here, before you
Heart and eyes weep bitterly. Have mercy, my God.

Translation by lyricstranslate.com

Urlicht (Mahler)

Der Mensch liegt in grösster Not,
Der Mensch liegt in grösster Pein,
Je lieber möcht ich im Himmel sein.
Da kam ich auf einen breiten Weg,
Da kam ein Engellein und wollt mich abweisen, 
Ach nein ich liess mich nicht abweisen.
Ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu Gott,
Der liebe Gott wird mir ein Lichtchen geben, 
Wird leuchten mir bis an das ewig selig Leben.

O red rose,
Man lies in direst need,
Man lies in direst pain,
I would rather be in heaven.
I then came upon a broad path,
An angel came and sought to turn me back, 
Ah no! I refused to be turned away.
I am from God and to God I will return, 
Dear God will give me a light,
Will light my way to eternal blessed life.

Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder (Faber, 2005)

Take What You Need (Reena Esmail)

Take a moment
Take a breath
Take time
Take care

Take heart
Take hope
Take a step
Take a chance

Take courage
Take charge
Take a stand
Take pride

Take joy
Take pause
Take a moment
Take a breath

Take what you need

Program Notes

The Raw Heart of the Spinning World, Peter Askim

My first time hearing Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring was the fuzz-guitar and drum-machine-driven version by the art-punk band Birdsongs of The Mesozoic. It totally blew my mind. This was music that spoke my language! Growing up listening to, loving, and playing many different types of music – including classical, avant-garde jazz, garage rock and my triumphant one-day stint in a hair metal band – I never wanted to choose between the so-called “refinement” of classical music and the full-on energy of punk music.

In writing The Raw Heart of the Spinning World, I wanted to surrender to the kind of music that had always set me on fire – music of seething power and brutal emotional honesty, with nothing held back. Music that was unceasingly real, whether tender or violent, whispering or wailing, searching or screaming.

The words in the score trace its inner trajectory: hushed, prayerful; raw, biting; surrendering; spiraling, swirling, dizzying; burning, urgent… Written in times of great tumult and uncertainty, the music is propelled by both emotional vulnerability and centrifugal force, the center barely holding… and then not at all.

The string quartet version of the Raw Heart of the Spinning World was commissioned by the North Carolina Chamber Music Institute, Elizabeth Beilman, Executive Director. Today’s performance is the World Premiere of the version for chamber orchestra.

Take What You Need, Reena Esmail

Of the many performances of Take What You Need, very few of them have been in traditional concert halls. Most performances have taken place in jails, homeless shelters, support groups, schools, memorial services, places of worship — in places where people can gather to see and honor the humanity in one another.

Take What You Need was first written for Urban Voices Project, a choir made up of people who are experiencing or have recently experienced homelessness — so many of whom have trusted this piece with their own stories of loss and redemption, and who I am so honored to count among my dearest friends. But this piece is also meant to be a resource for musicians and communities to come together and build the lasting relationships that plant seeds for social change.

Lucas Richman: Concerto for Violin: Paths to Dignity

Lucas Richman’s “Concerto for Violin: Paths to Dignity” reflects upon the lives affected by homelessness by translating to music the stories of unsheltered individuals and the community’s moral responsibility to those individuals. Written for violinist Mitchell Newman, the work is presented in four movements which share a common thread of a seven-note motive, D-B-G-G-B-F-D (DIGNITY), woven throughout the piece in various forms. The solo violinist serves in the capacity of an observer who ultimately leads the community towards the mutual goal of restoring humanity and dignity to those affected by being unsheltered in our society today.

For this special occasion, the Raleigh Civic Symphony presents the premiere of the concerto’s final two movements, “Shelter for My Child” and “Finding Home.” The third movement, “Shelter for My Child,” draws attention to society’s obligation to provide for the youngest members of the unsheltered community, musicalized by a motive derived from the Hebrew word, “Tzedek” (Justice). The fourth and final movement, “Finding Home,” begins with the wind orchestra tolling a series of pungent chords which serve as the background to a seemingly inescapable hamster wheel’s flourish of notes from the violin. The strings interrupt intermittently with a prayerful invocation of the “Tzedek” motive until the violinist commences to lead the assembled community to action through a series of variations on “Dignity.”

The concept surrounding Lucas Richman’s “Concerto for Violin: Paths to Dignity” goes beyond the standard concert presentation of a new concert work. It is the intention of the composer that the concerto’s performance might serve as a centerpiece to a larger community-building effort, establishing connections between cultural organizations and homeless advocacy groups in order to better facilitate assistance for the unsheltered and, when appropriate, aspire towards reintegration into society.

Bios

Peter Askim

Active as a composer, conductor and bassist, Peter Askim is the Artistic Director of The Next Festival of Emerging Artists and the conductor of the Raleigh Civic Symphony and Chamber Orchestra, as well as Director of Orchestral Activities at North Carolina State University. He was previously Music Director and Composer-in-Residence of the Idyllwild Arts Academy Orchestra. He has also been a member of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and served on the faculty of the University of Hawaii-Manoa, where he directed the Contemporary Music Ensemble and taught theory and composition.

As a conductor, he has led the American Composers Orchestra, Knoxville Symphony and Vermont Symphony, among others, and is known for innovative programming, championing the work of living composers and his advocacy of underrepresented voices in the concert hall. He has conducted premieres by composers such as Brett Dean, Aaron Jay Kernis, Allison Loggins-Hull, Jessica Meyer, Nico Muhly, Rufus Reid, Christopher Theofanidis, Jeff Scott and Aleksandra Vrebalov, and led the American premiere of Florence Price’s Ethiopia’s Shadow in America. His work was featured on HBO and National Public Radio conducting folk-rock legend Richard Thompson’s soundtrack for The Cold Blue. He has collaborated with such artists as Miranda Cuckson, Matt Haimovitz, Vijay Iyer, Jennifer Koh, Nadia Sirota, Sō Percussion and Jeffrey Zeigler, and the bluegrass band Balsam Range. As a composer, he has been called a “Modern Master” by The Strad and has had commissions and performances from such groups as the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Honolulu Symphony, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Cantus Ansambl Zagreb and the American Viola Society.

With the creation of The Next Festival of Emerging Artists, Askim founded a festival dedicated to the next generation of performers, composers and choreographers. Founded in 2013, the Festival encourages young artists, ages 20-30, to focus on artistic development, entrepreneurial career strategies and the music of living composers. The Next Festival Composer and Composer/Choreographer workshops connect early-career performers, composers and choreographers in innovative and highly collaborative laboratory for the creation of new works. The Festival has been awarded grants by the Amphion, ASCAP and BMI foundations, and the Copland Fund for Music. Immediately recognizing the devastation of the COVID pandemic on young artists, he began providing free workshops, masterclasses and resources to support young artists through challenging times beginning in March of 2020. Through the Festival, he has presented over 50 Guest Artists, including Pulitzer, Grammy, and MacArthur award winners.

With the Raleigh Civic Orchestras, Askim has pioneered collaborative, multimedia concert events focused on social and environmental justice and has programmed a newly-commissioned world premiere on each concert for the last seven seasons. Themes have included Martin Luther King, Jr.’s North Carolina “I Have A Dream” speech and a work for Virtual Reality and orchestra highlighting the Women’s Suffrage Movement and the Voting Rights Act. During the pandemic, Askim premiered nine new works by composers harnessing latency and technology in innovative approaches to distance collaboration. Under his direction, the orchestras have received multiple grants recognizing diversity in programming, including from New Music USA and the Women’s Philharmonic Association.

Jennifer Beattie

Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Beattie, hailed by Opera News for her “exuberant voice and personality”, performs a wide range of vocal music from early to experimental. She collaborates as a poet/lyricist with classical, jazz and experimental composers, and composes her own works combining the mediums of poetry, music, and theater. She has been a featured soloist with The National Opera Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia, and the Park Avenue Armory, as well as a regular Artist-in-Residence at Yale University. She has premiered more than 150 works written for her voice.

Mitchell Newman

Violinist Mitchell Newman retired from the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2020. During his 34-year career, he worked with many of the world’s great conductors including music directors Andre Previn, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Gustavo Dudamel, and guest conductors Simon Rattle, Kurt Sanderling, Herbert Blomstedt, Thomas Wilkins, Eric Leinsdorf, Zubin Mehta, Emmanuelle Haim, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Michael Tilson-Thomas, and Simone Young.

A passionate advocate for bringing music to underserved communities, Mr. Newman founded “Harmony: Music for Mental Health”, a chamber music/fundraising concert for Mental Health America Long Beach. In 2010 he was named a mental health hero by the California State Senate. In 2015 he started “Coming Home to Music” which brings concerts of classical chamber music and jazz concerts to people who were experiencing homelessness, who are now living in apartment complexes built by People Assisting the Homeless (PATH).

Mr. Newman is also a dedicated teacher. He was deeply involved in the LA Phil’s Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) program since its inception, providing its students private lessons, master classes, and conducting string sectionals. For more than a decade he planned, curated, conducted, and hosted, in English and Spanish, an annual concert featuring YOLA students and LA Philharmonic members playing side-by-side. Mr. Newman occasionally travels to Mexico to give master classes and perform fundraising concerts for the Benning Academy. The Academy builds outstanding music conservatories and provides free lessons and instruments to Mexico’s most needy children in their neighborhoods. Mr. Newman has also taught at the Colburn School, The Curtis Institute of Music, the Philadelphia International Music Festival, and conducted the string ensemble of the Pascale Music Institute, leading the ensemble in a concert at Carnegie Hall in 2017.

Currently, Mr. Newman resides in Philadelphia. He is collaborating with composer Lucas  Richman on the “Paths To Dignity Project.” Broadening the work he did in Los Angeles, the project features Mr. Newman performing Mr. Richman’s violin concerto “Paths To Dignity.” Additionally, Mr. Newman is facilitating the collaboration between musical institutions and homeless advocacy organizations in the cities where he performs with the goal of inspiring and motivating others to continue the important work in bringing humanity and dignity to a community that desperately needs support in this time of crisis. There are performances scheduled in Raleigh, NC, Kalamazoo, MI and Bangor, ME.

Mr. Newman also teaches chamber music ensembles for the Settlement School, and The University of Pennsylvania. He conducts the String Chamber Orchestra at Play On Philly, and the Chamber Players Orchestra for Temple University Preparatory Division. He also teaches privately.

Mr. Newman is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, studying violin with Aaron Rosand, David Cerone, and Yumi Ninomiya. He studied chamber music with Karen Tuttle, Felix Galamir, and Mischa Schneider. At the Meadowmount School for Strings he studied violin with Ivan Galamian and chamber music with Josef Gingold.

Lucas Richman

GRAMMY award-winning conductor Lucas Richman has served as Music Director for the Bangor Symphony Orchestra since 2010 and held the position as Music Director for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra from 2003-2015. Over the course of nearly four decades on the podium, he has garnered an international reputation for his graceful musical leadership in a diverse field of media. In concert halls, orchestral pits and recording studios around the world, Richman earns rave reviews for his artful collaborations with artists in both the classical and commercial music arenas.

He has appeared as guest conductor with numerous orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Pops, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, the SWR Radio Orchestra of Kaiserslautern, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Zhejiang Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional and the Zagreb Philharmonic.

Mr. Richman’s numerous collaborations with film composers as their conductor has yielded recorded scores for such films as the Academy Award-nominated The Village (with violinist, Hilary Hahn), As Good As It Gets, Face/Off, Se7en, Breakdown, The Manchurian Candidate, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl and Flatliners; in 2010, John Williams invited him to lead the three-month national summer tour of Star Wars in Concert.

Also an accomplished composer, Mr. Richman has had his music performed by over two hundred orchestras across the United States including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Pops and the symphonies of Detroit, Atlanta, New Jersey and Houston. He has fulfilled commissions for numerous organizations including the Pittsburgh Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, Bangor Symphony, Johnstown Symphony, the Debussy Trio, the Seattle Chamber Music Society and the Organ Artists Series of Pittsburgh. His “Symphony: This Will Be Our Reply” was premiered to critical acclaim by a consortium of orchestras in 2019, including the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra (TN), the Bemidji Symphony Orchestra (MN) and the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony (CA). March, 2022 saw the premiere of The Warming Sea for the Maine Science Festival/Bangor Symphony Orchestra and Concerto for Violin and Cello: Un Pasto con Luciana e Mario was premiered by the Atlanta Musicians Orchestra in June, 2022. Upcoming commissions include Concerto for Violin: Paths to Dignity written for performances with violinist Mitchell Newman in 2023 and 2024.

September, 2015, brought the vaunted Albany Records release of a new CD, IN TRUTH Lucas Richman, which features the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra performing his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra: In Truth (Jeffrey Biegel, piano), in addition to his Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra: The Clearing (Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida, oboe) and Three Pieces for Cello and Orchestra (Inbal Segev, cello). In November, 2009, as the result of an NEA commission, the San Diego Symphony Orchestra premiered his Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant, a setting of poetry by Children’s Poet Laureate, Jack Prelutsky, which Jahja Ling and the SDSO recorded for release in December, 2011.

Mr. Richman is a respected leader in the field of planning and conducting concerts for young people and his works written specifically for children have been featured in young people’s concerts presented by numerous orchestras including the Atlanta Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Antonio Symphony. Taking children’s concert programming and musical education to new heights for the next generation, Mr. Richman is responsible for the creation of an animated guide to classical music, which is featured in full symphonic concerts. The character, Picardy Penguin®, has appeared with orchestras throughout the United States, including the symphonies of Knoxville, Bangor, Syracuse and Rochester.

Mr. Richman received a GRAMMY Award (2011) in the category of Best Classical Crossover Album for having conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on Christopher Tin’s classical/world fusion album, Calling All Dawns. For more information, visit www.lucasrichman.com.

David Fitzpatrick

David Fitzpatrick is an Information Technology Senior Manager at IBM and a Teaching Associate Professor at North Carolina State University focusing on issues of Homelessness, Hunger and Substance Use Disorders.

David has over 25 years of experience managing personnel, projects, and finances.  He has experience in data and program management, cloud technologies, and leadership development.  He is certified in IBM, AWS and Azure cloud technologies.  He has extensive experience in managing onshore and offshore teams.

He is a Teaching Associate Professor and member of the Graduate Faculty in the School Social Work at North Carolina State University. David earned a PhD in in the College of Education at NC State. In addition, he has a Master of Clinical and Substance Abuse Counseling, Master of Rehabilitation from East Carolina University, and a Master of Management from North Carolina State University.

Kirk Long

Kirk Long is a 54-year-old resident of Healing Transitions who has a long history of episodic homelessness. Kirk has had many stints in detox and treatment programs.  After his last attempt at treatment, Kirk engaged with a cross-functional team to deliver shelter, mental health services and substance use treatment which as allowed to reach 15 months of uninterrupted recovery.

Kirk is a veteran and has a keen interest in playing the piano by ear.  He is a testament to the belief that it may take some longer than others but, in his words, “Never quit praying for the miracle”.

David Prater

David Prater (he/him or they/them) is a person in long-term, sustained recovery from a substance use disorder. After many years of crystal meth addiction which led to multiple incarcerations and homelessness, David achieved sobriety on May 26, 2018. Today, he is a Peer Support Specialist and first responder with the City of Durham’s HEART Team, and is pursuing a degree in social work. David enjoys long-distance running, audio books, travel, and spending time with his two partners and their puppy, Pepper.

Decorba White

Decorba White is a formerly homeless person who is in long-term recovery from a substance use disorder. Completing a long-term recovery program at a shelter helped to change Decorba’s perception of the helping professions and served as a catalyst in her decision to dedicate her life to helping to improve the life of others. 

Decorba’s journey in the helping profession began as a Recovery Engagement Specialist and is now the Emergency Shelter Manager at Healing Transitions in Raleigh, NC.  She is enrolled at Wake Technical College where she is pursuing an AA with a goal of transferring to a four-year university to obtain a bachelor’s followed by a master’s degree in Social Work. She is currently registered with the NCASPPB and actively working toward credentialing as a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor. 

Decorba, her wife and fourteen-year-old daughter live in Raleigh where she is very active in the community.  Ms. White currently serves as Chair of the NC 507 Governance Board which is tasked with tackling homelessness in Wake County by making it rare and brief, she also serves on the City of Raleigh Substance Use Advisory Commission and is an active member in the NC 507 Continuum of Care who serves our most vulnerable.

Mary Jean Seyda

Mary Jean is currently a Senior Advisor with Mission Advancement at CASA where she retired as CEO in November 2021.  Mary Jean has been with CASA since 2001, and has an extensive background in homeless service program design, affordable housing development and management. Prior to joining CASA, Mary Jean was the Homeless Services Director for Wake County, served as co-chair of the Wake County Continuum of Care, and helped craft the Wake 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness. Mary Jean served for six years on Orange County’s Partnership to End Homelessness and chaired the task force for three years. In 2014, the Chapel Hill Town Council appointed Mary Jean to the Town’s Housing Advisory Board to assist the Council in promoting and developing a full spectrum of housing opportunities that meet the needs of the community.

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