| Numinous The Music of Joseph C. Phillips Jr. |
We Hold These TRuths To Be Self-Evident (2025)
We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident (2025)
28 minutes
We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident highlights the idea of freedom and its manifestations in the physical, spiritual, intellectual, and imaginative for Black Americans throughout the history of the United States—how a “speculative knowledge of freedom would establish the vision of what might be, even if unrealizable within the prevailing terms of order” and that desire of ‘what might be’ was, and continues to be, actualized as resistance to the strictures of life within the country’s systemic inequalities and inequities. (Saidiya Hartman. Scenes of Subjection (25th-anniversary edition). Preface xxxi.) The work is a co-commission by The American Composers Orchestra and Carnegie Hall, and the premiere on March 11, 2026 at Carnegie Hall will also feature a film by Malik Isasis, partly funded by a 2025 NYSCA grant.
The composition is the first in a series of orchestral, choral, and chamber works which, while tied to the various themes of Joseph C Phillips Jr’s 1619 opera cycle, also represents distinct, independent addendums and companions to the operas. The first movement, "The Great Silence," is published by Boosey and Hawkes, in the youth orchestra version, and the first two movements "The Great Silence" and "Stealing Away," as part of the professional orchestra four-movement composition.
- Full Orchestra
- Youth Orchestra, the first movement "The Great Silence" (Flute, Oboe, Bb Clarinet, Bassoon, Trumpet, Horn, Trombone, Tuba, Vibraphone, Harp (could substitute Piano), Violins, Violas, Cellos, Basses)
28 minutes
We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident highlights the idea of freedom and its manifestations in the physical, spiritual, intellectual, and imaginative for Black Americans throughout the history of the United States—how a “speculative knowledge of freedom would establish the vision of what might be, even if unrealizable within the prevailing terms of order” and that desire of ‘what might be’ was, and continues to be, actualized as resistance to the strictures of life within the country’s systemic inequalities and inequities. (Saidiya Hartman. Scenes of Subjection (25th-anniversary edition). Preface xxxi.) The work is a co-commission by The American Composers Orchestra and Carnegie Hall, and the premiere on March 11, 2026 at Carnegie Hall will also feature a film by Malik Isasis, partly funded by a 2025 NYSCA grant.
The composition is the first in a series of orchestral, choral, and chamber works which, while tied to the various themes of Joseph C Phillips Jr’s 1619 opera cycle, also represents distinct, independent addendums and companions to the operas. The first movement, "The Great Silence," is published by Boosey and Hawkes, in the youth orchestra version, and the first two movements "The Great Silence" and "Stealing Away," as part of the professional orchestra four-movement composition.
Header 📸: Declaration of Independence
Thanks and credit to all the original photos on this website to: David Andrako, Concrete Temple Theatre, Marcy Begian, Mark Elzey, Ed Lefkowicz, Donald Martinez, Kimberly McCollum, Geoff Ogle, Joseph C. Phillips Jr., Daniel Wolf-courtesy of Roulette, Andrew Robertson, Viscena Photography, Jennifer Kang, Carolyn Wolf, Mark Elzey, Karen Wise, 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.