Hill Auditorium
25th Anniversary Tour
Sphinx Symphony Orchestra
EXIGENCE Vocal Ensemble
$12-20 student tickets available
In this concert, postponed from January 2021, Detroit’s Sphinx Organization celebrates its 25th anniversary, and UMS presents the full orchestra on its first-ever national tour, immediately after its Sphinx Competition performances.
The all-Black and Latinx Sphinx Symphony Orchestra is composed of top professionals from around the country, with members serving as mentors to Competition finalists and promoting works by Black and Latinx composers. Sphinx’s vocal ensemble, EXIGENCE, joins the ensemble for several pieces, including Joel Thompson’s Seven Last Words of the Unarmed, a powerful multi-movement choral work that was premiered by the U-M Glee Club in 2016 and memorializes the last words spoken by seven African-American men killed by police or other authority figures.
Pre-Performance Talk at 1 pm
U-M assistant professor of composition, Roshanne Etezady, will lead a pre-concert talk with Afa Dworkin, president and artistic director of the Sphinx Organization, conductor Eugene Rogers, and composers Joel Thompson and Carlos Simon.
Please note new performance start time of 2 pm.
This concert is presented in conjunction with SphinxConnect, a national convening focused on diversity and inclusion in the arts.
PROGRAM (Sun 1/29/2023: Hill Auditorium)
Carlos Simon Motherboxx Connection
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Ballade for Orchestra in a minor, Op. 33
Valerie Coleman Seven O’Clock Shout
Michael Abels Delights and Dances
Traditional, arr. Augustus Hill Fix Me, Jesus
Carlos Cordero/Julie Flanders Holding Our Breath
Joel Thompson Seven Last Words of the Unarmed
Stephens, Lynn and Smith (arr. Eugene Rogers) “Glory” from Selma
Thank You to Our Sponsors
PRINCIPAL SPONSOR
- Ken Fischer Legacy Endowment Fund
SUPPORTING SPONSOR
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- Joel Howell and Linda Samuelson
- Caitlin Klein and Joe Malcoun
FUNDED IN PART BY
MEDIA PARTNERS
Praised for his versatility, technical clarity, and keen musical insight, Tito Muñoz is internationally recognized as one of the most gifted conductors on the podium today. Now in his ninth season as as the Virginia G. Piper Music Director of The Phoenix Symphony, Tito previously served as Music Director of the Opéra National de Lorraine in France, as well as Assistant Conductor positions with The Cleveland Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and the Aspen Music Festival. Since his tenure in Cleveland, Tito has celebrated critically acclaimed successes with the orchestra, among others stepping in for the late Pierre Boulez in 2012 and leading repeated collaborations with the Joffrey Ballet, including the orchestra’s first staged performances of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in the reconstructed original choreography of Vaslav Nijinsky.
A two-time Michigan Emmy Award winner, a 2017 Sphinx Medal of Excellence recipient, and a 2015 GRAMMY® Award nominee, Eugene Rogers is recognized as a leading conductor and pedagogue throughout the United States and abroad. In addition to being the founding director of EXIGENCE, Dr. Rogers is the director of choirs and an associate professor of conducting at the University of Michigan. Recently, he was named as the fifth Artistic Director of the two-time GRAMMY® Award-Winning Ensemble, The Washington Chorus (Washington, D.C.).
American soprano Aundi Moore has quickly established herself as an exceptional talent with her recent appearance as Strawberry Woman in the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Porgy and Bess last season. Previous career highlights on the opera stage include Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) at L’Opéra de Monte Carlo for her international operatic debut, Nedda (I Pagliacci) at Sarasota Opera, Mimi (La Boheme) in Italy at the Amalfi Coast Festival, Serena (Porgy and Bess) at Atlanta Opera and at Virginia Opera, Young African American Soprano in Ricky Ian Gordon’s world premiere of Rappahannock County at Virginia Opera, Soprano 2 in the US premiere of Michael Nyman’s Facing Goya at Spoleto Festival, and the role of Odessa Clay in the world premiere of D. J. Sparr’s Approaching Ali commissioned by Washington National Opera.
Afa Sadykhly Dworkin is a music industry thought leader and cross-sector strategist driving national programming that promotes diversity in classical music. Since 2015 she has served as President and Artistic Director of the Sphinx Organization, the nation’s leading organization transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts. She has been named one of Musical America’s “Top 30 Influencers”, has received The Kennedy Center’s Human Spirit Award, and has been featured in Crain’s Detroit Business magazine’s “40 Under 40.” In 2021 she was appointed to the League of American Orchestra Board of Directors. The strength of Ms. Dworkin’s leadership across sectors and national divides is informed by her musical training as a violinist, more than 25 years of experience in the classical music field, and her international corporate experience as a trilingual interpreter and Executive Assistant to the President of ARCO, The International Oil and Gas Company in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Carlos Simon is a native of Atlanta, Georgia whose music ranges from concert music for large and small ensembles to film scores with influences of jazz, gospel, and neo-romanticism. Simon is the Composer-in-Residence for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY award for his latest album, Requiem for the Enslaved.
Hailed by the Detroit Free Press as “a promising and confident composer,” Roshanne Etezady is emerging as one of the most dynamic musical voices of her generation. Her music ranges from clever and colorful to sublimely subdued; it combines lyricism with rhythmic intensity and engages performers and audiences alike.