Art by Devon Kelley-Yurdin

Featuring Grammy-nominated tenor Nicholas Phan, this program explores our country’s rich legacy of protest songs. Repertoire includes traditional songs of protest and music inspired by social movements and historical events, including Nico Muhly’s Stranger, Akenya Seymour’s Fear the Lamb, and the premiere of Errollyn Wallen’s Protest Songs. Spanning genres, eras, and movements, A Change Is Gonna Come confronts our past and present and celebrates protest as one of our most precious rights.

• Stranger Nico Muhly

• Freedom is a Constant Struggle/I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill/It Isn't Nice Roberta Slavitt, Alfred Hayes, Malvina Reynolds, arr. Domenic Salerni

• Lovely, Dark and Lonely One Harry Burleigh/ Langston Hughes, arr. Ian Gottlieb

• Strange Fruit Abel Meeropol/Billie Holiday, arr. Jonathan Bingham

• Fear the Lamb Akenya Seymour 

• Blowin’ in the Wind Bob Dylan, arr. Domenic Salerni

• Fiddle and the Drum/Where Have all the Flowers Gone/What Are You Fighting For? Joni Mitchell, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, arr. Domenic Salerni

• Protest Songs (World Premiere) Errollyn Wallen

• A Change is Gonna Come Sam Cooke, arr. Domenic Salerni

Errollyn Wallen Protest Songs was co-commissioned by Palaver Strings and the Tippet Rise Fund of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation.