Gershwin & More Set for MasterVoices 2024-25 Season

MasterVoices has revealed details of the renowned chorus’ 83rd season. The 2024-25 season opens on October 29 and features a new version of George and Ira Gershwin, George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind’s political musical satire Strike Up the Band; the New York City premiere of the opera Blind Injustice, with music by Scott Davenport Richards, libretto by David Cote, based on the book of the same name by Mark Godsey and casework by the Ohio Innocence Project; and Bach’s sacred masterpiece, the B Minor Mass reimagined with new texts and visuals by commissioned artists.
 

Strike Up the Band at Carnegie Hall

On October 29, 2024, at Carnegie Hall, Ted Sperling leads the 120–member MasterVoices Chorus and guest soloists in a concert staging of Strike Up the Band, with music by George Gershwin and lyrics by Ira Gershwin. With its soaring melodies, infectious syncopation, and lyrics that both provoke and delight, Strike Up the Band was the first of three political musicals that the Gershwins, George S. Kaufman, and Morrie Ryskind wrote together. MasterVoices has previously performed the other two, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Of Thee I Sing and its sequel, Let ‘Em Eat Cake. 
 
Says Mr. Sperling, “Working with both the Gershwin and Kaufman estates, author Laurence Maslon and I will be creating a new edition of Strike Up the Band, which contains the best of the 1927 and 1930 versions of the show, which I hope may prove to be the blueprint for future performances of this work. The MasterVoices concert staging will take full advantage of the wonderful dance music that follows so many of the songs, sometimes lyrical, other times comic, or military. We look forward to bringing these moments to life with dancers as we have done with pleasure so many times in our recent history.”
 
Some of the most famous songs from the show, in addition to its irresistible overture and title song, are The Man I Love, and I’ve Got a Crush on You.
 

Blind Injustice at Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center

In March 2024, MasterVoices announced Three in Six, an initiative to present three contemporary American operas in six years, the first opera being the revival of Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath this past April. Blind Injustice, with music by Scott Davenport Richards and libretto by David Cote, based on the book Blind Injustice by Mark Godsey and casework by the Ohio Innocence Project, is the next in the series. Blind Injustice, which tells the stories of actual people, explores the U.S. criminal justice system and how it can fail the wrongfully accused and their families and communities. The New York City Premiere with MasterVoices will take place on February 3-4, 2025, at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
 
Blind Injustice was originally commissioned and premiered by Cincinnati Opera in 2019 to a sold-out run and national critical acclaim. The live CD/Album was cited by Opera News as one of the 5 Best New Opera Recordings of 2022. In February 2024, the opera was presented by PEAK Performances at Montclair State University, with Ted Sperling conducting and Robin Guarino directing.
 
Bach Reframed: The B Minor Mass at The Great Hall at The Cooper Union
The season ends on May 5, 2025, at The Great Hall at The Cooper Union with Bach Reframed: The B Minor Mass, a modern, multimedia public preview performance of excerpts from one of J.S. Bach’s most popular works, the B Minor Mass, with texts and visuals by commissioned writers and artists.
 
Said Mr. Sperling, “For several years, I have been eager for MasterVoices to present the B Minor Mass, but in a new way that we hope will shed light on the original Latin Mass text through the addition of new text and visuals that bloom from the original. For those who know the piece well, this should be an exciting way to reframe it, and for those who might not normally come to hear a sacred piece like this, maybe this will be an enticing way to experience the piece for the first time.”
 
The vision is for a new approach to Bach’s exquisite music, using the repeated-text passages as opportunities to explore what the underlying sentiment might mean today. Rather than repeating the text, existing poems and newly-commissioned writings will be sung to Bach’s music, which will remain unchanged. In addition, this reimagining of the work will feature the creativity of visual artists. As MasterVoices did with its acclaimed multimedia project Myths and Hymns, where each visual artist took on a chapter of the work, each artist will take on a section of the Mass.

Strike Up the Band

Tuesday, October 29, 2024, 7:00 pm
Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Music by George Gershwin
Lyrics by Ira Gershwin
Book by George S. Kaufman
Book revised by Morrie Ryskind in 1930
New adaptation by Laurence Maslon and Ted Sperling
MasterVoices Chorus
Ted Sperling, director and conductor
Tracy Christensen, costume designer

Tickets, priced from $30, are on sale on August 16, 2024, and may be purchased online at carnegiehall.org, by calling CarnegieCharge at 212.247.7800, or in person at Carnegie Hall’s box office at 57th and Seventh Avenue.
 
The original 1927 version of Strike Up the Band, with a book by George S. Kaufman, was a biting anti-war satire. It was the Gershwins’ first fully integrated score for a book musical, strongly influenced by Gilbert and Sullivan. It closed in Philadelphia, prompting Kaufman’s famous remark, “Satire is what closes on Saturday night.” With Kaufman’s blessing, the Gershwins turned to Morrie Ryskind to revise it.  Songs were cut.  New songs were added, with swing rhythms dominating. The politics were replaced by silliness and a happy ending. It opened on Broadway in 1930 and ran for 191 performances.
 
The basic plot of the show centers on a Babbitt-like businessman who offers to sponsor a war with Switzerland if it is named for him. In the 1927 version, the war was about cheese, and in the 1930 version, it was about chocolate. Complications arise involving espionage and star-crossed lovers, but all is resolved by the final number. The show has not been performed in New York since the 1998 Encores! Revival at City Center.

Blind Injustice

Monday, February 3, 2025, 7:30 pm
Tuesday, February 4, 2025, 7:30 pm
Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center
Music by Scott Davenport Richards
Lyrics by David Cote
Based on the book Blind Injustice by Mark Godsey and casework by the Ohio Innocence Project
MasterVoices Chorus
Ted Sperling, conductor
Robin Guarino, director
Jason Flamos, lighting designer
 
Tickets, priced from $30, are on sale on November 11, 2024, and may be purchased online at jazz.org, at the Jazz at Lincoln Center box office, Broadway at 60th Street, or by calling 212-721-6500.
 
This 90-minute opera tells the true story of six people, still living, who were unjustly accused and convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. The exonerees are Rickey Jackson, who spent 39 years in prison for a crime he did not commit; Nancy Smith, a Head Start bus driver falsely accused of molesting children and who spent more than 14 years in prison; Clarence Elkins, convicted of the murder of his mother-in-law and rape of her young granddaughter; and the East Cleveland 3: Laurese Glover, Eugene Johnson, and Derrick Wheatt, witnesses in a shooting who, despite tainted evidence, were convicted. Only through the efforts of the Ohio Innocence Project (OIP) were they ultimately cleared of these accusations and set free. The OIP is one of the most active and successful innocence projects in the country and, to date, has secured the freedom of 42 innocent Ohioans who together served more than 900 years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.
 
According to Ted Sperling, the work is well suited for MasterVoices, who regularly perform in a variety of musical styles; in Blind Injustice, these include opera, musical theater, jazz, and gospel. Maestro Sperling added that the use of a larger chorus in the New York City premiere will make its already-important role even more poignant. He says, “at times in this work, the chorus makes you feel like the whole world is against the six exonerees; and at other times, like the whole world is crying to set them free, supporting the six. With our large, diverse chorus, this should be very powerful.”
 
Scott Davenport Richards is an award-winning composer/librettist whose creative works have resided at various addresses around the intersection of jazz, opera, and musical theater. Since 2005 he has been professor of Composition/Musical Theatre at Montclair State University’s Cali School of Music. David Cote is a playwright, opera librettist, and arts journalist based in New York City. Later this season, his newest opera, Lucidity, created with composer Laura Kaminsky, and co-commissioned by On Site Opera and Seattle Opera, will premiere. His previous operas include Three Way (Nashville Opera and BAM); The Scarlet Ibis (Prototype Festival); and 600 Square Feet (Cleveland Opera Theater).

Bach Reframed: The B Minor Mass (Preview Performance)

Monday, May 5, 2025, 7:30 pm
The Great Hall at The Cooper Union, located in The Foundation Building. 7 East 7th Street
MasterVoices Chorus
Ted Sperling, director and conductor

Tickets, available on a Choose-What-You-Pay basis, are on sale January 22, 2025, and may be purchased online at mastervoices.org. 
 
Since the original setting of the B Minor Mass comprises very short Latin text snippets that repeat many times, Mr. Sperling’s vision is for a new approach to support Bach’s unparalleled music: using those repeated-text passages as opportunities to explore what the underlying sentiment (e.g., Lord, have mercy) might mean today. Have mercy on whom? Who might be asking this today?  In those passages, rather than repeating the snippets of the same text, the idea will be to bloom into either existing, current poems or writings and/or commission new writing that will expand on that mass text passage and scan perfectly with Bach’s music.
 
As a companion to this work, MasterVoices will commission artists to create a visual representation of individual movements. The production will be similar to MasterVoices 2021 production of Adam Guettel’s Myths and Hymns, where each visual artist took on a chapter of the work. The completed reimagined version will showcase a modern text and multimedia approach to the timeless music of the B Minor Mass. Bach’s setting of the Mass was completed in 1749, the year before his death.
 
The very thoughtful and extended creative process will be presented in a public preview of excerpts from the work in progress. This format will offer the unique opportunity for MasterVoices to describe—as part of the performance—the creative process and give a rare opportunity for the audience to provide feedback in advance of the presentation of the completed and reimagined work in an upcoming season.

Details of MasterVoices’ 2024-25 season can be found at mastervoices.org, and casting will be announced at a later date.