Two hundred and fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the words of the Founding Fathers feel newly urgent. Gathering to hear American music, in in a city that has always stood for pluralism and possibility and in a neighborhood that was described by poet Mascha Kaléko as “the melting pot in the melting pot” is itself an act of faith — in what the Republic has been, and in what it still can be.
In “We the People,” Poetica Musica draws on music from America’s first 25 decades – including works by Robert Beaser, Aaron Copland, William Bolcom, Hall Johnson, and others — to trace a thread of distinctly American expression across generations and styles.
Dubbed "Good Will Ambassadors" by The New York Times, Poetica Musica is among the most widely traveled chamber ensembles working today. The group has performed across more than 60 nations – from Turkey and Azerbaijan to Peru, Jamaica, and Tajikistan – and was honored with the Ambassador's Award for Cultural Diplomacy from the U.S. Department of State. That record of musical ambassadorship lends particular weight to a program built around America’s 250th anniversary.
The concert marks the official opening of this year’s Village Trip, an annual festival celebrating “the Village” – Greenwich Village and the East Village – and the communities which have long made this unique Manhattan neighborhood a place of artistic exchange. "A republic, if you can keep it,” Benjamin Franklin allegedly quipped at the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. This concert, and the wider festival, implicitly explore that prescient concern.
