THE NEW YORKER: Numinous: “The Grey Land”
THE NEW YORKER: Numinous: “The Grey Land”
BY OUSSAMA ZAHR
“In a new vocal work, ‘The Grey Land,’ the composer Joseph C. Phillips, Jr., and his ensemble, Numinous, claim a place for Black experience in Western classical music. Its first words echo the opening of Samuel Barber’s lyrical reverie ‘Knoxville: Summer of 1915’ (‘It has become that time of evening’), but this idyllic narrative is shattered by news of Michael Brown’s murder. ‘The Grey Land’ is rich with allusions to tragedy, hope, and resistance, delivered by an ensemble of singers, strings, brass, and electric guitars and pianos. There’s the defiant funk of ‘I Should Have Been Mother****ing Black Mamba!’ and the transformation of the conventional liturgical movement ‘Agnus Dei’ into ‘Agnus Bey,’ a spare hymn about Beyoncé, sung in Latin. With his stirring meditation on racial injustice, Phillips confronts a classical tradition that has often been used to ennoble its white subjects to the exclusion of others.”