If I Were a Voice, a new one-act opera by Peabody senior Daniel Thomas Davis, is set to have its world premier this coming weekend at the Peabody Conservatory of Music's Griswold Hall. Gene Young will be leading The Peabody Camerata alongside The Peabody Opera Workshop, working under the direction of John Bowen.
The plot centers around "the world of a forgotten family of popular singers and social reformers from Antebellum New England" -- the Hutchinsons. The group of three brothers and a sister traveled extensively during the 1840's and 1850's, performing songs with strong messages of social reform, mainly the abolition of slavery, for vast and notable audiences. They sang because it was the best way they knew to make their radical opinions heard.
If I Were a Voice is divided into four parts plus an epilogue, each of which balances the ubiquitous 19th-century song form with Davis's uniquely long, highly tonal lines. Each of the four parts of If I Were a Voice first begins in a public place, with songs in support of the abolition of slavery. The singers later retreat into their private rooms, where the audience is provided with an close look at the way the Hutchinsons lived, their conflicts and the turbulence within the family. Most of the opera is set within a five-year time frame; the epilogue takes place 50 years later. The first time that the audience sees the Hutchinsons in private, the family is thrilled with their success and ability to make their voices heard within a crowd. However, problems arise, and slowly the group falls apart, leaving only one of the brothers singing for the rest of his life.
Davis' creative process for composing If I Were A Voice -- his biggest work to date -- "was working between the text and [his] ear." As a result, he was able to "find newness in the old" and to create a complex web of music, using an archaic and historically accurate vocal style true to date as a foundation.
Davies sets an unsettling film of melody gliding over this song style, and at times, the dissonances in the harmonies give rise to the hairs on the back of the neck. But soon, the melodies slip away into a warmer sonority, inviting the listener into a relaxed and beautifully personal environment.
Davis's message, however, isn't so much warm as strong and clear. "Things are the same damn way as they were 150 years ago," he says. "The work, in short, exhibits my views on how society should be but is not." He later explained that if you "substitute the word "Muslim' for "Negro,' and it becomes clear that today's problem is no different than what it was back then: tolerance." Davis has incorporated fragmented texts from various journals, letters, memoirs and scrapbooks, which the Hutchinson family left behind, along with other period texts.
Davis is more than just your average composition student at Peabody, a truth that becomes apparent as soon as you hear his work. Originally from rural North Carolina, he will soon complete his B.A., B.M. and M.A. from both the Peabody Conservatory of Music and Johns Hopkins University as a dual-degree student studying classical composition as well as history. In the fall of 2003, Davis was named a Marshall Scholar by the British government -- one of the few musicians ever awarded this honor. For the past three years, Davis has served as composition faculty and composer-in-residence at Brightstar Music Festival.
Among other achievements, Davis has founded and directed Carolina New Music, a free series of concerts devoted to contemporary and American music. He has earned numerous prizes, grants, fellowships and a feature in USA Today, which deemed him "versatile....driven by a seemingly endless curiosity and the equally expansive energy to pursue it." His music often serves as a synthesis between both his academic and musical pursuits, often incorporating historical and literary texts, just as he does in If I Were a Voice.
Davis has studied composition with Christopher Theofanidis, Morris Cotel, Jennifer Higdon, R. Murray Schafer and Steve Mackey, and his music has been heard throughout North America, with upcoming performances to take place in the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Alaska and Maryland. In September, Davis will be leaving the United States for a two-year tenure at London's Royal Academy of Music.
The world premier performances of "If I Were A Voice," by Daniel Thomas Davis, will be presented by the Peabody Camerata, with the Peabody Opera Workshop, John Bowen, Guest Director on Saturday, April 3, 2004 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 4, 2004 at 3 p.m. in Peabody's Griswold Hall.
