“It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment, change has come to America." President Barack Obama, 11/5/2008
LONG TIME COMING is a full-length multimedia performance work in three parts, telling the story of 20th century American music, its impact on the collective consciousness and its interrelationship with the progress of civil rights and social justice. Seamlessly fusing live music for solo piano and small ensemble, spoken word and projected images of contemporary American life, Long Time Coming provides a multi-sensory lens into historic struggles and triumphs lived out against a backdrop of hope, community responsibility and liberation.
Long Time Coming features a new commission from noted composer David Sanford, drawing inspiration from multiple musical genres to synthesize the diverse racial and cultural traditions that define contemporary American music – classical, jazz, R&B/funk and hip hop.
Long Time Coming springs from Ms. Downes’ personal experience as a biracial artist and child of the civil rights movement. In telling the story from a deeply honest and personal perspective, Lara hopes that Long Time Coming will deliver a universal message embodying the spirit of freedom, diversity and inclusiveness that reflects our growing capacity for change in America.
Part I: NEW WORLD A COMIN’
Long Time Coming opens with Duke Ellington’s majestic solo piano masterpiece New World a Comin’, a landmark work first performed at Carnegie Hall in 1945. Ellington’s iconic score expresses his vision of an imminent “new world” in which victory in war would produce a new era of racial equality and brotherhood. This wartime anthem of hope symbolizes the social transformations that led to postwar civil rights struggles and, eventually, to the racial reality of 21st century America.
Part 2: DREAM VARIATIONS
The second section features different expressions of the African American experience represented by composers who melded diverse traditions to form contemporary American concert music. Archival images by noted American photographers representing a century of African American history provide a moving backdrop for this music.
- Florence Price is widely considered the first black woman in the United States to be recognized as a symphonic composer. Fantasie Negre (1929) is an example of the integration of the Negro Spiritual into concert music that developed during the Harlem Renaissance.
- Margaret Bonds was a noted pianist, composer and longtime collaborator of poet Langston Hughes. Troubled Water (1967) is based on the spiritual Wade in the Water, and demonstrates a seamless blend of jazz and classical techniques.
- Mary Lou Williams was known as the “First Lady of Jazz”. Her Dirge Blues (1964) is a tribute to John F. Kennedy, deeply rooted in spirituals and blues.
Part 3: LONG TIME COMING
The final work, Long Time Coming, is an original commission by composer David Sanford, created as a modern day response to Ellington's New World A Comin’. Sanford's new work celebrates the liberating power of 20th-century integration, drawing inspiration from multiple musical genres - classical, jazz, R&B/funk, hip-hop and others. Diverse elements of Spoken Word permeate the piece - recorded archival texts from 1940’s Harlem radio, and poetry by former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove performed live by young members of the NEA’s Poetry Out Loud program - representing a chorus of voices: servicemen and private citizens, teachers, mothers, workers, the men and women who have led us slowly and steadily into a new world where the possibility of civil rights became a reality.
David Sanford’s score creates a dialogue with Ellington’s masterpiece, reverberating across the generations with echoes of struggle, change, and the invincible power of hope in troubled times.