• Home
  • Listen
    • List of Compositions >
      • Opera/Music Drama/Film >
        • 1619 Opera Cycle >
          • About 1619 Opera Cycle
          • So Far Behind Now Because of Then
        • Four Freedoms >
          • About Four Freedoms
        • The Grey Land >
          • About The Grey Land >
            • The Grey Land NOTES & INFO
            • The Grey Land WORDS
            • The Grey Land SESSION PHOTOS
            • The Grey Land PRESS_REVIEWS
        • The Loves of Pharaoh >
          • About The Loves of Pharaoh
      • Large Ensembles (18+) >
        • Changing Same
        • The Grey Land
        • The Loves of Pharaoh
        • Vipassana
      • Choir >
        • Everywhere in the World, prologue from Four Freedoms
        • Everywhere in the World, epilogue from Four Freedoms
        • The People Get Tired of Dying from The Grey Land
        • The Undisappeared
        • We Couldn't Wait Anymore from Four Freedoms
        • We Have it in Our Power from To Begin the World Over Again
      • Orchestra >
        • Pharaoh Scrolls
        • The Loves of Pharaoh
        • Vipassana
        • The Polar Express
      • Band >
        • Climb
        • The Gates of the Wonder-World Open
        • The Long Now
        • Quiet Earth
      • Solo & Chamber Music >
        • Bushwhack
        • Limn
        • Fire Quiet
        • Erelong
        • Lovivance
        • Never Has Been Yet
        • Shibboleths
        • Scission
        • Es Stehen Unbeweglich
        • Serendipity
        • The Red Book
        • Pharaoh Scrolls
        • To Begin The World Over Again
        • Unlimited
        • The Distance of the Moon
        • 110 Percent
        • Memory of Red Orange Laid Out in Still Waves
        • Liquid Timepieces
        • Beautiful Thing
        • Usher (Variations)
        • Kelip-Kelip
        • Rihla
        • Race
        • The Lady Who Sailed the Soul
        • Seeker
        • The Eloquent Light
        • Still Love Remains
        • The Spell of a Vanishing Loveliness
        • Tapestry
        • The Sun at Midnight
        • Passion of a Quiet Flower
        • Adrian
        • Sweetness
        • The Polar Express (Chamber)
        • Quantum Fluctuations
        • Keyser Söze
        • Penumbra
        • A Tear of the Clouds
        • Flying
        • Madame Press Never Had to Holler at Morty
        • To Kyoto
        • Lost in the Stars
        • rothko
        • The Smoke that Thunders
        • Urban Sketches
      • Music for Dance
      • Electronic Music >
        • The Bellagio Fountain Has Been Known To Make Me Cry
      • Miscellaneous >
        • To the Land Touching the Heavens
        • Seeker
        • Into all the Valleys Evening Journeys
    • Recordings
  • Feel
    • The Numinous Experience
    • Photos
    • Videos
  • Think
    • About Joe
    • About Numinous
  • Know
    • News
    • Press
    • The Numinosum Blog
  • Contact
  Numinous The Music of Joseph C. Phillips Jr.

About The Grey Land

Back to List of Compositions
Back to Opera/Music Drama List
Back to Large Ensemble List

The Grey Land (2018)

Soprano, Narrator, Flute/Piccolo; Bb Clarinet/Eb Clarinet; Alto Saxophone; Bassoon; Bb Trumpet; Horn; Trombone; (4) Electric and Acoustic Guitars ; (2) Electric Pianos; Harp; (6) Voices; (4) Violins—violin 1 plays solo on Electric Violin/Viper on “…Black Mamba”; (2) Violas; Cello; Electric Bass

65 minutes


​"Mr. Phillips can be heard rendering these varied cultural signals into a heterogenous work of art — but one that has a coherence the world often lacks. And this, in the end, seems like his latest understanding of 'the digging of everything.' Sometimes that digging may involve appreciation; at other points, it is simply a process of documentation, or of profitably trying to sort one’s own complex feelings."
​— Seth Colter Walls, The New York Times, "In the Wake of Ferguson, a Style-Blurring Album"
​
"Phillips conveys the sorrow, agony, rage and sheer exhaustion of the struggle while at the same time radiating a shared strength, beauty, and determination. Soprano Rebecca L Hargrove and narrator Kenneth Browning embody all of these as mother and son, deftly aided by Phillips's own 28-piece Numinous ensemble in giving voice to a collective cry for justice that echoes through the years...the composer's 'mixed music' idiom lends sociopolitical thrust to a post-minimalism that suffuses the work with added poignancy in light of the historic neglect of Julius Eastman, his minimalist precursor."
— Steph Power, BBC Music Magazine​ (4 out of 5 stars)
​
"The Grey Land...[Joseph C Phillips Jr's] most ambitious, and possibly most important work yet."​
​— John Schaefer, 
New Sounds, "Top 10 of 2020" (#4)

(more press, reviews, and features here)​
​

13 scenes from a land “that never has been yet”
The Grey Land album one year trailer 1
Picture
The Grey Land is a 65-minute monoopera by Joseph C Phillips Jr that explores universal themes of humanity and identity through the intractable triumvirate of race, class, and power in American society. The Grey Land integrates a variety of writings, film, dance, set and lighting designs, and dramatic elements in order to advance a non-traditional narrative that embraces the musical and social multitudes and “dichotomies of high and low, inside and outside, tradition and innovation” within Black culture. Working with choreographer Edisa Weeks, electronic musician Michael Hammond, filmmaker Malik Isasis and video artist Xuan Zhang, The Grey Land ruminates and comments more specifically on the larger longstanding systemic societal, economic and cultural issues the various police shootings and protests since 2014 have brought to a wider public consciousness. The Grey Land album was released on New Amsterdam Records on November 20, 2020.
Music/Concept:
Joseph C Phillips Jr
​

Words:
Joseph C Phillips Jr, Isaac Butler, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Frederick Douglass,
Sonia Sotomayor, Mothers of the Movement, Carolyn Bryant Donham


Video/Film:
Malik Isasis, Xuan Zhang

Choreography:
Edisa Weeks

Dance soloist:
Jay Bouey

Electronics:
Michael Hammond

The Grey Land concert premiere was originally made possible by a grant from the American Composers Forum with funds provided by the Jerome Foundation and, in addition, was also supported by New Music USA. 


The Grey Land album one year trailer 2

The Grey Land Trailer 2 from Numinous Music on Vimeo.


The Grey Land, an opera from Numinous Music on Vimeo.


"The Sunken Place," scene 12 from The Grey Land; music by Joseph C Phillips Jr and performed by Numinous, video by Xuan Zhang www.xuanfilms.com; "The People Get Tired of Dying," scene 1 from The Grey Land; music by Joseph C Phillips Jr and performed by Numinous, video by Malik Isasis​ malik.nyc

The Grey Land album was released on November 20, 2020 on New Amsterdam Records and you can order at: numinous.bandcamp.com

© 2020 Numen Music/All Rights Reserved

Additional information about The Grey Land:
The Grey Land NOTES & INFO
The Grey Land WORDS
The Grey Land Session PHOTOS
The Grey Land PRESS & REVIEWS

Back to List of Compositions
Back to Opera/Music Drama List
Back to Large Ensemble List
Thanks and credit to all the original photos on this website to: David Andrako, Concrete Temple Theatre, Marcy Begian, Ed Lefkowicz, Donald Martinez, Kimberly McCollum, Geoff Ogle, Joseph C. Phillips Jr., Daniel Wolf-courtesy of Roulette, Andrew Robertson, Viscena Photography, Jennifer Wohrle, Carolyn Wolf, Mark Elzey, Numinosito. The Numinous Changing Same album design artwork by DM Stith. The Numinous The Grey Land album design and artwork by Brock Lefferts. Contact for photo credit and information on specific images.