MARGARET BONDS: Credo & Simon Bore the Cross
Listen to the single, “Credo II. Especially Do I Believe In the Negro Race” on Spotify now!
On February 3, 2023, New York City’s Dessoff Choirs and conductor Malcolm J. Merriweather released world-premiere recordings of Credo and Simon Bore the Cross, two cantatas by 20th-century African American composer Margaret Bonds.
Credo is set to W. E. B. Du Bois' prose poem of the same name. Simon Bore the Cross was a collaboration between Bonds and her close friend and collaborator, Langston Hughes. The recording, the ensemble’s second for AVIE Records, unites The Dessoff Choirs with full orchestra and features soloists soprano Janinah Burnett and bass-baritone Dashon Burton.
The Dessoff Choirs’ performance of Credo is from an authoritative edition by Temple University music professor Rollo Dilworth, while the edition and orchestration of Simon Bore the Cross is by Malcolm J. Merriweather. The album’s liner notes are provided by leading Bonds authority Ashley Jackson.
Bonds’ Credo sets Du Bois’ seven-part prose poem of 1904 and bears the composer’s evocative vocal writing style – by turns lyrical and powerful – infused with elements from various black musical genres. The first complete performance of the work was given the year after Bonds’ death, to favorable reviews: “Credo verified her talent, her sensitivity, her proficiency as orchestrator and her concern for the Negro spiritual” (Los Angeles Times).
Simon Bore the Cross centers on Simon of Cyrene from North Africa, who carried Jesus’ cross on the way to Calvary. By establishing Simon as a key character in the passion narrative, Bonds and Hughes gave African American audiences the opportunity to see themselves within the biblical canon. Hughes commenced work on the text in 1962. Bonds began setting it to music the following year and completed a piano-vocal score in 1965. Despite plans for both the publication and premiere of the work, neither was achieved during the composer’s lifetime.
MEET THE ARTISTS
Margaret Bonds (1913 – 1972), a native of Chicago, grew up in a cultural household that hosted some of the leading artists and activists of the mid-20th century. In the 1930s she encountered poet Langston Hughes for the first time; their sibling-like chemistry led to a lasting friendship and many fruitful collaborations.
The career of Margaret Bonds extended from the 1930s through the 1960s, a period in which the nation’s cultural and political landscapes were dramatically shaped by the Harlem Renaissance, the Chicago Renaissance, and the modern civil rights movement. Simon Bore the Cross and Credo were written during the last decade of her life and in many ways reflect the unique musical language of a seasoned composer.
Over ninety percent of Bonds’s works contain text, confirming the importance of words and ideas to the composer. Inspired by her culture, she often set the words of black writers while incorporating black musical idioms in her compositions. By centering black historical figures and setting words by black writers, she honors the accomplishments of her ancestors and contemporaries.
Conductor Malcolm J. Merriweather is Music Director of New York City’s The Dessoff Choirs, founded in 1924 and known for path-breaking performances of choral works from the pre-Baroque era through the 21st century.
Highlights of Merriweather’s 2019-20 season included the release of two major recordings. With Dessoff, Merriweather conducts and performs selected songs on MARGARET BONDS: The Ballad of the Brown King & Selected Songs released by AVIE Records in November 2019; this project is the premiere recording of the composer’s magnum opus. In this new arrangement, Merriweather scored Bonds’ 1954 work for orchestra for strings, harp, and organ. He is also featured as the baritone soloist in the Oratorio Society of New York’s recording of Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell’s Sanctuary Road released on the Naxos label.
Bass-baritone Dashon Burton has established a vibrant career appearing regularly throughout the US and Europe in favorite pieces, including Bach’s St. John and St. Matthew Passions and the Mass in B Minor, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, and Mozart’s Requiem. A multiple award-winning singer, Mr. Burton won his second Grammy Award in March 2021 for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album with his performance featured in Dame Ethyl Smyth’s masterwork The Prison with The Experiential Orchestra (Chandos). As an original member of the groundbreaking vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, he won his first Grammy Award for their inaugural recording of all new commissions, including Caroline Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Partita for 8 Voices. His other recordings include Songs of Struggle & Redemption: We Shall Overcome (Acis), the Grammy-nominated recording of Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road (Naxos); Holocaust, 1944 by Lori Laitman (Acis); and Caroline Shaw’s The Listeners with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.
Visionary performance artist Janinah Burnett is a versatile singing actor, musician, writer, arranger, and educator. Janinah is in demand and has thrilled audiences internationally with signature roles including Mimì in La Bohème, Leïla in Les Pêcheurs des Perles, Donna Anna and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Micaëla in Carmen, Marguerite in Faust, Violetta in La Traviata and many, many more. An original cast member of Baz Luhrmann’s La Bohème on Broadway as Mimì, Janinah received a Los Angeles Theater Alliance Award and appeared on the Tony Awards with this production. More recently, Janinah was a principal artist at the Metropolitan Opera for 8 seasons. Presently, Janinah is making appearances as “Carlotta Giudicelli” in Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. In February 2021, Janinah released her debut album entitled Love Color of Your Butterfly which features Janinah’s musical arrangements and collaborations with some of the world’s finest jazz musicians. Released on her own record label Clazz Records, Love the Color of Your Butterfly is an amalgamation of Jazz, Opera, Art Song, Oratorio, R and B, and Spirituals and has been featured in numerous publications including the Financial Times, Playbill, Broadway World, Downbeat Magazine, Opera News.