World Premiere: Invictus & An African American Requiem

Chicago-based composer Damien Geter is an acclaimed artist who infuses classical music with styles from the Black diaspora. In An African American Requiem, Geter uses the traditional Latin requiem liturgy as the underlying structure with layered spirituals and a setting of civil rights movement leader and suffragette Ida B. Wells’ speech Lynching is Color Line Murder. 

"Geter takes full advantage of the wide-open emotional space offered by the form, offering completely different pathways through mourning, and making the “Requiem” very much his own creation.” -Washington Post

Invictus by Chicago composer Stacy Garrop is a powerful new piano concerto inspired by William Ernest Henley’s poem of the same name, depicting resilience and determination. Through bold orchestration and virtuosic piano passages written for internationally acclaimed pianist Marta Aznavoorian, the piece captures the unbreakable human spirit in the face of adversity.

Out of the night that covers me,
       Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
       For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
       I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
       My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
       Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
       Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
       How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
       I am the captain of my soul.

Invictus was co-commissioned by Marta Aznavoorian, pianist, and the American Composers Forum. American Composers Forum support is made possible by The Thelma E. Hunter Fund. Marta and Stacy wish to thank individual donors Alexandra Nichols, Madeleine Plonsker, Jim Stone, and Nicholas Yasillo for making this commission possible.