Daniel Bernard Roumain & Raleigh Civic Symphony
WORLD PREMIERE
Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) and
Raleigh Civic Symphony
Saturday, April 15
8pm in Stewart Theatre
FREE
With special guests Bernadette Allen, Felicia Adizue, Tristen Johnson, Shana Tucker, and United Strings of Color.
Peter Askim, Conductor
NOTE: This event is currently sold out.
as omnivorous as a contemporary artist gets
-The New York Times
About the World Premiere
The finale to our mainstage 50th Anniversary Season is a triumph of past meets future. We’re pairing the prolific violinist and composer Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) with the Department of Performing Arts and Technology’s Raleigh Civic Symphony. DBR has been on our stage seven times – more than almost any other artist. He will be creating a new work for the Raleigh Civic Symphony, under the direction of conductor Peter Askim, that will feature community musicians, local youth, NC State Students, guest artists, and a solo by DBR.
Our 50-year history is remarkable for the breadth of work artists have done both on campus and in the community. DBR is at the forefront of this educational work, as he has led countless inspirational events with our students and in the Triangle (from standing room only pop-up performances to packed performances in local elementary schools to composition workshops with NC State students). This world premiere is an artistic manifestation of his time spent with us in North Carolina.
DBR’s new work, Home, Migrations, and Our Imaginary Daughter, featuring a libretto by Haitian-American poet Kaitlyn Boyer, is a type of “community concerto,” highlighting local musicians – talented high school violinist Felicia Adizue alongside acclaimed cellist Shana Tucker and spoken word artist Bernadette Allen. The program also includes rising star cellist Tristen Johnson and United Strings of Color, a string quartet of Black high school artists dedicated to addressing racial disparity in classical music through music education and community engagement.
DBR’s new work will be performed alongside an evening of music by Black composers from across three centuries, including Margaret Bond’s monumental Montgomery Variations, a meditation on the Civil Rights movement and music from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Othello. The orchestra will also perform Roumain’s epic Voodoo Violin Concerto with the composer as soloist, almost 20 years to the day from when it first performed it with him under the direction of the late Randy Foy, the former director of Raleigh Civic Symphony.
You’re invited to this free, historic performance to celebrate five decades of NC State LIVE and lift up the voices of the future!
ABOUT DBR
Acclaimed as a violinist, composer, educator, and social entrepreneur, DBR’s career spans more than two decades, earning commissions by venerable institutions worldwide. He has worked with artists from Philip Glass to Bill T. Jones to Lady Gaga; appeared on NPR, American Idol, and ESPN; and has collaborated with the Sydney Opera House and the City of Burlington, Vermont. Currently a professor at Arizona State University, DBR is educating the next generation of socially-conscious musicians and civic leaders.
ABOUT RALEIGH CIVIC SYMPHONY
Based at North Carolina State University and co-sponsored by the Department of Performing Arts and Technology and the nonprofit organization Raleigh Civic Symphony Association, the Raleigh Civic Symphony is a 75-member full symphony orchestra performing two concerts yearly comprised almost equally of volunteer community musicians and NC State students. The orchestra is unique in its ongoing commitment to perform contemporary and traditional classical music presented in a thematic context, connecting orchestral repertoire to larger ideas in creative ways. Under Peter Askim’s leadership, the orchestra has presented a world premiere performance on every program for the last seven seasons.