A Standing Witness

• A Standing Witness: Thursday, March 21 • 7:30pm • Old Cabell Hall • Tickets • FREE for UVA Students

  • Stay for a Talkback with Rita Dove, Composer Richard Danielpour & Michael Boriskin, Pianist and Copland House Artistic & Executive Director

• Richard Danielpour, Colloquium: Friday, March 22 • 4:00pm • 107 Old Cabell Hall

• A Standing Witness: Saturday, March 23 • 7:30pm • Old Cabell Hall • Tickets • FREE for UVA Students

  • Stay for a Talkback with Rita Dove, Composer Richard Danielpour & Michael Boriskin, Pianist and Copland House Artistic & Executive Director

In the News!!

• Rita Dove, Richard Danielpour Partner on Song Cycle Exploring America's Tumultuous 20th Century • Daily Progress • by Jane Sathe
• History and Poetry Meet in ‘A Standing Witness’ • UVA Today • by Alice Berry
• A Standing Witness: The Last 50 Years of U.S. History in Song • Radio IQ • by Sandy Hausman 
• Poetic Unity: 'A Standing Witness' Examines Our Nation’s Recent History Through a Cycle of Songs • CVille Weekly • Tami Keaveny

UVA Arts to Present the Powerful and Provocative Song Cycle  'A Standing Witness' on March 21 and 23 at Old Cabell Hall

Charlottesville, VA – January 29, 2024 – UVA Arts will present A Standing Witness, a powerful and provocative song cycle collaboration between Grammy Award-winning composer Richard Danielpour and Pulitzer Prize-winner, former U.S. Poet Laureate, and UVA faculty member Rita Dove on Thursday, March 21 and Saturday, March 23 at 7:30 PM at Old Cabell Hall. The piece will feature internationally renowned mezzo soprano Susan Graham along with the acclaimed chamber ensemble Music from Copland House.

A Standing Witness is a 75-minute-long cycle of 14 songs and one instrumental elegy that is a sweeping retrospective of momentous events and eras in American history over the past half-century from the perspective of an observer who has seen it all yet is not revealed until the epilogue. By highlighting and remarking upon historic events ranging from the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy to Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, Woodstock, 9/11 and more, Dove challenges audiences to truly consider what it is to be an American with this collection of “songs you need to hear” (Opera News) that Vermont Public Radio has said has “the potential to become one of the most influential compositions of the century.” 

The song cycle was written by Danielpour, one of the most gifted and sought-after composers of his generation, for Susan Graham, hailed as “America’s favorite mezzo” byGramophone, and “an artist to treasure” by the New York Times. Graham rose to the highest echelons of the classical world within years of her debut, mastering an astonishing range of repertoire and genres along the way. Her operatic roles span four centuries, from Monteverdi’s Poppea to Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, which was written especially for her. A familiar face at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, she also maintains a strong international presence at such key venues as Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet, Santa Fe Opera and the Hollywood Bowl. 

Music from Copland House, the resident ensemble at Aaron Copland’s National Historic Landmark home in New York, is known for uniting past and present, and the American and non-American, as it journeys through 150 years of musical legacy to perform everything from nineteenth century works to contemporary compositions. Lauded by The New Yorker as “bold,” “adventurous,” and “superb,” the ensemble includes flutist Carol Wincenc, clarinetist Benjamin Fingland, violinist Siwoo Kim, violist Melissa Reardon, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach, and pianist Michael Boriskin. 

The UVA Department of Music will present a colloquium by Richard Danielpour on Thursday, March 21 at 4:00 PM at Old Cabell Hall, Room 107. The event is free and open to the public. 

After each performance, the public is invited to stay for a half-hour talkback with Rita Dove, Composer Richard Danielpour & Michael Boriskin, Pianist and Copland House Artistic & Executive Director. 

Tickets for A Standing Witness range from $10-40 (with a 20% discount for UVA faculty and staff and free Arts Dollars tickets available for UVA students). Tickets are available at the UVA Arts Box Office in the UVA Drama Building on Culbreth Road (109 Culbreth Road), online at artsboxoffice@virginia.edu, or by phone at 434-924-3376. UVA Arts Box Office hours of operation are noon to 5:00 PM, Tuesday through Friday. Tickets, pending availability, will also be available at Old Cabell Hall one hour before each performance. 

A Standing Witness was created through a commission by Music Accord, a consortium of top classical music presenting organizations throughout the United States that commissions new works in the chamber music, instrumental recital, and song genres. The Consortium’s goal is to create a significant number of new works and to ensure presentation of these works in venues throughout this country and, if the occasion arises, internationally. Music Accord awards commissions principally to performers who are US citizens or reside in the US and assists these performers in selecting composers who are United States citizens or who reside in the United States. 

A Standing Witness is presented with the generous support of The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, the UVA Arts Council, The Gassmann Fund for Innovation in Music & the Department of Music at UVA. 

A Standing Witness has the potential to become one of the most influential compositions of this century. ~ Vermont Public Radio

Songs America needs to hear. ~ Opera News

Powerful, serious, and important ... if this piece appears in your neighborhood, see it and go home thinking! ~ Musical America

A spellbinding musical journey. ~ Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Redefines what it is to listen to fine music in the 21st-century. ~ District Fray magazine [Washington, DC]

Historic Evening at the Kennedy Center: “Graham's gorgeous and resonant voice enveloped and caressed the descriptive words and phrases with élan. The exciting Music from Copland House ensemble performed with fervent zeal and finesse ... Dove writes with a visceral, pleading imagery that is biblical in cadence at times yet very aptly of the cultural moment ... an almost apocalyptic edge that bears witness to the myriad dramas and cultural lodestones of the last half-century. Danielpour's music is the seed from which this exciting new work blooms, and is a veritable feast of moods showcased by the Copland House ensemble, which superbly performed the music from the elevated highs to the moodier depths." ~ Broadway World