Scene from Act 1 Freedom of Speech "A Quiet Revolution"
Four Freedoms
Music and libretto by Joseph C. Phillips Jr.
Performed by Maryland Opera Studio Friday February 14, 2020 @ The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, College Park, MD
Sarah Stembel, soprano (Commissioner 1)
Colin Doyle, tenor (Commissioner 2)
​© 2020 Numen Music/BMI All Rights Reserved
In President Roosevelt's State of the Union speech from 1941 he outlined "Four Freedoms" that everyone should experience and live, "everywhere in the world": Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear. Those ideals still resonated almost 80 years later as I wrote the words and story for my 60-minute opera Four Freedoms, which I based on four contemporary topics (voter disenfranchisement, worship and discrimination, immigration, and climate change) that all tie together to illuminate how far away as a country, and a world, we are from living up to those ideals.

Four Freedoms
an opera
Music & libretto by Joseph C Phillips Jr

Original version: 11 singers & piano (or 12 musicians: Flute, Alto Saxophone, Bassoon, Trumpet, Horn, Trombone, Piano, Harp, Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass)

Also available version: 4 singers (2 sopranos, Tenor, Baritone/Bass) & piano (or 12 musicians, see above)
Prologue 
“Everywhere in the World”
Chorus

Act 1 Freedom of Speech
Scene 1 “A Quiet Revolution” 
Commissioner 1 (Soprano); Citizen 1 (Soprano); Citizen 2 (Soprano);
Citizen 3 (Mezzo Soprano); Citizen 4 (Baritone/Bass); Commissioner 2 (Tenor) 

Inspired by the attacks on the Voting Rights Act from the Supreme Court of the United States decisions Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, AttorneyGeneral, et al. (2013​) and Supreme Court of the United States: Rucho et al. v. Common Cause et al. (2019), Act 1, depicts a community meeting where citizens rise up in protest (similar to the original Norman Rockwell painting "Freedom of Speech") against the assault on their voting rights, and wishing those threats were all a "bunch of fake news." 

Act 2 Freedom of Worship 
Scene 1 “It’s Not About the Cake”
Scene 2 “It Is So Ordered” 
Woman 1 (Soprano); Woman 2 (Mezzo Soprano); 
Judge (Tenor); Owner (Baritone) 

"... one has a right to espouse religious beliefs, but not the absolute right to exercise and practice such beliefs in utter disregard of the clear constitutional rights of other citizens. And when there is sincere, personal opposition between rights, these disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect or indignities, "Justice Kennedy's words I used in Act 2 Scene 2. This Act was inspired by the 2018 Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd., et al. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission et al. about a bakers refusal to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.

Act 3 Freedom from Fear 
Scene 1 “We Couldn’t Wait Anymore” 
Mother (Soprano); Father (Baritone/Bass); Chorus

Among all the Acts and choruses I wrote and composed for the opera, Act 3 "Freedom from Fear" is the most personal. After the grief and sadness upon seeing the photo of Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his little girl Angie Valeria face down in the water on the shore of the Rio Grande, I began to contemplate what they must have been feeling as their family left their home in El Salvador, spent two weeks in a makeshift camp on border of Mexico, and then the despair that drove them to the Rio Grande to what they hoped would be the opportunity to make a better life--for them and for Valeria. Both the Norman Rockwell "Freedom from Fear" and the new For Freedoms "Freedom from Fear" show parents hoping to reassure their kids they are loved and safe in a world which increasingly is hostile and unstable. In composing I thought of what would our family do to ensure opportunities for a better life. And this is how Act 3 was born. 

Act 4 Freedom from Want 
Scene 1 “Song Of The Earth”
Girl (Soprano) 

In Steven Spielberg's film Lincoln there's a scene where the president's cabinet is bickering and dithering about when to spend energy and political capital on passing the Emancipation Proclamation. As the arguments get more heated, Daniel Day Lewis's Abraham Lincoln bangs a hand on the desk, and cuts through the antipathy and rhetoric with stentorian authority, to say it has to be passed "Now, Now, Now!" This sense of urgency and passion is reflected in Act Four "Freedom from Want." I thought on want and focused on what kind of world the younger generations want and how our present human activities are affecting the climate, which will ultimately affect what kind of world the youth will actually inherit. This "Song for the Earth" was inspired by Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde but mainly many of the youth activists fighting with the immediate urgency of now! now! now! While Greta Thunberg comes first to many, my Act was equally inspired by activists Autumn Peltier, Mari Copeny, and Xiye Bastida who all are helping to educate and inspire fellow youth on climate activism. 

Epilogue 
“Everywhere in the World”
​Chorus
The opera was originally commissioned by & performed by
The Maryland Opera Studio
SOPRANOS: Sarah Stembel, Erin Ridge, Nora Griffin, Oznur Tuluoglu, Amanda Densmoor, Abigail Beerwat;
MEZZO SOPRANOS Gal Kohev, Katherine Kincaid;
TENOR: Colin Doyle; BARITONE/BASS: Christian Simmons, Collin Power

Craig Kier, Director, Maryland Opera Studio; Amanda Consol, Director of Acting; Justina Lee, Principal Coach; Ashley Pollard, Studio Manager; ​Kelley Rourke, Dramaturg

Premiere Friday February 14, 2020
The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
University of Maryland School of Music