A Commissioning, Education, and Audience Development Project

On March 17, 2002, the Cantata Singers & Ensemble under David Hoose will present the long-awaited encore performance of Donald Sur's Slavery Documents and the world premiere of T.J. Anderson's Slavery Documents 2. The performance will be held in Boston's Symphony Hall and simulcast on WGBH radio and website. Commissioned and premiered by the Cantata Singers over a decade ago, Donald Sur's Slavery Documents is a bold and disturbing work featuring arrestingly beautiful music and the composer's own libretto. Based on historical documents from the antebellum period of the American Civil War, the work is an indictment of slave owners and their attempts to biblically validate the enslavement of other humans.

The latest Cantata Singers commission -- T.J. Anderson's Slavery Documents 2 – is a spiritual companion piece that confronts the agony of slavery and reaches from it to the hope of love, family and, ultimately, spiritual redemption -- an overwhelming testimony to the power of the human spirit to transcend evil and oppression.

At a time when organizations such as the American Anti-Slavery Group are leading a 21st-century charge against the horrors of present-day slavery in the Sudan, and the issue of slavery reparations is in frequent headlines, the Cantata Singers' Slavery Documents program becomes even more compelling and poignant. For nearly four decades, the Cantata Singers' mission has been to program serious music with serious words in an effort to positively change the lives of its audience members. Slavery Documents and Slavery Documents 2 -- like several other Cantata Singers commissions that deal with spiritual struggles and serious social issues -- fulfills this mission and reflects the Cantata Singers' commitment to offer innovative, challenging programs to Boston audiences.