Fellow Citizens

Description

GRAMMYr Award-winning tenor Nicholas Phan's thoughtful and probing recital program Fellow Citizens delves into stories of immigration and migration through compositional voices ranging from the 19th century to the present day. Nick explains, "The 'wanderer' has been a trope at the centre of song repertoire since the advent of the art form fostered by travelling troubadours; through the migrant journeymen protagonists of Schubert, Mahler, and their contemporaries; to today's itinerant singer-songwriters." Fellow Citizens, with Nick's fellow GRAMMYr Award winner pianist Myra Huang, is bookended by works of composers who migrated during their lifetimes. The album opens with "God Bless America," Irving Berlin's musical prayer of thanksgiving to the nation that gave him refuge as a child fleeing pogroms in Russia. In the closing set of songs are by Robert Owens and Florence Price, each of whom followed the path of America's Great Migration in the twentieth century, whilst Rebecca Clarke's relocation to the United States was prompted by the Second World War. Songs by British-American composer Rebecca Clarke and British composer Errollyn Wallen CBE, alongside works by Franz Schubert and Ralph Vaughan Williams, explore the act of traveling from one place to another. Folk-song arrangements by Bela Bartok and Antonin Dvorak -- both of whom spent extended periods in America -- sit alongside an arrangement of the folk-gospel tune Poor Wayfaring Stranger by Ohio-born composer Steven Mark Kohn.