Dans l'espoir de ce jour (In the Hope of This Day)

for baritone and chamber orchestra (2013)

poem by Léopold Sédar Senghor

music by Chappell Kingsland

Première: 3/7/13 - Reuben Walker, baritone; Indiana University New Music Ensemble; Roger Kalia, conductor - Bloomington, Indiana

Léopold Senghor was a man of vision.  Born in the island village of Joal in 1906, he grew up in a wealthy Senegalese family.  Senghor had an insatiable curiosity for the cultures of Senegal and France.  He received a scholarship to study in Paris, where he gained a mastery of the French language and a deep understanding of the contradictions inherent in the European way of thinking/living.  Senghor and his colleague Aimé Cesaire coined the term négritude, a complex concept which is at heart an affirmation of African values.  Senghor would go on to become President of Senegal from 1960-1980, leading an African Socialist country which has remained politically and economically stable, religiously tolerant, and artistically flourishing.  He continued to write poetry throughout his life, to much acclaim, and was the first African to be elected to the prestigious Academie Française.

"Dans l'espoir de ce jour" is the final section of "Que m'accompagnent kôras et balafong," a sweeping ode which explores Senghor's feelings about the complex relationship between Africa and Europe.  The poem was written on the eve of World War II, while Senghor was a soldier in the French army; only months later, he would be taken prisoner by the Germans and held captive for two years.  The first lines speak of rivers flowing with blood.  The next section of the poem takes us to Senghor's childhood in Senegal, where the night brims with life and his uncle Tokô'Waly teaches him the constellations.  At "Nuit d'Afrique ma nuit noire," the tone shifts to an exultant oratory (the kind of writing which led one critic to dub Senghor an "African Whitman") in praise of the African night.  The line "O visage classique" refers to the parts of the face, a frequently-used analogy for the geography of Senegal itself.  With the exclamation "Ah! que de fois…" we are slammed back into Europe in 1939, the poet now viewing the African night (and African culture) as a vehicle for deliverance from the flaws of European thinking.  The final two lines of the poem allude to Senghor's homecoming, his return to Senegal after many years in France.  He has married a French woman, but has not forgotten his heritage, and he sees himself as an African citizen, his essence unchanged by his time in Europe.

The music alternately evokes African and European sound-worlds.  For inspiration, I immersed myself in West African music for several months, particularly the glorious sounds of the kora and balafong.  The harp and the xylophone are Western counterparts of these instruments; by combining them with marimba, guitar and piano, I have attempted to get closer to the sound of the African instruments.  (To any of you who have never heard kora music, do a quick search for Toumani Diabaté and prepare to be transported.)  There are two Charles Ives quotations in the music (about the leopard in his cage and the unanswered questions in the salons of sophisms), but I chose not to quote any African (or European) music directly.  By nature, Dans l'espoir de ce jour is a multicultural piece, an American's response to an African's poem in French as performed by an operatically-trained baritone and an ensemble of European instruments.  Senghor's personal vision had to do with building and strengthening connections between races, between countries, between cultures.  I can only hope that my music will help to do the same.

I wish to thank the Georgina Joshi Foundation for commissioning the work in memory of Georgina and the other students whose lives were lost; Anne, François, Rosalind and Jeremy for their invaluable assistance in translating the poem; Roger for his passionate and precise conducting; Reuben for his supreme musicianship; Prof. Gary Arvin for his generous assistance with matters of French text-setting and diction; Prof. David Dzubay for his expert guidance with the orchestration; Prof. Don Freund for his encouragement and support; and the outstanding musicians of the New Music Ensemble.  It takes a whole village to bring a piece to life.