Catalogue

Summary:

GRAMMY® Award-winning tenor Nicholas Phan’s recital program Fellow Citizens delves into stories of immigration and migration through compositional voices ranging from the 19th century to the present day, and reflects on two competing narratives about U.S. history: one that asserts that America is for Americans and another that celebrates the country as a Nation of Immigrants.

GRAMMY® Award-winning tenor Nicholas Phan’s thoughtful and probing recital program Fellow Citizens delves into stories of immigration and migration through compositional voices ranging from the 19th century to the present day. Nick explains, “The ‘wanderer’ has been a trope at the centre of song repertoire since the advent of the art form fostered by travelling troubadours; through the migrant journeymen protagonists of Schubert, Mahler, and their contemporaries; to today’s itinerant singer-songwriters.”

Fellow Citizens, with Nick’s fellow GRAMMY® Award winner pianist Myra Huang, is bookended by works of composers who migrated during their lifetimes. The album opens with “God Bless America,” Irving Berlin’s musical prayer of thanksgiving to the nation that gave him refuge as a child fleeing pogroms in Russia. In the closing set of songs are by Robert Owens and Florence Price, each of whom followed the path of America’s Great Migration in the twentieth century, whilst Rebecca Clarke’s relocation to the United States was prompted by the Second World War.

Songs by British-American composer Rebecca Clarke and British composer Errollyn Wallen CBE, alongside works by Franz Schubert and Ralph Vaughan Williams, explore the act of traveling from one place to another. Folk-song arrangements by Béla Bartók and Antonín Dvořák — both of whom spent extended periods in America — sit alongside an arrangement of the folk-gospel tune Poor Wayfaring Stranger by Ohio-born composer Steven Mark Kohn. Ruth Crawford Seeger’s striking setting of Chinese-American poet and actor Hsi Tseng Tsiang’s Chinaman, Laundryman, is juxtaposed with Schubert’s expansive setting of Franz von Schober’s poem romanticising the figure of the homeless wanderer as a kind of eternal pilgrim. Mohammed Fairouz’s setting of W. H. Auden’s poem, Refugee Blues, recounts the plight of Jewish refugees during World War II, who found themselves denied entry at nearly every port as they sought to escape the Holocaust.

The title track comes from a song by Chicago-based composer Eric Malmquist, an eloquent setting of Carl Sandburg’s poem of the same name. The world premiere recording of Shawn Okpebholo’s cycle, The Beautiful, responds to Sandburg’s poem, meditating on the question of who are our fellow citizens as Americans, through settings of poems by Margaret Noodin, Carl Sandburg, Claude McKay, and Tsitsi Jaji.

Booklet art features historical images of immigrants passing through Angel and Ellis Island, as well as scenes from the Great Migration. In the year of America250, Fellow Citizens reflects on two enduring narratives in American history: one that asserts America is for Americans and another that celebrates the country as a Nation of Immigrants.

Tracklist:

I. THE MELTING POT

IRVING BERLIN (1888–1989)
1. God Bless America

II. THE JOURNEY, PART 1

FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1829)
2. Der Wanderer D.649

REBECCA CLARKE (1886–1979)
3. Up-Hill

III. THE SONGS WE CARRIED

BÉLA BARTÓK (1881–1945)
4. Elindultam szép hazámbul, BB. 42, No.1

ANTONIN DVORAK (1841–1904)
5. Songs My Mother Taught Me

STEVEN MARK JOHN (b. 1957)
6. Poor Wayfaring Stranger

IV. REFUGEE BLUES

MOHAMMED FAIROUZ (b. 1985)
7. Refugee Blues

V. THE BEAUTIFUL

SHAWN V. OKPEBHOLO ((b. 1981)
The Beautiful
8. The Way We Meet
9. Chicago
10. The Beautiful
11. Tropics in New York
12. Mending

VI. THE WELCOME

RUTH CRAWFORD SEEGER (1901–1953)
13. Chinaman! Laundryman!

FRANZ SCHUBERT 
14. Pilgerweise

VII. THE JOURNEY, PART 2

FRANZ SCHUBERT
15. Wanderer an den Mond, D 870

ERROLLYN WALLEN (b. 1958)
16. My Feet May Take a Little While

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872–1958)
Songs of Travel
17. Whither Must I Wander?

VIII. Citizens

ERIC MALMQUIST (b. 1985)
18. Fellow Citizens

IX. THOSE WHO MIGRATED

ROBERT OWENS (1925–2017)
19. Heart

FLORENCE PRICE (1887–1953)
20. Sympathy

ENCORE

IRVING BERLIN (1888–1989)
21. Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor

Nicholas Phan, tenor
Myra Huang, piano