Eugene Rogers leads the National Philharmonic, the Washington Chorus, and soloists on March 15 at the Strathmore. Photo by Elman Studio.
In Sunday’s (3/16) Washington Post, Michael Andor Brodeur writes, “On Saturday night, the combined forces of 76 National Philharmonic musicians and the 170 choristers of the Washington Chorus presented ‘Stand the Storm’—an homage to American composers, yes; a program-length meditation on justice and resilience, yes. But, more than anything, it was a showcase of the musical powers of these two formidable groups…. Conductor and Washington Chorus artistic director Eugene Rogers … opened the evening with the wallop of his own orchestral arrangement of ‘Glory,’ the Oscar-winning song from the 2014 film ‘Selma,’ written by … John Legend, Common and Rhymefest … Rogers’s arrangement of ‘Glory’ is a crowd-pleaser … Nkeiru Okoye’s ‘And the People Celebrated’ was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 … Okoye chose the inauguration of President Barack Obama as her inspiration, and the world premiere performance at Strathmore offered an advance of the BBC’s premiere broadcast … The piece is composed around a mix of Okoye’s own text—a hymnlike treatment of Obama’s road to the White House—and excerpts from three of his speeches … Opening with glimmering chimes, shimmering cymbals and the cool hiss of a rain stick, it assertively signaled the approach of a political spring…. The evening’s second half was … a world-premiere symphonic orchestration of composer Rollo Dilworth’s ‘Weather: Stand the Storm’ … set to text by poet Claudia Rankine…. Dilworth achieves an uncanny confluence of grief and jubilation … Although [George] Floyd’s words ‘I can’t breathe’ have been incorporated into multiple musical contexts since his death, Dilworth’s treatment turns the phrase into an exaltation—an elegy of defiant pride.” The program also included Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms.”
