Following the August release by Platoon of The Central Park Five, the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera by American composer Anthony Davis, this fall Parnther returns to the San Francisco Symphony (Sep 8–12), New York Philharmonic (Oct 28–31), and Hollywood Bowl, where he supports star vocalist Cynthia Erivo (Oct 15).
The conductor will also make his London Symphony Orchestra debut with the world premiere performances of David Önaç’s Atlantic Requiem, a major new choral-orchestral commission commemorating the lives of Africans trafficked into slavery (Oct 11m & 11).
A 40-minute, five-movement piece for choir and orchestra, this was commissioned from Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize-winning British composer David Önaç by Culture&, a UK arts and heritage charity, with support from Lloyd’s of London. Drawing on Lloyd’s recent research into its former role in insuring both the ships and their human “cargo” in the transatlantic slave trade, Önaç’s new work is set to a libretto combining the Catholic mass for the dead with excerpts from a 1791 Connecticut Grand Jury testimony and legal documents from the Lloyd’s archive that testify to the objectification, commodification, and dehumanization of the enslaved. The composer, who sought to capture not only this horrific past but also a “perhaps hopeful future,” explains:
“My hope is that this combination of text and music will provide a vehicle for others to express sorrow at the terrible loss of life and the shocking blindness to true value and to yearn for a future where all human beings appreciate the high dignity of all others – and to believe that such a future would be filled with joy.”
Under Parnther’s baton, the work’s first performances will feature the LSO, together with the BBC Singers and three American vocal soloists: Grammy-winning soprano Brittany Renee, Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, and Hurst Artist of the Year-winning tenor Orson Van Gay II (Oct 11m & 11). Their account of the Atlantic Requiem will be recorded for future physical and digital international release on the orchestra’s dedicated LSO Live label.