UNLV Choral Studies is pleased to host internationally acclaimed women's choir, VOX Femina Los Angeles, for a performance of American composer Andrea Ramsey's recent work, Suffrage Cantata at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 27 in the Rando-Grillot Recital Hall of the Beam Music Center.
The concert is given in collaboration with three Las Vegas area treble ensembles. Both VOX Femina Los Angeles and Stephanie Council, UNLV's associate director of choral studies, were commissioners of the original work, which examines the journey toward women's suffrage through the perspectives of five diverse women.
Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at the UNLV Performing Arts Center Box Office, online, or by calling 702-895-ARTS (2787).
VOX Femina Los Angeles led by Dr. Iris Levine, are joined in concert by UNLV’s treble voices ensemble, Argenta, led by Stephanie Council, , Las Vegas Academy's Bella Voz, led by Matthew Ostlie and Sebastian Garcia-Valle, and Desert Singers Las Vegas.
Suffrage Cantata celebrates a critical achievement in the history of women’s rights, while shining a light that is often obscured on the injustices that women of color endured during the suffrage movement. The messages conveyed through this piece of history are as relevant as ever today.
This 40-minute cantata was commissioned by VOX Femina Los Angeles and a consortium of women’s choruses. It is written for women’s chorus, soloists, string quartet, two percussionists, piano, narrator, and accompanied by a rich multi-media production. The five movements of the piece tell the story of the U.S. Suffrage movement while examining diverse perspectives, which have notoriously been minimized in history. This piece is educational and impactful—both musically and historically.
About the UNLV College of Fine Arts
The College of Fine Arts educates, empowers, and engages creative people to become visionary change-makers in the arts through acts of imagination. At UNLV we believe the arts are an essential good for society. We make education relevant and accessible through our programs and outreach. We create new knowledge in the arts. We celebrate independent thought and the power of bringing people together to foster creativity.
Movements
- It Is Coming: Early Women’s Right’s Perspectives
- Failure Is Impossible: Illegal Voting, Arrest, & Trial of Susan B. Anthony
- A Woman’s Place: Ida B. Wells-Barnett and the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Procession in Washington D.C.
- Shall Not Be Denied: The Silent Sentinels, Arrest, Imprisonment & Abuse
- Forward into Light: Ratification and the Journey Forward
Music and Lyrics
The music for the work is original, with the exception of a brief portion of movement 3, which quotes Fall in Line: Suffrage March by Zena S. Hawn. Published in 1914, it is quite possible this march was performed at or inspired by the 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, D.C.
The entirety of the original sheet music to this march is available for free online through the Library of Congress digital collections, which include many other suffrage tunes as well. While movements 1 and 3 include some original lyrics, the bulk of the texts used in the work are historically sourced. The original lyrics of “one day the women got tired” provides a simple message as the women move forward in their various ways (e.g. Charlotte Woodward in her wagon, Sojourner Truth speaking at Broadway Tabernacle, Elizabeth Cady Stanton reading the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments.)
The original lyrics in movement 3 were crafted to relay stories from Ida B. Wells’s autobiography Crusade for Justice as well as textbook accounts of the events within the Illinois delegation on the day of the 1913 parade in Washington D.C. Apart from these original lyrics, the rest of the texts were pulled from historical content: banner messages, programs, speeches, writings, and letters of suffragists.
Performance Notes from Marcia Chatelain & Andrea Ramsey
This work is about a distinct moment in history, but it was also composed during a critical moment in history. The music and texts capture the struggle for suffrage among women who were separated by the color line, but united in an understanding of the importance of women having the capacity to participate as full and equal citizens.
Just as the women involved in suffrage raised their voices, artists must also make their desires for a better world clear, and that is why we implore you to involve singers who embody the women characterized in this work as authentically as possible, so that audiences can connect to the conflicts and triumphs of the road to suffrage.
