Decoda
Featuring “some of the brightest young classical musicians in the world” (Time Out New York), Decoda is Carnegie Hall’s first-ever affiliate ensemble, comprising alums of the adventurous Ensemble Connect. This season, as part of Carnegie Hall’s United in Sound: America at 250 festival, the spectacularly versatile group presents American Renaissance—a program of works by Charles Ives, William Grant Still, Carlos Simon, Margaret Bonds, Sarah Elizabeth Charles, Zenobia Powell Perry, and Florence Price.
Part of: United in Sound America at 250
Performers
Decoda
Program
IVES The Unanswered Question
STILL "Summerland" from Three Visions
CARLOS SIMON Giants
BONDS "Dream Variation" from Three Dream Portraits (arr. Xiaobao He)
Z. P. PERRY "Life" from Cycle of Songs on Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar (arr. Brad Balliett)
SARAH ELIZABETH CHARLES "Discover This Country" (arr. Monique Brooks Roberts)
BONDS "Troubled Water" (arr. Jeremy Ajani Jordan)
PRICE Piano Quintet in A Minor
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately 90 minutes, including one 20-minute intermission.Salon Encores
Join us for a free drink at a post-concert reception in Weill Recital Hall’s Jacobs Room.
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At a Glance
American Renaissance begins with a question and follows it across a musical landscape shaped by the complexity of the American experience. What does it mean to be human in a society capable of both extraordinary idealism and profound injustice? Why are humans capable of profound selflessness and, at the same time, violence and erasure? How do we reckon with a history that is both generative and painful—and how do we continue striving toward something more just?
Decoda begins with Charles Ives’s The Unanswered Question, a quiet meditation on existence. Against the background of a contemplative mystery of soft, sustained strings, the English horn poses “the perennial question of existence,” while woodwinds respond, struggle, and ultimately fade, leaving a litany of questions lingering in the space between sound and silence.
William Grant Still’s “Summerland” reflects and transforms this contemplative frame. Drawn from his 1936 suite Three Visions, the piece unfolds as a luminous, serene vision of the soul’s journey after life. Long lines and gentle harmonies create a sense of suspended time—a peaceful, reflective echo to Ives’s existential musings, yet grounded in lyricism and spiritual depth.
The program continues with a century of voices that respond to this question through music. Margaret Bonds’s “Troubled Water” is given new life in an arrangement by Jeremy Ajani Jordan; Brad Balliett’s arrangement of Zenobia Powell Perry’s “Life” dances between joy and misfortune in ever-shifting harmonies; Florence Price’s Piano Quintet in A Minor fuses rhythmic vitality, spiritual resonance, and classical form; and Carlos Simon’s Giants and Sarah Elizabeth Charles’s “Discover This Country” reflect on America’s promise today. Together, these works respond to Ives’s question with a clear and resounding “yes”—to life, to remembering, to creativity, to connection, and to the ongoing pursuit of justice.
—Clara Lyon