Thursday, January 26 at 3:00 PM
“Margaret Bonds' Credo and Carl Orff's Carmina Burana are two 20th-century choral works that are quite different in terms of their subject matter, their scale, and the conditions of their composition. In this lecture, Opera Philadelphia Scholar in Residence Dr. Lily Kass will explore these two works ahead of the company's upcoming double-bill performance, demonstrating how the divergent sounds and histories of Credo and Carmina Burana serve to reinforce connections between choral music and community.”
Extend your experience with a ticket to the matinée performance of Carmina Burana at the Academy of Music on Sunday, February 5th. Inquire about discounted ticket availability with the Athenaeum today!
About the Show:
The critically acclaimed Opera Philadelphia Chorus and Orchestra take center stage in a concert that brings together one of the most popular pieces in the choral canon with a rarely-performed masterpiece.
From its very first moments – spine-tingling chords of vocal and percussive ferocity – Carmina Burana captures the audience's attention. It is a kaleidoscopic piece that demands to be heard live, as thundering cries on the fickleness of fortune transform into lilting celebrations of spring and raucous drinking songs.
Orff's cantata will be preceded by Margaret Bonds’ Credo, a setting of a prose poem by W.E.B. Du Bois. An affirmation of racial justice, peace, and Black pride, the piece matches Du Bois’ reverent words with Bonds’ ingenious orchestration and powerful melodic language.
Lily Kass is an interdisciplinary scholar, educator, and artist. She teaches music history courses on topics such as “Powerful Women in Opera,” “Mozart Operas,” and “Exoticism on the Musical Stage” across the Mid-Atlantic Region, at institutions such as Johns Hopkins University, Temple University, and the University of Pennsylvania. She earned an A.B. in Literature from Harvard University in 2010, and a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2017. Lily’s research focuses on how operas are reimagined, adapted, and translated to meet the needs of new audiences.
Lily shares Opera Philadelphia’s passion for making opera accessible and inclusive, and she has been a frequent collaborator with Opera Philadelphia’s Community Initiatives department since 2014. She has also lectured for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. In 2011, Lily served as a Lectures and Community Programs Fellow at the Metropolitan Opera Guild, promoting and developing lecture series and facilitating backstage tours of the Metropolitan Opera House.
Lily is a trained coloratura soprano, and she co-founded the opera scenes program at the University of Pennsylvania, which she directed from 2014-2018. She is currently honored to serve as a Marian Anderson Scholar Artist with the National Marian Anderson Museum and Historical Society.
