Free America: Songs of Resistance and Rebellion

Music, say our American ancestors, may soothe the heart, but it also sustains the search for values.

This program explores, in a present moment when American ideals are undergoing such deep challenges, the vital and life-affirming sounds of the young Republic, as its citizens sang and played forth their love of freedom and their rejection of tyranny.

The rough-hewn sounds of New England citizen-composers still ring true and strong to our contemporary ears. And so do Liberty’s attendants — feminists, abolitionists, freed slaves, religious minorities and the insolent scallywags of “Yankee Doodle” — all remind us that in our musical roots lies our true strength.

These songs, both written and from oral traditions, offer an enlarged, intercultural perspective on the music played and sung in the early republic’s first century. They will include marches, anthems, spirituals and ballads, restating our commitment to democracy. First commissioned by the Paris Philharmonie in 2018, a new Harmonia Mundi CD.

July 12: Alna Meetinghouse, Alna, ME
July 16: Tanglewood Music Center, Lenox, MA
October 25: Harvard Memorial Church, Cambridge, MA