Shawn E. Okpebholo: Lord, How Come Me Here?
Navona Records

As a collection of Negro spirituals and American folk hymns recast as contemporary art songs, Lord, How Come Me Here? is a natural sequel to Shawn E. Okpebholo's 2014 set of reimagined spirituals, Steal Away. However, with the racial injustices suffered by Black people brought even more pointedly to the fore by the deaths of Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor as well as the rise of Black Lives Matter, the new collection comes charged with newfound levels of relevance and meaning. In the process of adapting eight traditionals for the new release, Okpebholo couldn't help but wonder how much has really changed since the era of slavery. He addresses the question on Lord, How Come Me Here? in a powerful original composition, Two Black Churches, that deals with decades-spanning injustices. Though the pain of Black experience is met head-on, the album's tone is less bleak than uplifting in its celebration of community.

Okpebholo earned his master's and doctoral degrees in composition at the University of Cincinnati and has been the recipient of many honours and awards, including The Academy of Arts and Letters Walter Hinrichsen Award. He's received commissions from opera companies, soloists, chamber groups, and ensembles and is currently Professor of Composition at Wheaton College-Conservatory of Music. Bringing his vision to resounding life are esteemed collaborators. American mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges recently made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Nefertiti in Philip Glass's opera Akhnaten, and baritone Will Liverman also graced the Met's stage in its 2021 production of Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones. Lending sterling support to the singers are pianist Paul Sánchez, cellist Leonardo Altino, and flutist Caen Thomason-Redus. Adding to the intimacy of the performances, all but one are duets pairing a singer with instrumentalist.

Many of the spirituals and hymns are familiar yet are strikingly reborn in these arrangements. The theme of community asserts itself at the outset in the stirring rendering given “Shall We Gather at the River” by Liverman and Sánchez, with the former's robust baritone elevating the song with carefully calibrated emotion. In place of a rousing gospel presentation, Okpebholo casts “He's Got the Whole World in His Hands” as a tender lullaby, Sánchez now partnering with Bridges and the latter bringing a magnificent, three octave-spanning performance to the song. That Okpebholo conceived it with the image of an enslaved mother singing the spiritual to her child in mind makes it resonate all the more powerfully.

Shifting gears, Bridges pairs with Altino for the heartbreaking lament “Lord, How Come Me Here?,” the cellist less supporting presence and more duet partner; as captivating as the singer's performance is, she's equaled by the passion of his playing. Countering the despair permeating the lament, the album's spiritual and folk hymn sides come together in the medley essayed with conviction by Liverman and Sánchez, “I've Never Felt Such Love / What Wondrous Love is This.” Meanwhile, Bridges captures the yearning of “Oh, Glory” with a transporting, gospel-tinged vocal, her impact all the greater for the restraint Sánchez shows in his accompaniment. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” stands out from the others for adding Thomason-Redus's flute to the Liverman-Sánchez pairing and for the jazzy swing treatment given the spiritual.

The first part of Okpebholo's powerful Two Black Churches, “Ballad of Birmingham,” deals with two tragic events perpetrated by white supremacists in two black churches, the 1963 Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham that killed four girls and the 2015 shooting at a Charleston church that saw nine parishioners lose their lives. The words sung movingly by Liverman are from a poem by Dudley Randall that explores the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing through the perspectives of the mother of a victim and her child. The haunting second movement, “The Rain,” again features the baritone and Sánchez, this time singing text by poet Marcus Amaker concerning the shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, a coastal city that often floods. Subtle allusions to “Amazing Grace” and “We Shall Overcome” emerge in Two Black Churches, but the most poignant reference is to ‘“Tis so Sweet to Trust in Jesus,” the hymn the Charleston church congregation sang at the first service after the shooting.

March 2022