Houston's Apollo Chamber Players Perform REVISED Next Month

Houston’s Apollo Chamber Players presents REVISED on Saturday, February 17, 2024 at 7:00pm at Holocaust Museum Houston and on Sunday, February 18, 2024 at 2:00pm at Unity of Houston. A collaboration with award-winning poet, activist, and educator Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton and Emmy-winning composer Jasmine Barnes, REVISED is a genre-fusing statement on poetry, peace, historical revisionism, and Black censorship. The program features a world-premiere commission, Revise?, scored for poet, choir and string quartet with libretto by Mouton and music by Barnes.

Apollo Chamber Players will perform the piece alongside Mouton and members of Houston Ebony Opera Guild: Jolie Rocke, soprano; Jan Taylor, mezzo-soprano; Kenneth Gayle, tenor; and Antoine Griggs, baritone. The program also includes PAX (Peace), a work commissioned by Apollo Chamber Players from composer John Cornelius with Houston Poet Laureate Emeritus Outspoken Bean. String quartet works by Shostakovich, Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate and Florence Price complete the program.

On the inspiration for REVISED, Apollo Founder, Director and violinist Matthew J. Detrick stated: “For too long, the Black and American Indian communities have endured censorship and revision. We hope this program provides context, meaning, redemption and, above all, hope for the future for the multicultural American experiment.”

As they prepare to introduce REVISED, Apollo will present their highly acclaimed Apollo MoonShot program with a performance at Texas A&M University on February 15, 2024, at 7:00pm. The program includes new works from GRAMMY and Pulitzer prize-winner Jennifer Hidgon, Emmy-winning Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, Turkish-born composer Erberk Eryilmaz, and Prairie View A&M faculty composer John Cornelius. REVISED collaborators Outspoken Bean and Kenneth Gayle will also join Apollo Chamber Players for this performance of MoonShot.

MoonShot was first performed in March 2023, when it made a celebrated debut at Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall). Brad Ross of Oberon’s Grove commented: “The audience was treated to one of the finest chamber music concerts of recent memory as the Houston-based Apollo Chamber Players made their long-awaited return to NYC Thursday evening…a glorious evening of contemporary chamber music.” Read the full review.

On the upcoming performance, Detrick commented: “Apollo is honored to showcase new works by composers who’ve helped us achieve MoonShot dreams, as President Kennedy said, ‘not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’ We recognize the inspiring multiculturalism and can-do spirit of our home, Space City Houston, along with the enduring global beauty of Texas and our great nation.”

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