On September 12, Editor in Chief Sahmaya Busby attended a concert for the Miller Theatre’s Composer Portraits series celebrating composer, pianist, and 2023 MacArthur Fellow Courtney Bryan. The composer’s music explored refuge, loss, freedom, and the political landscape of the United States.

Before attending the Miller Theatre’s Composer Portraits concert centering the works of composer Courtney Bryan, DMA ’14, I briefly met my Music Hum professor to collect my ticket. My professor had secured tickets for our class and excitedly handed them to my classmate and me before quickly assuring the event was “going to be great.” 

By the night’s end, I realized this would be an understatement. 

The Miller Theatre lobby was abuzz with students, faculty members, and other New York residents as I made my way to my Orchestra-section seat. I had no expectations for the concert and admittedly did not read the description fully before deciding to attend. 

I browsed the program and learned the concert would contain three pieces composed by Courtney Bryan, a composer, pianist, and 2023 MacArthur Fellow. Words popped from the page in sequences— familiar ones like “piano,” “soprano,” the more abstract “freedom,” and then surprisingly, “Supreme Court.” The lights dimmed as I scanned the page; the concert began.

The first piece, titled “Blessed,” was performed on the piano by Bryan herself with classical vocalist Damian Norfleet singing and reciting the spoken word poem inspired by the Bible’s Matthew 5. The performers—adorned in all white—were the foreground to a film playing on a screen on the back wall of the stage. The film, directed by Tiona Nekkia McClodden, featured images and video footage of Bryan’s home church, St. Luke’s Episcopal in New Orleans, Louisiana. 

Images of the Bible, a painting, and an organ knob that read “Trumpet Bryan” flashed across the screen. Footage of Bryan herself danced across the screen as the real-life Bryan created the music on her keyboard. McClodden’s masterful editing alongside the music created a sense of nostalgia for a place unknown to most of the audience.  Warm hues, browns, and beiges blanketed the screen as Norfleet bellowed lines referencing the Bible verse, repeatedly questioning: “Who is blessed?”

Bryan carried the audience through the multimedia performance with her melodies of the piano. Beginning softly and adding jazz-style improvisations throughout, the piano constantly guided the emotion of the performance as if it was captaining a ship through uncharted waters. The strength and emotive power of the piece built as Norfleet’s performance became more passionate. Here, we came to understand how Bryan centered justice through biblical passages. Norfleet’s impassioned refrain of “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you” illustrated the mournful landscape that would lead us to the next piece, “Requiem,” a recognition of death.

“Requiem” was performed by vocalists in the Quince Ensemble (Liz Pearse, Kayleigh Butcher, Amanda DeBoer Bartlett, and Carrie Henneman Shaw) and instrumentalists in the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) (Campbell MacDonald, clarinet; Gareth Flowers, trumpet; TJ Robinson, trombone; Kyle Turner, tuba; Cara Warnaar, percussion). Conductor Rebekah Heller carried the ensemble through Bryan’s unique composition characterized by heavy dissonance that resolved to create a complete, whole sound between the vocals and instruments. The piece felt aptly mournful and began with a series of wailing polyrhythmic melodies from the quartet of singers donning cool-colored gowns. The combination of the trumpet, clarinet, and saxophone created music filled with contemplation and the sense of reawakening. 

Bryan’s concerto weaved in spoken word elements as the singers chanted phrases referencing the Bible verse: “All come from dust” and the notable “Dust to dust.” Interpolated over these were pieces from other Bible verses—the singers passionately and powerfully recited lines from First Corinthians, “We will not all die, but we will all be changed.” The singers bellowed the lines, changing pitches with rapidity and strength to create a surreal audioscape that left the audience enraptured by a sense of mourning. 

The middle of the composition featured a stunning clarinet solo that disrupted the barrier of the melody and returned once more, filling the poignant emptiness with a wholeness. Bryan’s storytelling within her compositions imagined a world of pain, suffering, and even death, and yet by the end, there was a sense of optimism embedded in a line from a famously somber book of the Bible—Revelation. The vocal quartet’s otherworldly lamentations were closed by the words “Death will be no more,” leaving the audience with the image of a hopeful horizon after the passage of a storm. 

In a mid-concert conversation with Executive Director of the Columbia School of the Arts Melissa Smey, Bryan explained that she composed “Requiem” in 2019 before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Dust to Dust” was a single song inspired by the Bible verse Ecclesiastes 3:20 which reads, “All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.” Amidst the devastating pandemic that rapidly infected and killed millions, and the collective mourning that surrounded the Black Lives Matter movement, the piece’s prescience was apparent. Bryan continued to develop the piece, naming it for its style of composition that memorializes the dead. 

During the conversation, Bryan also noted her connection to her church, St. Luke’s Episcopal, during the pandemic; she played the keyboard for the church virtually and later, she returned to play in-person. Immediately, I remembered the pensive feeling of “Blessed,” and how the collaboration between Bryan and McCleod coated the music in warm tones. I couldn’t help but appreciate the genius of the multimedia experience born from the combination of film and music that made us homesick for a place we did not know and confront loss some may not have felt. 

During the interview, Smey prefaced the last piece, “DREAMING (Freedom Sounds),” by noting it was commissioned by a couple for their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Bryan added that the political pertinence of the composition was spurred by the dissenting opinions of US Supreme Court decisions within the last two years, including those that overturned Roe v. Wade and ceased Affirmative Action. She also drew inspiration from the words of her mentor, George E. Lewis—“What is the sound of freedom and how might we listen to for within that sound?”

Birds, the piece seemingly replied, with its first staccato instrumental notes that resembled chirping. For this piece, the ICE and Norfleet returned with Alice Teyssier, a soprano vocalist. The piece was divided into six sections: “The Color Line,” “We Dissent,” “What is the Sound of Freedom?,” “Freedom Dreams,” “The Garden,” and “Grace.” Bryan began the composition with “The Color Line,” inspired by a Frederick Douglass quote, “Out of the depths of slavery has come this prejudice and this color line.” Norfleet and Teyssier methodically followed the rhythms of the music as they recited the poem, impressively playing with vocal inflection and tempo. 

“We Dissent” captured the soul of the composition by bringing contemporary issues in the US to the forefront. Bryan, who explained she was influenced by the “music” of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting opinions, created the composition with direct quotes from the documents interrupted with refrains of “We Dissent.” The next piece, “What is the Sound of Freedom?,” was moved by wails and shouts from the vocalists. Bryan undertook the task of capturing the collective voice of not only Justice Jackson but also a large part of the country. The piece’s spoken and sung components traced a history of lost freedom in the United States while the instrumental composition was filled with moments for contemplation. 

As the performers moved through the poem, the music reflected a world of freedom, movement, and possibility. Empty spaces were filled with percussion, woodwinds, and jazz-style music. But most importantly, empty spaces were allowed to linger. 

Bryan’s ability to shape the feelings of a musical experience by using emptiness, layers, dissonance, and unity gave audience members a universal language on which to embed emotions. Her ability to consider the instrumentality of vocals to convey complex and pressing themes of our social and political situation created a cohesive body of work—one that screams catharsis for those left without words during the rapid changes of the past four years.

The concert was one of several in the Composer Portraits series celebrating innovative contemporary composers. Columbia University School of the Arts hosts it at the Miller Theatre. The concert featuring the works of Courtney Bryan marked the start of the series’ 25th season and anniversary. The next Composer Portraits concert on Thursday, November 14 will celebrate the works of composer Miguel Zenón. Tickets can be found here.

Courtney Bryan by Rob Davidson via Miller Theatre