Upcoming

Friday February 14, 2020

Premiere of my new opera
"Four Freedoms"
Friday February 14, 2020
University of Maryland Opera Studio
College Park, MD

Even though FDR's "Four Freedoms" speech was almost 80 years ago, it's themes of Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Fear, and Freedom from Want still resonate with today's society. Using Norman Rockwell's famous series on The Four Freedoms as antipodes, the opera is based on four contemporary events that illuminate how far as a country we are from those ideals.

Some time in 2020

Numinous recording
"The Grey Land"
New Amsterdam Records

Past

October 16, 2018

Concert, semi-staged premiere of monoopera
​ The Grey Land
Roulette
Brooklyn, NY
8:00 PM

Tickets $18 online; $25 at the door
Click here to Purchase
Photo by Jenny Wohrle

“… he made all the world…a vast grey land where neither night nor day was, peopled by strange men and women whom he could not understand, but with those lives he longed to mingle once before he went.” —Richard Wright, Native Son

"No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching,
can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become."
—Matthew Desmond, Evicted

The Grey Land is a monoopera, which through the lens of one Black mother's experiences navigating American society with her son, explores universal themes of humanity and identity through the intractable triumvirate of race, class, and power. The Grey Land ruminates and comments more specifically on the larger longstanding systemic societal, economic, and cultural issues the recent spate of police shootings and protests have brought to the wider public consciousness. The Grey Land is 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. The composition will eventually be recorded for New Amsterdam Records after the premiere.

Music/concept: Joseph C Phillips Jr
28-member Orchestral Ensemble: Numinous
Conductor: Joseph C Phillips Jr
Words: Joseph C Phillips Jr, Isaac Butler, Paul Laurence Dunbar, James Baldwin, Sonia Sotomayor, Mothers of the Movement, Carolyn Bryant Donham
Soprano soloist: Rebecca L. Hargrove
Narrator: Kenneth Browning
Dancer: Jay Bouey
Cello solo (recorded): Mariel Roberts
Video/Film: Malik Isasis and Xuan Zhang
Choreography: Edisa Weeks
Electronics: Michael Hammond
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(L) Rebecca Hargrove (Mother); (Top R) Kenneth Browning (Narrator/Son); (Middle R) Scene from film by Malik Isasis for The Grey Land; (Bottom R) Jay Bouey

May 19, 2018

New Music Gathering panel
New Amsterdam Records @ 10 years Oral History Panel
Boston Conservatory at Berklee
​Boston, MA

May 22, 2017

Premiere of "Climb" for the Fieldston School 7th grade Band
Fieldston School
3901 Fieldston Road
Bronx, NY
7:30 pm

March 7, 2018

Discussing The Grey Land with the American Composers Forum

December 2016


Article for Van Magazine

Flattened Multiplicities: On Musical Genre and Personal Identity

Jerome Foundation Fund for New Music

October 29, 2016

Pianist Lara Downes premieres "Never Has Been Yet"
Jackson Hall Stage
Mondavi Center
Davis, California
https://www.mondaviarts.org/event/2016-17/lara-downes-piano
Lara premiering "Never Has Been Yet" at Mondavi Center
October 29, 2016
© 2016 Numen Music/BMI All Rights Reserved

June 30-July 2, 2016

Performance of To Begin The World Over Again
Collaboration with Edisa Weeks and Delirious Dance
Gibney Dance Center
890 Broadway
​NYC

February 2016

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My forthcoming composition The Grey Land — a new music drama that explores themes of acceptance and identity through the intractable issues of race, class, and power in American society — was awarded a NewMusicUSA grant. Premiere will be Fall 2017. https://www.newmusicusa.org/projects/the-grey-land/

December 2015

Changing Same
Top 50 Favorite Albums from 2015 (all genres)
— Seth Colter Walls
Changing Same
Top 10 New Music albums 2015
— George Grella, The Big City
Changing Same discussed in Diary of a Mad Composer
December 9th, 2015
— George Grella, The Brooklyn Rail
Changing Same
Top 30 Favorite Classical/Art Music albums 2015
— George M. Wallace, A Fool in the Forest

November 27-December 13, 2015

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The Bellagio Foundation Has Been Known To Make Me Cry

Concrete Temple Theatre Company production

HERE
145 6th Avenue
New York, NY 10013

November 2015

Changing Same is on David Adler's November 2015 Top 10

October 2015

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Changing Same featured in Rhapsody's Classical Diversity: Today's Voices in Composition October playlist

October 16, 2015

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Sorce/Lodge Duo
premiering "Scission",
for Guitar and Piano

Greenwich House Music School
46 Barrow Street
NYC
8:00 PM

with Iktus Combo,
featuring music by Christopher Cerrone, Charles Ives,
Elliot Cooper Cole, and Louis Andriessen

September 2015

Changing Same is #1
in Top 10 Classical albums for September 2015 from Rhapsody!

September 21, 2015

New Amsterdam Presents

Numinous & Will Mason Ensemble

Joint CD release performance

(Le) Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012

Doors open at 6:00 pm
7:00 pm Numinous
8:15 pm Will Mason Ensemble

Tickets at:
http://lepoissonrouge.com/lpr_events/numinous-and-the-will-mason-ensemble-september-21st-2015/

www.newamrecords.com
www.newampresents.org

September 11, 2015

NextNow Fest
Gildenhorn Recital Hall
University of Maryland-College Park
8:30 PM
FREE

Premiere of NextNow commission, Shibboleths

Performed by Invoke String Quartet

August 28, 2015

Changing Same release worldwide on
New Amsterdam Records.

August 25, 2015

"Unlimited", Gamelan, & Steve Reich

New Sounds
WNYC

August 23, 2015

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Interview with Rachel Martin for NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday. First aired August 23rd.

July 2015

Podcast Interview with George Grella from The Brooklyn Rail

https://soundcloud.com/rail-tracks/bk-rail-tracks-2015-078

(interview is at the beginning)

June 23, 2015

First track from Changing Same, "19", featured on Bandcamp Weekly podcast show:
https://bandcamp.com/?g=rock&show=132