Sing out Strong: Incarcerated Voices
White Snakes Projects commissioned Rodríguez’s new art song The Beauty in Me for their upcoming presentation of Sing Out Strong: Incarcerated Voices. Rodríguez’s art song, with text by inmate W.E. Peebels, who has been sentenced to the death penalty, will be sung by award-winning baritone Brandon Bell. The concert will take place online on November 20, 2021 at 7:30 EST.
About Sing Out Strong: Incarcerated Voices
The pandemic has changed our entire way of life. It has changed the way we work, recreate, eat, learn, teach, interact with friends and family. It has forced us to confront the fact that life is precarious, fragile and precious. It has exposed the great divide in American society, with black and brown people disproportionately succumbing to the virus, as compared to white people. This is even truer for those who are incarcerated en masse and for the long term in our prison systems.
We've collected stories from writers experiencing incarceration about their experiences exiled from families, friends and community. We've heard about what they do, how they've been coping, their hopes, their fears, their families and their despair - anything they're moved to write about. We come away awed by their essential brilliance as they find new ways of dreaming, of communing, of living, of transcending.
The concert you'll be attending features ten songs based on the texts we've collected set by diverse composers inspired to tell these stories. Through the magic of a new audio plugin, Tutti Remote, invented by Jon Robertson, our audio engineer, you will hear LIVE singing by our two singers and LIVE playing by our cellist and pianist as they perform in the safety of their homes. We can't wait to share this experience with you.
View all of the song texts HERE.
About Sing Out Strong
Sing Out Strong is a multi-year community-based project where we reach out to individuals in our communities and commission them to write texts on activist themes that resonate with them personally, such as immigration, colonization, essential workers and incarceration.