AT WAR WITH OURSELVES — 400 YEARS OF YOU
AT WAR WITH OURSELVES — 400 YEARS OF YOU
A rhapsodic modern day song cycle
spun from the skin of history
for string quartet, chorus, and narrator
Music by Michael Abels
Text and Narration by Nikky Finney
Conducted by Valérie Sainte-Agathe
Produced by Janet Cowperthwaite
Production Management by Kronos Performing Arts Association
At War with Ourselves — 400 Years of You was commissioned by the Kronos Performing Arts Association, funded in part by a Hewlett Foundation 50 Arts Commission and the MAP Fund, in partnership with ASU Gammage at Arizona State University, Hancher Auditorium–The University of Iowa, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, SFJAZZ, Texas Performing Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of South Carolina.
ABOUT THE WORK
At War With Ourselves – 400 Years of You features a text by National Book Award-winning poet Nikky Finney inspired by her 2013 poem “The Battle of and for the Black Face Boy.” The music was composed by Michael Abels, composer for the Jordan Peele films Us and Get Out. This powerful new work for string quartet, narrator, and chorus explores race relations, social justice, and civil rights in 21st century America.
- FULL TEXT
- TEXT EXCERPT
- PROGRAM NOTE: The Rhythm of Language by D. Scot Miller
- PRESS: NPR | All Things Considered
- PRESS: PBS News Hour
- POEM: The Battle of and for the Black Face Boy (Oxford American)
- ARTICLE: “How The Battle of and for the Black Face Boy Came to Be” (Oxford American)
PAST PERFORMANCES
November 7, 2021: Columbia, SC (Preview)
November 19, 2021: Austin, TX (World Premiere)
November 20, 2021: Austin, TX (World Premiere)
April 16, 2022: Tempe, AZ
May 7, 2022: San Francisco, CA
May 8, 2022: San Francisco, CA
January 21, 2023: Richmond, VA
February 11, 2023: Iowa City, IA
THE CREATIVE TEAM
MICHAEL ABELS
Michael Abels is best-known for his scores for the Oscar-winning film GET OUT, and for Jordan Peele’s US, for which Abels won the World Soundtrack Award, the Jerry Goldsmith Award, a Critics Choice nomination, an Image Award nomination, and multiple critics choice awards. The hip-hop influenced score for US was short-listed for the Oscar, and was even named “Score of the Decade” by online publication The Wrap. Abels is co-founder of the Composers Diversity Collective, an advocacy group to increase visibility of composers of color in film, gaming and streaming media. As a concert composer, Abels has received grants from the NEA and Meet The Composer, and his orchestral works have been performed by the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and many others. As conductor of GET OUT IN CONCERT, Abels has led orchestras like the National Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony. Several of his orchestral works have been recorded by the Chicago Sinfonietta on the Cedille label, including “Delights & Dances,” a work commissioned and premiered by the Sphinx Organization. Recent projects include the ballet FALLING SKY for Butler University, the opera series DESERT IN for Boston Lyric Opera, the docu-series ALLEN v. FARROW for HBO, and the film NIGHTBOOKS for Netflix.
photo: Eric Schwabel
More Artist Information
NIKKY FINNEY
Nikky Finney was born by the sea in South Carolina and raised during the Civil Rights, Black Power, and Black Arts Movements. She is the author of On Wings Made of Gauze; Rice; The World Is Round; and Head Off & Split, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2011. Her new collection of poems, Love Child’s Hotbed of Occasional Poetry, was released from TriQuarterly Books / Northwestern University Press in 2020.
photo: Rachel Eliza Griffiths
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VÁLERIE SAINTE-AGATHE
Valérie Sainte-Agathe is the artistic director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus, which she has conducted since 2013, including in performances with renowned artists such as Deborah Voigt, Laurie Rubin, Philip Glass, Gustavo Dudamel, and Michael Tilson Thomas. She has also performed with the New Century Chamber Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, Magik*Magik Orchestra, Tenet Ensemble, Philip Glass Ensemble, The Knights Orchestra, and Brooklyn Youth Chorus, as well as Taylor Mac and DJ Spooky. After five years in the United States, her first recording as SFGC’s Music Director, Final Answer, was released on Orange Mountain Music in February 2018. Sainte-Agathe served as Music Director for the Young Singers program of the Montpellier National Symphony and Opera in France from 1998-2011. She participated in eight recordings with the Montpellier National Orchestra and The Radio France Festival. She is a recipient of Victoires de la Musique, and a two-time recipient of the Orphée d’Or award.
photo: Joseph Fanvu
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KRONOS QUARTET
For 50 years, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet — David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola), and Paul Wiancko (cello) — has reimagined what the string quartet experience can be. One of the most celebrated and influential groups of our era, Kronos has given thousands of concerts worldwide, released more than 70 recordings, and collaborated with many of the world’s most accomplished composers and performers across many genres. Through its nonprofit organization, Kronos Performing Arts Association (KPAA), Kronos has commissioned more than 1,000 works and arrangements for quartet. Kronos has received more than 40 awards, including the Polar Music, Avery Fisher, and Edison Klassiek Oeuvre Prizes. Integral to Kronos’ work is a series of long-running commissioning collaborations with hundreds of composers worldwide, including Terry Riley, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Tanya Tagaq, Philip Glass, inti figgis-vizueta, Fodé Lassana Diabaté, and Steve Reich. In its most ambitious effort to date, KPAA recently completed Kronos Fifty for the Future, which commissioned — and distributed online for free — 50 new string quartet works written by composers from around the world. Kronos’ expansive discography on Nonesuch includes three Grammy-winning albums along with dozens of other acclaimed releases. Kronos has performed live with the likes of Paul McCartney, Allen Ginsberg, Rokia Traoré, David Bowie, Rhiannon Giddens, Caetano Veloso, and The National, among many others. The quartet has toured extensively, appearing in celebrated venues including Carnegie Hall (New York), the Barbican (London), the Muziekgebouw (Amsterdam), Shanghai Concert Hall, Suntory Hall (Tokyo), and the Sydney Opera House. photo: Lenny Gonzalez
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“You are given 10 square feet of space to live and 3 vertical inches of air to breathe. Ankle iron is ordained for your frontal & temporal lobes. Their one desire: your black body in endless service
& performance. You are the new country’s newest moving picture show and they will never be disinterested in what your arms, legs, lips, can do on their well-lit screens. The rest of you,
the ravishing wondrous veiled interior: the midnight calculations of your mother, every smoky algorithm your father ever dreamed, will be, right from the start, thrown overboard.”
– Nikky Finney, from At War With Ourselves
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