The Programs

Program 01

American Characters

Songs about real and fictional characters in American history, including poets, preachers, and a president. The program introduces topics heard throughout the series.

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Program 02

Stephen Foster

“Stephen Foster’s music is the trunk of the tree of American song, sturdy with songs we love to sing,” says Thomas Hampson. In this program we explore Foster’s music, the varied artistic roots he drew from, and the musical branches that grew from his work.

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Program 03

Song of Walt Whitman

Whitman, the “Bard of Democracy,” was the founder of a new American language. With music built deep into his poetry, it’s no surprise that Whitman has been a beacon for American composers.

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Program 04

Many are the Voices

Many Americans have had to raise their voices to be recognized or even heard in America. In this program, we hear songs of African Americans and Native Americans; women, immigrants, and war resisters; and voices from the labor movement and the gay rights movement.

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Program 05

War Cries

Throughout our history, America has gone to war with bravado and with anguish. Songs have helped shape those emotions, and express them—inspiring us to battle, sustaining our courage, giving us a way to lament our losses.

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Program 06

Ives the Chronicler

Charles Ives was unprecedented at suiting his musical style to the story he wanted to tell, and he created dozens of surprising “snapshots in song” of what it was like to be alive in America during his lifetime.

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Program 07

Champions of American Song

Over the course of the 20th century, our classical singers were enthusiastic advocates for songs by American composers. In this program, we hear the music they brought to far-flung audiences through recitals, phonograph records, and radio broadcasts.

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Program 08

Arthur Farwell, American Pioneer

At the beginning of the 20th century, deeply influenced by Dvorak’s challenge to Americans to find their own musical voices, Arthur Farwell used music of Native Americans and words of American poets as inspiration for his own unique voice. He also pioneered the publishing of American composers and poets through his famed Wa-Wan Press.

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Program 09

"There is No Gender in Music"

So said composer Elinor Remick Warren. In this program we look at the lives and songs of generations of American women composers.

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Program 10

Emily Dickinson: Letter to the World

The reclusive poet explored all of life’s emotions, and there are hundreds of compelling settings of her poems, by composers from Ernst Bacon to André Previn to Ned Rorem.

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Program 11

Songs We've Always Sung

Aaron Copland’s “Old American Songs” have become recital standards, but traditional texts and tunes have attracted many other classical composers, including John Jacob Niles, George Crumb, and Jake Heggie.

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Program 12

Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance

Langston Hughes, one of America’s great poets, gave jubilant voice to the lives of African Americans. His poetry has inspired settings by dozens of composers; we hear some of that music and learn about the world that inspired him.

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Program 13

Places That Sing to Us

There are places in the American landscape that are part of our collective consciousness, thanks to music. In this program, we listen to songs that have helped shape the way we see our country.

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Program 14

Singing Self, Hearing Nation: Program 1

In this program, Song of America Fellow Emma Beachy explores Margaret Bonds’s song cycle Three Dream Portraits, which sets the poetry of Langston Hughes. With the help of performers and scholars Thomas Hampson and Louise Toppin, Emma considers who is meant to hear and sing American song.

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Program 15

Singing Self, Hearing Nation: Program 2

This program covers Songs for the African Violet, a song cycle by Jasmine Barnes that addresses the experiences of Black women. Song of America Fellow Emma Beachy explores the ways that race and gender are represented in American song and has the chance to speak with the composer as well as soprano Leah Hawkins.

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Program 16

Singing Self, Hearing Nation: Program 3

This program turns to the ugliness of racism in American life with Shawn E. Okpebholo’s Two Black Churches, a song cycle that addresses two acts of white supremacist violence that happened fifty years apart. In this episode, Song of America Fellow Emma Beachy considers the role of grief, tragedy, and injustice in American identity. This program contains potentially upsetting and triggering references to racialized violence and white supremacy.

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Program 17

Singing Self, Hearing Nation: Program 4

In this program, Song of America Fellow Emma Beachy returns to Langston Hughes to examine two of his lesser-known patriotic songs written during World War II. Emma explores Hughes’ evolving relationship to American identity over time and the relationship between patriotism and working for justice.

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Program 18

Singing Self, Hearing Nation: Program 5

In this final program of the Singing Self, Hearing Nation Supplementary Series, Song of America Fellow Emma Beachy covers The Black Experience, a song cycle by David N. Baker that sets the poetry of Mari Evans. Emma is joined by Dr. Albert Lee to discuss this cycle, its critique of American identity, and the roles of race, class, and gender in shaping this inter- and intraracial relationships.

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