Songs of Protest

Program:

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN: Leonore Overture No. 3

SAMUEL BARBER: Second Essay for Orchestra

MARTIN ROKEACH
REBECCA ENGLE, LIBRETTIST AND DRAMATURGE:
Bodies on the Line: The Great Flint Sit-Down Strike
(world premiere, Oakland Symphony commission with support from the Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music and Saint Mary’s College of California (Frank J. Filippi Professorship in Performing Arts; Provost’s Research Grant; Faculty Development Fund; Office of Faculty Development Writers’ Retreat)

1. Prologue
2. On the Line
3. Company Town
4. Memo from GM/Wife’s Lament
5. The Demands
6. Letters Home: “Sittin’ Tight, Feelin’ Fine”
7. Well, Mr. Diary
8. Letters Home: “They Shut Off the Heat”
9. Bull’s Run
10. Battle Royal
11. Taking Chevy 4
12. Bitter for a Businessman
13. Still We Stand

Melody Wilson, mezzo-soprano (Genora Johnson/Frances Perkins)
Marc Molomot, tenor (Francis O’ Rourke)
Morgan Smith, baritone (Alfred P. Sloan)

Oakland Symphony Chorus
Ash Walker, acting chorus director

Pacific Edge Voices
Ash Walker, music director

Matthew Antaky: Scenic, Lighting and Media Designer
Keiko Shimosato Carreiro: Costume Coordinator
Callie Floor: Costume Assistant
Frédéric Boulay: Projection Designer and Technical Director
Nola Burger: Graphic Designer
Billy Bragg: There is Power in a Union; used with permission

Pre-concert talk from stage by John Kendall Bailey begins at 7:05 pm