Carnegie Hall to Feature American Composers Orchestra in HELLO, AMERICA

On Wednesday, March 11, 2026 at 7:30 PM, Carnegie Hall will present the American Composers Orchestra in Hello, America: Letters to Us, from Us at Zankel Hall, part of Carnegie Hall's United in Sound: America at 250 festival. The program, which commemorates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, focuses on artists' musical open letters to America. These works reflect narratives around the summer homes of turn-of-the-century Black folk, Lakota Dream Kit symbology, unspoken emotions, rituals of celebration, and the writings of historic and current Black American women.

Led by conductor Carolyn Kuan, this program features ACO commissions developed through EarShot CoLABoratory Residencies, which advance the work of composers whose work is experimental and/or rooted in musical traditions underrepresented in the orchestral repertoire. Over the course of a year, CoLABoratory provides a generative environment for composers from any and all musical backgrounds to create definition-expanding works for orchestra. Instead of a call for scores, composers are selected through a call for ideas to be developed in partnership with the orchestra through an artist-led process. The Hello, America: Letters to Us, from Us program includes the world premiere of Joseph C. Phillips Jr.'s We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident (co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall); the world premiere of Brittany J. Green's Letters to America (co-commissioned by Durham Symphony Orchestra and New Jersey Symphony), featuring soprano Karen Slack; the world premiere of Kite's Cosmologyscape; the world premiere of Shelley Washington's Haymaker, featuring cellist Amanda Gookin; and the New York premiere of Jessie Montgomery's Procession, featuring percussionist Cynthia Yeh.

We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident by Joseph C. Phillips Jr. (2025) is a four-movement

composition commissioned by Carnegie Hall and the American Composers Orchestra. Hello, America: Letters to Us, from Us features the first two movements, along with a film by Malik Isasis, commissioned to accompany the premiere performance. The composition is part of a series of orchestral, choral, and chamber works which, while tied to various subjects in Phillips Jr.'s ongoing eight-opera 1619 cycle about the history of the U.S., also represent distinct, independent addenda and companions to the operas. We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident highlights ideas of freedom for Black Americans within the country's systemic inequalities and inequities-an expansion of the theme of the second opera in the cycle, Till Paths Be Wrought Through Wilds, which is currently being composed. We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident's first movement, "The Great Silence," reflects physical aspects of freedom, inspired by Black-owned resorts and leisure spaces of the late 19th century through the 1970s. The second movement, "Stealing Away," is inspired by spiritual aspects of freedom and those places-both internal and external-where one goes to understand the world and one's place in it.

Brittany J. Green's Letters to America (2025) was composed for soprano Karen Slack, featuring text composed by Traci Neal, A Memi Sei, and Green, co-commissioned by American Composers Orchestra, Durham Symphony Orchestra, and New Jersey Symphony. "What would it feel like?" Green questions. "What beauty would emerge from the pain, frustration, and radical imagination of Black Women if our voices were heard, valued, and uplifted?" Letters to America is a four-movement work for soprano and orchestra that places the voices of present-day Black women in conversation with the Declaration of Independence through community-sourced letters. Through these pairings, the piece reclaims the agency and humanity of Black women past and present. It de-centers the voice of empire and re-centers the resistance and resilience of the very women whose labor and sacrifice have built and maintained this country. The significance of this work on the heels of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and its presentation in the classical space-a place that has excluded and diminished the artistic contributions of Black women-cannot be understated.

Cosmologyscape (2025), written and performed by Kite alongside the improvisatory Cosmologyscape Ensemble, is a piece based on Black and Indigenous dreaming techniques, ways of knowing and creating which have survived slavery and genocide. "Cosmolologyscape.com uses 26 symbols to allow the dreamer to understand their dreams," Kite states. "Lakota symbols are used for moving dreams from the other world into this one, and the African American symbols are used to communicate information for liberation and for remembering ancestry. Dreams that are submitted on Cosmolologyscape.com are translated into symbolic parameters that offer medicinal teas, and are carried into a dream score that unfolds them as a collective sonic dream through performance."

Shelley Washington's Haymaker (2025) receives its world premiere on this program, featuring cello soloist Amanda Gookin, performing on cello as well as kick drum. Developed through the American Composers Orchestra's EarShot CoLABoratory Residency program, Washington's 15-minute Haymaker takes its inspiration from an original poem of the same name, written by the composer-a celebration of female solidarity as survival and self-definition, set against systems that demand strength only on their own terms.

Procession by Jessie Montgomery (2024, rev. 2026) was inspired by the idea of how people organize and participate in variations of processionals, including religious, political, celebratory, births, deaths, war, or fights for freedom. These rituals of synchronized movement and chant signify change, or a desire to do so. "We push on through, push it along, raise our fists and open our hearts to the rhythm. Pride is validated, and catharsis is set in motion by a steady march and unwavering calls and shouts," Montgomery says. "I wanted to capture aspects of that steadiness and relentlessness." The piece is in five sections, each exploring a different interpretation of this collective march, or procession, from melodic evocation to driving militaristic marches and bell choirs, fife and drum calls, and back again. The percussion soloist plays a dual role with their counterparts in the orchestra-sometimes as the leader and sometimes the follower of the call and response themes throughout-demonstrating the unique role percussion can play as both a blending color and the sheer sonic power it has to overtake the orchestra.

Program:

American Composers Orchestra Hello, America: Letters to Us, from Us

Wednesday, March 11, 2026 at 7:30 PM

Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall | New York, NY

Program:

Shelley Washington - Haymaker [World Premiere; ACO Commission, developed via EarShot CoLABoratory]

Joseph C. Phillips Jr. - We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident [World Premiere; Co-Commissioned by Carnegie Hall and ACO, developed via EarShot CoLABoratory]

Brittany J. Green - Letters to America [World Premiere; ACO Commission, developed via EarShot CoLABoratory]

Kite - Cosmologyscape [World Premiere; ACO Commission, developed via EarShot CoLABoratory]

Jessie Montgomery - Procession for solo percussionist and orchestra [New York Premiere]

American Composers Orchestra

Carolyn Kuan, Conductor

Karen Slack, Soprano

Amanda Gookin, Cello

Cynthia Yeh, Percussion