Cycles of My Being

February 22. 2018

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February 22. 2018

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An extraordinary evening of vocal music Cycles of My Being

Starring Lawrence Brownlee, Tenor
Myra Huang, Piano

Lyric Unlimited is excited to present an intimate evening of vocal music with Cycles of My Being, a new song cycle exploring the realities of life as a black man in America.

Composed by Tyshawn Sorey with lyrics by Terrance Hayes, the Chicago-premiere event will star celebrated tenor Lawrence Brownlee in a solo recital with pianist Myra Huang. The event will be performed during Black History Month on Thursday, February 22 at 7pm at the DuSable Museum of African American History.

This new song cycle is the creation of a dynamic trio linked through classical music and jazz: composer Tyshawn Sorey, a “prodigious multi-instrumentalist and composer” who “transcends the borders of jazz, classical, and experimental music” (The New Yorker); lyricist Terrance Hayes, “a vital voice that explores race and art and the roving power of language” (NPR); and Lawrence Brownlee, one of “the world's leading bel canto tenors” (The Associated Press) and a favorite star on the Lyric Opera of Chicago stage.

Cycles of My Being is a co-commission with Opera Philadelphia, and Carnegie Hall.

Location: DuSable Museum of African American History

Cycles of My Being

I think of this as a project wherein the voices of black men combine to create a new and magical expression of black manhood. This, at least, is my impression after working with Larry Brownlee to shape the cycle’s arc. We had long, rich conversations about masculinity and blackness. Larry wrote the wonderful cycle parts "IV. Hate" and "V. Hope (pt. 2)"amid our conversations about the project. The other works in the cycle are adapted from a series of sonnets I wrote during the first 200 days of the Trump presidency. They cover a range of feelings and topics and will be in a forthcoming manuscript, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, (Penguin, 2018).

Here the sonnets have been rewritten (sometimes dramatically so) as songs that maintain the lyrical core of the poems. New pieces include “Each Day I Rise, I Know,” which I based on a passage from a poem Larry wrote. His lines reminded me of Maya Angelou. The piece that begins, “When sleeping hope is a swagger” is the result of later conversations with Larry about ending the cycle with a gesture of hope. After writing it, I asked Larry to write a poem using the same structure. Initially I thought we might combine the two, but after reading Larry’s piece, I thought we should end the cycle with it. It brings the cycle to a conclusion of unity and hope. Once Tyshawn Sorey's music is added, our voices will constitute a unique and moving cycle of expression.

— Terrance Hayes

The ideas, themes and experiences that make up Cycles of My Being have been on my mind for quite some time. As I’ve watched men of color endure undeserved aggression, incarceration, brutality, and even death, I’ve been forced to consider my thoughts and questions around what it means to be a black man in America today, and how we as a people are viewed and treated.

Working with Terrance Hayes and Tyshawn Sorey – two extraordinarily insightful and talented black men at the pinnacle of their respective art forms – has allowed each of us to bring our different perspectives to this piece, and to find a common ground in both our shared cultural history and the unique individual paths that have brought us to this point. Together, we have tried to create something that speaks to the day-to day life of a black man in the United States, and the thoughts and questions he experiences as he moves through the world.

These are divided times. But the goal of this piece is neither to widen those rifts, nor to re-open old wounds; the goal is foster mutual respect, understanding, and communication across races and generations. History unfolds in cycles, and with this work, we hope to balance the stark challenges of our present reality with a resolute resilience, and an unwavering hope for a better future.

— Lawrence Brownlee

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Lawrence Brownlee on Cycles of my Being

Lyric Unlimited is excited to present an intimate evening of vocal music with Cycles of My Being, a new song cycle exploring the realities of life as a black man in America.

Meet the artists

Lawrence Brownlee

Tenor

Winner of 2017’s “Male Singer of the Year” award from both the International Opera Awards and Bachtrack, the celebrated American tenor has triumphed in many roles at Lyric.

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Terrance Hayes

Lyricist

Author, poet, New York Times Magazine poetry editor, and University of Pittsburgh professor Terrance Hayes “puts invincibly restless wordplay at the service of strong emotions” (The New York Times). His work has been recognized with honors including the 2010 National Book Award (for Lighthead), a Whiting Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a MacArthur Fellowship. His most recent poetry collection, How to Be Drawn, was a finalist for both the 2015 National Book Award and the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award, besides receiving the 2016 NAACP Image Award for Poetry.

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Tyshawn Sorey

Composer

Perhaps best known as an improvisational jazz percussionist, Tyshawn Sorey is a lauded composer and multi-instrumentalist who “is able to compose and dissect his own music at the highest level, and also to detail the historical context of his work” (The New York Times). A 2017 recipient of a MacArthur “genius grant” Fellowship, his work defies categorization, straddling genres and combining African diasporic, avant-garde, and western classical music through improvisation. The New Yorker called his 2016 release The Inner Spectrum of Variables “a creation that defeats all preconceptions.”

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Myra Huang

Pianist

Acclaimed by Opera News as being “among the top accompanists of her generation,” pianist Myra Huang regularly performs in recitals and chamber music concerts around the world. In addition to many chamber music concerts and recitals at the Palau De Les Arts in Valencia, Spain, she recently performed recitals at Carnegie Halls Weill Hall, the University of Chicago, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with tenor Nicholas Phan, and at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall with soprano Susanna Phillips. She also performs regularly in association with the Marilyn Horne Foundation at Carnegie Hall and throughout the US. Huang has served on the music staffs of the Washington National Opera and New York City Opera. She works annually with Placido Domingo for his competition Operalia in different countries around the world. Among the conductors she has worked with are James Conlon, Marco Armiliato, Riccardo Frizza, Richard Hickox, Christopher Hogwood, Daniel Oren, Robert Spano, Patrick Summers, and Xian Zhang. From 2006 until 2008, she was a member of the music staff at the Palau De Les Arts in Valencia, Spain where she worked closely with the artistic director, Lorin Maazel as well as Zubin Mehta. In 2010, Myra was invited by the Metropolitan Opera to accompany the singers in the Metropolitan Opera National Council competition on stage at the Met. A graduate of the prestigious Houston Grand Opera Studio, Huang received her Bachelor degree in piano performance from The Juilliard School under the tutelage of Martin Canin, and her Master of Music degree in collaborative piano from The Manhattan School under Warren Jones.

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