"America's Requiem – A Knee on The Neck," a cantata honoring the spirit and sacrifice of George Floyd.
A world premiere masterpiece is in tribute to George Floyd almost two years since his murder.
On March 26 and 28, audiences were gifted with a world premiere masterpiece complete with a full orchestra, 132 voices, and four soloists. The National Philharmonic Orchestra presented “America’s Requiem – A Knee on the Neck,” a cantata honoring the spirit and sacrifice of George Floyd. Music was composed by Adolphus Hailstork with poetry written by Herbert Martin, which became the libretto.
Conductor Piotr Gajewski blended African percussion instruments within the orchestration. Chorus master Eugene Rogers merged voices from the National Philharmonic Chorale, the Washington Chorus and the Howard University Chorale, who gave us Floyd’s emotions as felt through Martin’s libretto.
The orchestra opened with a slow buildup that conveyed something was brewing like a bad storm. The libretto brings warnings about behavior that Black elders give to young Black boys. Those warnings in “A Knee on the Neck” were the actual words Martin heard at age 12 from his mother. That section of the cantata is titled “A Black Mother’s Commandment.” It is “the talk” from another era given to young Black boys.
“When you go downtown, dress yourself in politeness. If you get arrested, politeness will restrain the police, and it will protect you.”
Mezzo-soprano J’nai Bridges is the mother’s voice imploring her child to be careful. Bridges’ voice soars as she repeats the warnings. The audience is forced to remember Floyd’s words and behavior as he tries to understand what Minneapolis police officers would do.
Stanzas project Black voices frustrated by years of hard work with little reward. Tenor Norman Shankle and baritone Kenneth Overton sing with strength that their struggles and setbacks will not take away earned freedom. We heard cautiousness and pain but determined voices. Then Floyd’s final breaths are captured in the lines, “Mama say come home boy. My Lord come on home.”
In their 80s, Hailstork and Martin put their anger, peppered with life experiences, into a stirring cantata. Within a week of Floyd’s murder, Martin wrote a poem expressing his feelings and sent it to Hailstork. That poem, called a “Black Requiem,” became the libretto for “A Knee on the Neck.”
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