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  Numinous The Music of Joseph C. Phillips Jr.

The Grey Land Notes and info


The Grey Land Info


Michael Brown. Trayvon Martin. Sandra Bland. Eric Garner. Tamir Rice. Freddie Gray. Atatiana Jefferson. Philando Castile. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. George Floyd.
 Tyre Nichols.

"...guilty and innocent, your body is subject to invasion; you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state."—from The Grey Land


Opera for centuries has told larger-than-life stories about humanity. With the senseless killing of those people above and the many more before and sadly to come, I wanted to tell a story about their humanity and a story that reflects today's truth: the unrelenting systemic injustice black and brown communities endure. My opera The Grey Land is a story of a Black mother trying to survive the reality in this land that doesn’t fully see her continued hope: that the great American experiment will one day become a belonging place where anyone can dream of “stillness and stars”, free from fear and want; a place where the beautiful promise of happiness, liberty, and life may yet manifest true to finally include her family too.

Rebecca would like to thank: First, thank you so much to Joseph and the Numinous ensemble for inviting me to participate in this project. Amplifying these stories has been a true pleasure of mine, one I shall never forget. A huge thank you to Kyle Walker for helping me prepare for The Grey Land premiere and album sessions. I couldn’t have done this without you. Thank you to my family and friends who supported me during this process by attending the premiere and donating to the album. I love you all very much.
 
Kenneth would like to thank: Joseph C Phillips, Rebecca Hargrove for allowing me to share the stage with such unbelievably talented artists, and Malik Isasis for the introduction to black excellence!
 
Joe would like to thank: Rebecca Hargrove, Kenneth Browning, Mariel Roberts, and all the musicians of Numinous, without whom The Grey Land would still just be an idea; Isaac Butler; Malik Isasis; Xuan Zhang; Ryan Booth; Edisa Weeks; Michael Hammond; Jay Bouey; Erica Zielinski; Jesse Liebman; Jim Stanley and Roulette; New Music USA; American Composers Forum; Ryan Streber and Oktaven Studios; Mike Marciano of Systems Two; Brian Montgomery; Antonio Oliart; Brock Lefferts; New Amsterdam Records; all our Brooklyn neighbors, who helped us through our sheltering time during the pandemic with much neighborly love and warmth; Little Numinous, my wife, and my mother Mary, who unexpectedly passed before I finish composing The Grey Land, but whose spirit is in every note. 
 
The Grey Land premiere was originally made possible by a grant from the American Composers Forum with funds provided by the Jerome Foundation and, in addition, is also supported by New Music USA. 

PERFORMERS ON THE GREY LAND ALBUM
 
  Rebecca L Hargrove – Soprano (Mother)
  Kenneth Browning – Narrator (Son)
 
NUMINOUS
Katie Cox – Flute, Piccolo
Sammy Lesnick – Bb Clarinet, Eb Clarinet
Chris Bacas – Alto Saxophone
Sara Schoenbeck – Bassoon
 
Alicia Rau – Trumpet, Flügelhorn
Lis Rubard – Horn
JC Sanford – Trombone
 
Amanda Monaco – Electric and Acoustic Guitars
Mike Baggetta – Electric and Acoustic Guitars
Sebastian Noelle – Electric and Acoustic Guitars
Magdalena Abrego – Electric and Acoustic Guitars
 
Deanna Witkowski – Yamaha Electric Piano
Andrea Lodge – Rhodes Electric Piano
 
Kate Sloat – Harp
 
Aubrey Johnson – Voice
Tammy Scheffer – Voice, Bells
Sara Serpa – Voice
Bogna Kicińska – Voice, Bells
Emilie Weibel – Voice, Bells 
Amy Cervini – Voice, Bells
 
Ana Milosavljevic – Violin, Viper solo ("I Should Have Been Mother***ing Black Mamba!”)​
Josh Henderson – Violin
Frederika Krier – Violin
Libby Weitnauer – Violin
Hannah Levinson – Viola
Brian Lindgren – Viola
Matt Aronoff – Electric Bass 
 
Mariel Roberts – Cello Solo (“Tender Sorrow” only)

Joseph C Phillips Jr – Composer/Conductor/Bells/Co-Producer
Oded Lev-Ari – Bells/Co-Producer
 
Michael Hammond – Electronics/Drum Programming ("I Should Have Been Mother***ing Black Mamba!”)
 
Joseph C Phillips Jr – Electronics/Audio Collage (“One Side Losing Slowly” & “The Sunken Place”) 
 
Recorded January 28, 29, February 4, 5, 26, 27, 2020
Oktaven Studios, Mount Vernon, NY
Engineer – Ryan Streber
 
Editing – Mike Marciano
Mixing – Brian Montgomery
Mastering – Antonio Oliart  
 
Mariel Roberts Cello solo recorded August 22, 2018
Douglass Studios, Brooklyn, NY  
Engineering, Editing, Mixing – Mike Marciano
 
Album Design and Artwork – Brock Lefferts
Session Photography – Donald Martinez
Session Video – Julia Ross
Liner Notes Photography – Jenny Wohrle

THE GREY LAND
By Joseph C Phillips Jr

Scene 1. The People Get Tired of Dying

Scene 2. Ferguson: Summer of 2014
Words by Isaac Butler

Scene 3. Tender Sorrow
Words by Carolyn Bryant Donham

Scene 4. One Side Losing Slowly
Words by Joseph C Phillips Jr
Electronics/Audio Collage by Joseph C Phillips Jr, with additional words from the Mothers of the Movement, mostly from 2016 Democratic Convention:

(in order of first appearance): Lucy McBath (mother of Jordan Davis); Sybrina Fulton (mother of Trayvon Martin); Geneva Reed-Veal (mother of Sandra Bland); Rebecca Hargrove, reading words of Lezley McSpadden (mother of Michael Brown)

Scene 5. We Wear the Mask
​Words by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Scene 6. Don’t
Words by Joseph C Phillips Jr

Scene 7. Agnus Bey
Words by Joseph C Phillips Jr

Scene 8. Legion of Boom

Scene 9. I Should Have Been Mother****ing Black Mamba!

Scene 10. Injustice
Words by Frederick Douglass

Scene 11. Liberty Bell
Words by Sonia Sotomayor

Scene 12. The Sunken Place

Scene 13. Streets of Sighs


© 2020 Numen Music/ BMI 
All Rights Reserved


The Grey Land Program Notes


Scene 1
“The People Get Tired of Dying”
 
The inspiration for the final movement of Orchestral Set. No. 2 "From Hanover Square North, At the End of a Tragic Day, The Voice of the People Again Arose" was the experience composer Charles Ives had hearing the voices of commuters spontaneously singing a hymn upon hearing the news of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915. "The People Get Tired of Dying" similarly seeks to evoke the untrained and sincere plain-folk singing of 'the people' coming together to release their feelings of weariness and struggle, and to claim their connection to, as Ta-Nehisi Coates describes as, “the vastness of Black people across space-time.”

The title comes from a short story by Henry Dumas, a poet/writer/activist who was killed, after an altercation, by NYC transit police in the late 1960s. 
​
Scene 2
“Ferguson: Summer of 2014”
Words by Isaac Butler
 
Samuel Barber and James Agee in “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” sought to depict a nostalgic American idyll. “Ferguson: Summer of 2014” expresses a more conflicted and wistful contemporary America through personal memories of the summer of 2014. My feelings of anticipation and excitement over the birth of a first child conflate with a sense of anger and lament that the protest in Ferguson brought out—an elegiac expression of unrest that my soon to be born child will be arriving in a world that is in almost complete contrast and conflict with the idyll set up in “Knoxville”. 

Scene 3
“Tender Sorrow”
Words by Carolyn Bryant Donham 
 
Living in America as a person of color is to balance profound sadness with frustrating rage and anger at the continual injustice and hypocrisy of the “promise of America.”
 
Scene 4
“One Side Losing Slowly”
Words by Joseph C Phillips Jr 

Using a poem from Joseph C Phillips Jr as the main text, as well as an audio collage of speeches from the “Mothers of the Movement” (mothers whose children were killed through police conduct), this scene reflects the lost hopes, dreams, and futures many Black and brown parents have for their children and a desire to live just as anyone else would: with dignity and respect. 
 
Scene 5
“We Wear the Mask”
Words by Paul Laurence Dunbar 
 
The public face of people of color is not always reflective of our true face.
 
Scene 6
“Don’t”
Words by Joseph C Phillips Jr 
 
Inspired by “The Talk” many Black parents give their children and a series of tweets from Ijeoma Oluo, a writer and mother of two boys, after the grand jury verdict in the death of Eric Garner. Oluo states "I'm a Black mom trying to navigate this world and to figure out how to raise my kids in what can be a very hostile environment." The movement brings into relief the limitations of respectability politics and “the absurdity of critics who say Black people are safe if they just ‘don't do’ things that make them look suspicious.”

Scene 7
“Agnus Bey”
Words by Joseph C Phillips Jr 
 
A fantasy, through the lens of the music of Beyoncé illuminating and deconstructing the myth of the “magical Negro”.
 
Scene 8
“Legion of Boom”
In tandem with “Agnus Bey”, a more ominous fantasy deconstructing the myth of the “bogeyman” and an “othering” of some Black athletes in contemporary society, representative of a fear of Black and brown people in society.
 
Scene 9
“I Should Have Been Mother****ing Black Mamba!”

“I always wanted to do something” (Bigger Thomas, from Richard Wright’s Native Son)
Through the African American Greek societies dance tradition of stepping, “Black Mamba” is a celebration of what great and wonderful dreams could have been without systemic and individual racism and oppression of Jim Crow, lowered expectations and ambitions, poverty and drug addiction. 
 
Scene 10
“Injustice”
Words by Frederick Douglass
 
“Where justice is denied…neither persons nor property will be safe.”—Frederick Douglass

Scene 11
“Liberty Bell”
Words by Sonia Sotomayor

The Liberty Bell has long been a symbol for the opposed people from around the world, including America’s own Using the stinging words of Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her recent dissent in a case that diminishes the Fourth Amendment freedoms against unreasonable searches and seizures, “Liberty Bell” highlights the dissonance felt between “stop and frisk” and “Broken Windows” policies, which disproportionally affect Black and brown people, and the ideals expressed in the Constitution. At what price do we honor liberty for all?

Scene 12
“The Sunken Place”

“The sunken place is this metaphor for the system that is suppressing the freedom of Black people.”-Jordan Peele, director of the film Get Out
 
Scene 13
“Streets of Sighs”

A mother grieves as her child dies in her arms; and she wonders when will the killing end…

The Grey Land WORDS
The Grey Land Session PHOTOS
The Grey Land PRESS & REVIEWS
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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.