darwin`s meditation for the people of lincoln

D ARWIN’S M EDITATION FOR
THE P EOPLE OF L INCOLN
“The work was everything I had hoped for...as intellectually alluring as it was
emotionally powerful.” -Barry Pearson, Director, Kirkland Fine Arts Center, Co-Commissioner
A Q UARTET C ONCERTO C ONCEIVED AND C OMPOSED BY
D ANIEL B ERNARD R OUMAIN (DBR)
COMMISSIONED BY BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC (BAM) AND KIRKLAND FINE ARTS CENTER
www.dbrmusic.com | www.opus3artists.com
D ARWIN’S M EDITATION FOR THE P EOPLE OF L INCOLN
Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln—two extraordinary men—were born within hours of one
another on the same auspicious day of February
12, 1809. If one traced the origin of the human
species, the other set its destination in motion.
In Darwin’s Meditation for The People of Lincoln,
Haitian-American composer/musician Daniel
Bernard Roumain (DBR) brings them face-toface for a lush, orchestral event of historic proportions.
A grandly conceived work that employs the expansiveness of a chamber orchestra conducted
by Paul Haas, together with four arresting soloists—DBR (violin), Wynne Bennett (piano), Daniel
Beaty (actor/playwright), and Emeline Michel
(singer)—Darwin’s Meditation for The People of
Lincoln sculpts the sound of liberation, survival,
and legacy in the image of two of its most tireless proponents.
The composition of the work is inspired and guided by a musical and historical exploration of the
island nation of Haiti. This unusual perspective
illuminates new relationships between Darwin,
Lincoln and Haiti and is thoughtfully and provocatively infused into all aspects seen and heard in
this work.
Using original video by Yuki Nakajima, lights by
Matthew Richards, and texts drawn from both
Darwin and Lincoln, plus those of Obie Awardwinning playwright Daniel Beaty, DBR creates a
brilliantly imagined conversation between two
historical giants—and a scintillating, spiritual,
sonic vision of what it means to be free.
Directed by D.J. Mendel and DBR
Running time: 90min, no intermission
Visit www.dbrmusic.com for more information.
Darwin’s Meditation for the People of Lincoln
A Quartet Concerto Conceived and Composed by Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR)
DBR, violin
Wynne Bennett, piano
Daniel Beaty, actor
Emeline Michel, singer
SymphoNYC conducted by Paul Haas
The Voice, a pocket play, written by Daniel Beaty
Lighting design by Matthew Richards
Video design by Yuki Nakajima
Directed by D.J. Mendel and DBR
Additional Credits:
Maricela composed by Emeline Michel
Chans composed by Emeline Michel and Adrian Legagneur
La Dessalinienne (The Haitian National Anthem) composed by Nicolas Geffrard and Justin Lherisson
Additional orchestrations, arrangements, and music by Wynne Bennett and John Yaffé
Additional words and texts by Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, Barack Obama, Randall Robinson, Emeline
Michel, Daniel Bernard Roumain, and Daniel Beaty
Score and parts prepared by John Yaffé
Rika Iino, Producer
Annie Burns, Production Manager
Chris Walsh, Lighting Supervisor
WHO’S WHO
Known for fusing his classical music roots with a myriad of soundscapes, Haitian-American artist Daniel Bernard
Roumain (DBR) has carved a reputation as a passionately innovative composer, performer, violinist, and band
leader. His unique hybrid style continues to capture new music lovers worldwide. From Australia’s Sydney Opera House to Boston’s ICA Museum, DBR continues his worldwide tour premiering solo works and pulsing duets off of his debut international solo album etudes4violin&electronix (Thirsty Ear Recordings). As a composer,
his dramatic soul-inspiring pieces range from orchestral scores and energetic chamber works to rock songs and
electronica. All converged in DBR’s One Loss Plus, his multimedia premiere at BAM’s 2007 Next Wave Festival,
which kicked off the festival’s three-year residency of DBR commissioned works. Recent premieres include: WE
MARCH, a guitar concerto that premiered with Eliot Fisk and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra; THE TUSCALOOSA
MEDITATIONS, one of the first commissions of a Haitian-American composer by the University of Alabama composed in honor of Vivian Malone Jones, the first African American woman to attend UA; and Double Quartet:
The Kompa Variations, an exploration of Haitian kompa music within a theme and variations form commissioned
by and composed for the Providence String Quartet, premiering this year at the First Works Providence festival in
Rhode Island. Other projects include the score for Carl Hancock Rux’s contemporary opera Makandal; groundbreaking fusion of contrasting cultures and instruments with Elan Vytal aka DJ Scientific in DBR’s Sonata for Violin and Turntables; and ongoing collaborations with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance
Company, Philip Glass, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and DJ Spooky. www.dbrmusic.com www.myspace.com/dbrmission
Daniel Beaty (Actor/Playwright) is an award winning actor, singer, writer, composer and poet. His critically acclaimed
solo play Emergence-See! at The Public Theater received the 2007 Obie Award for Excellence in Off-Broadway
Theater for Writing & Performing and the 2007 AUDELCO Award for Solo Performance. His newest play RESURRECTION is presently having its world premiere and he’s also creating a new series for Showtime. www.danielbeaty.com
Wynne Bennett (Keyboardist/pianist/composer) has performed and recorded with such diverse artists as James
Carter, Konstantin Lifschitz, Akim Funk Buddha, Pete Rock, Vannessa Daou, Slick Rick, Bill T. Jones, Little Brother, DBR,
Drug Rug, and Mobb Deep. Wynne is currently performing internationally with the Tony Award winning choreographer Bill T. Jones and his company, The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, in Another Evening: I Bow Down,
and was most recently commissioned to work on their latest work A Quarreling Pair.
Paul Haas (Conductor) is the founder and Artistic Director of Sympho, a groundbreaking concert production company. His conducting engagements have included performances with the San Antonio Symphony, the Rochester
Philharmonic Orchestra, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and as Music Director of the New York Youth Symphony. Paul is a graduate of Yale University and the Juilliard School (Bruno Walter Fellow with Otto-Werner Mueller).
Emeline Michel (Singer), known as the “Joni Mitchell of Haiti,” has emerged as the reigning queen of Haitian song.
Her songs merge traditional Haitian rhythms with jazz, pop, bossa nova and samba. A captivating performer, versatile vocalist, accomplished dancer, songwriter and producer, Emeline sings in French and Haitian Creole, and her
world-wide concerts and seven CD recordings have catapulted to international acclaim. www.emeline-michel.com
Makoto Kikuchi (Drums) was born in Japan and began playing drums at the age of 13. While at Berklee College of Music in Boston she studied with Joe Hunt, Kenwood Dennard, and Jon Hazilla, was awarded the Zildjian
Award, and played at the legendary Wally’s Cafe.
Jim Roberson (Bass) started performing professionally at the age of 16 with such notable names as John Bany,
Don Stille, and Von Freeman. He studied at the New School for Social Research and Design and worked with
Reggie Workman, Junior Mance, Chico Hamilton, Jane Ira Bloom, Jason Lindner and John Benitez. Current projects include; Resolution 15, The Beaty Brothers Band, Lies Beneath, Loud Apt., Yayoi Ikawa Trio, Hollands, and
the Misnomer(S).
SymphoNYC (Orchestra) is a fellowship of young musicians from diverse and accomplished backgrounds who
come together for the shared joy of musical exploration. They have brought audiences varied and engaging
programs consisting of classical masterworks, world premieres and everything in between as they search for
ways to bring new light to old works and new works to light. Members of the group have performed with many
orchestras both in the United States and abroad and have been heard at such prestigious music festivals as
Marlboro, Tanglewood, and Ravinia.
D.J. Mendel (Co-director) is a New York City based filmmaker and theater-maker. Best recognized as a regular
actor in the work of Hal Hartley - with whom he has worked since 1998 - Mendel also performs frequently in the
theater, and has directed a number of films. He has collaborated with theatrical avant-garde legend Richard
Foreman, Cynthia Hopkins, Rosanne Cash, and Eileen Ivers among others. www.startherefilms.com
Yuki Nakajima (Video Designer) was born in Yokohama, Japan to an Okinawan descent family. She studied
Art History in Tokyo (Keio University, B.F.A.), and Computer Art in New York (School of visual Arts, M.F.A.). She has
worked on numerous projects for television shows for HBO, PBS, Showtime, HGTV, as well theater productions at
The Kennedy Center (Washington D.C.), La Mama Theater (NYC), T:B:A by PICA and others. www.moonrabbitz.
com
Matthew Richards (Lighting Designer) designs lighting for theatre, opera, and dance nationally and internationally. Matthew previously collaborated with Daniel Bernard Roumain on One Loss Plus. Credits include: Port
Authority at Atlantic Theater Co., The Drunken City and Pen for Playwrights Horizons, Len, Asleep in Vinyl at Second Stage, Bay Street Theatre, The Old Globe, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Wolf Trap Opera, Yale Repertory
Theatre and many others.
Christopher Walsh (Lighting Supervisor) would like to thank Matt Richards for this opportunity and continued
support. Recent Credits: Bell, Book and Candle (Bristol Valley theatre), Edward II (The Secret Theatre). Chris also
works full time for Lighting Workshop a Brooklyn architectural design firm.
Annie Burns (Production Manager) is originally from Albuquerque, NM and is a graduate of Berklee College of
Music in Boston. Annie studied sound engineering and arranging for big band and orchestra. When not on tour
with DBR, Annie works as Producer for Sozo Media, an artist & events development, marketing, and production
company; Administrator for Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU),= a theatre networking non-profit; and she runs
her own rock artists and events management company, annie*rock. www.annierock.com
Rika Iino (Producer) grew up in Tokyo, Japan training as a classical pianist. Rika’s passion for event production
and design began in 1996 while working in Tokyo as an assistant to the executive producer for the nationally
televised Super Concert, with Natalie Cole, Kiri Te Kanawa, André Previn, and the NHK Symphony. In 2001, she
launched SOZO MEDIA, a NY-based music and arts marketing and production consultancy serving artists and
cultural institutions. Since 2004 Rika has served as business and marketing strategist for DBR, managing and promoting a myriad of touring, recorded, and commissioned projects.
Composer’s Notes on Darwin’s Mediation for the People of Lincoln
Upon the completion of One Loss Plus, my first commission for the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next
Wave Festival (2007), Joe Melillo, Executive Producer, invited me to compose another work for the next
festival and my thoughts were immediately drawn to Abraham Lincoln. The bicentennial of his birth
was quickly approaching and before this, I had often considered musical settings of his words. As I began to research Lincoln and consider what I might do, I found an historical website where a timeline of
events for the year 1809 was proudly displayed. That timeline revealed that both Charles Darwin and
Abraham Lincoln were born in the same year, on the same day, within hours of one another. Suddenly,
I had found something ripe for a musical setting.
My initial thoughts about a theme to connect these two men centered on slavery, as they each struggled, in various ways, with both defining and liberating “man from man.” It appeared to me to be the
most natural theatrical connection for this music-driven work, particularly as I am a Haitian-American of
African descent. Darwin and Lincoln apparently never met, but one knew of the other and there were
hundreds of letters between Darwin and his associates on slavery, the Civil War, and “our American descendants.” One of the first quotes I discovered from those letters illuminated Darwin’s view on slavery
and I was initially captivated by the power and precision of these words: “Those who look tenderly at
the slave-owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the position of
the latter...It makes one’s blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American
descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty.”
But as my reading and research continued, I realized there was an emotional arc sewn into the very
fabric of these men’s lives, so much so, that my desire to explore this topic increased in both certainty
and curiosity. I became fascinated with their struggles, their loss, and how those very personal struggles
and losses were reflected in their professional writings. I began to discover the overlapping qualities,
aspects, and sorrow of their lives. They both lost their mother at an early age; they had long, productive and potent marriages; they suffered with physical and emotional problems; they lost young children and those losses affected their relationship with God and religion; they changed themselves and
asked others to change with them; and of course, all of this was and remains reflected in their words.
I was no longer able to remain solely interested in Darwin and Lincoln’s views on slavery. I began to
imagine an ordinary conversation between these two extraordinary men, if only they had had the opportunity to meet.
My dreams of a conversation between Darwin and Lincoln revealed a fascination with their words.
Not only their published, historical texts, but also their private expressions on family, faith, legacy, and
spirituality. The problem, with such a massive collection of available words and writings, was: Which
words should I choose? My solution was to work with a playwright and create a play in which Darwin
and Lincoln’s voices could merge to form a reflective conversation, using their words and writings as
the source for the script. I was excited and eager to find a playwright to help me.
Coincidentally, around this time, I was invited by the playwright Daniel Beaty to compose incidental
music for his play Resurrection. After seeing a showing of that work, it was clear to me that Daniel
Beaty was the person I could trust to help me better articulate my vision. As we began our work, we
were blessed to have Alison Cherry as our research assistant. She spent countless hours finding various
quotes, letters, and other facts and figures on everything Darwin and Lincoln. Most remarkable during
this period of research was my continuing and growing fascination with Haiti. I began to ask myself,
“What was happening in Haiti in 1809?” I knew that Haiti had won its independence from France in
1801, and that Darwin’s Origin of Species and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation were written and
published within three years of one another (1859-1862). But again I asked, “What was happening in
Haiti?” The question compelled me to consider understanding our American values and sense of democracy through the eyes of an island-nation, Haiti.
Consider this quote from Randall Robinson’s compelling, An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to
the Kidnapping of a President: “In 1779, twelve years before the start of the Haitian revolution, Henri
Christophe at the age of twelve fought alongside the soldiers of George Washington with a group of
eight hundred Haitian blacks and mulattoes in the American Revolution at the Battle of Savannah,
where Haitians died in the cause of American Independence.”
Or Darwin’s own words, revealing his knowledge and admiration for Haiti: “I never saw any of the diminutive Portuguese with their murderous countenances, without almost wishing for Brazil to follow the
example of Haiti.”
Or Dr. Daniel L. Guillory’s account of Lincoln’s barber, a Haitian-born Springfield philanthropist: William
de Fleurville was Lincoln’s barber for 24 years, his neighbor for a time, and the guardian of the Lincoln
home when the family was in Washington. Born in Haiti in 1807, he immigrated to Baltimore in 1820 and
learned the barbering trade. Successful and visible in the Springfield business community, “Billy the
Barber” was also a flute and violin player [and] a considerable philanthropist in the growing frontier
community.
Or Frederick Douglas, friend and confidant to Lincoln, years later serving as Special Envoy and Minister to Haiti in 1893: “Haiti...is trying to be a sister republic and anxious to have a government of the
people...she is the one country to which we turn the cold shoulder.”
To me, Douglas’s “we” referred to “us” as Americans, and I felt compelled, as a Haitian-American
composer in 2008, to address these gaps in our historical knowledge, and the proximity and relationship to, and debt that we as Americans owe, this “land of many mountains.” In my parent’s home, it
was always made clear to me that Haitians and Americans had more in common than the differences
I was taught in school; that Haitians and Americans shared a common history and an uncommon
story; that Haitians and Americans fought for, and died in the name of, freedom; that Haitian mangoes
were just as sweet as America’s apple pie; that we were and are brothers and sisters of revolution. It
was clear to me that Haiti had to have the pride, place, and purpose, in this work, that England and
America already enjoyed in the world. Suddenly, it was clear: Darwin’s Meditation for the People of
Lincoln wasn’t about the world, but rather my view of it.
I asked the celebrated Haitian singer, Emeline Michel, to join the project and support my quest to add
a Haitian perspective to the work. We began to assemble our texts: I wrote some additional words,
included the Haitian National Anthem, added Creole words, and the lyrics of songs from Emeline’s
music, as the first few drafts of our play began to take shape. As the work progressed, I began to notice how similar the words and thoughts were between Darwin and Lincoln and the Haitian National
Anthem. At times, I wasn’t always certain whose words belonged to whom. Embedded in this confusion, was excitement and clarity. It was clear, that the most interesting theatrical solution might be a
monodrama in which Darwin and Lincoln and Haiti are fused into a singular voice of the people!
The play was completed and I was ready to set it all to music. It suggested a chamber orchestra of
strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion. It suggested piano and harmonica (apparently, Lincoln often had a harmonica in his pocket). It suggested a natural, acoustic sound, with the slight amplification
of human voices. It suggested an actor, a virtuoso pianist, a Haitian singer, and a solo six-string violinist. The music suggested projected words, in English, French, and Creole, so that the audience might
see and hear words that inspired, changed, and saved a nation. Borrowing techniques I observed in
contemporary opera and theater, I decided that I would not coordinate the projected words with the
spoken or sung words in an effort to give multiple meanings to both what is seen and heard. All of this
became a quartet concerto and setting of a pocket play, on Darwin and Lincoln, understood through
the eyes of an island-nation, Haiti.
A few days after completing this work, my girlfriend Jill Arkin, our dog Tank, and I attended rehearsals
for Resurrection in Washington, DC. We made it a point to visit the Lincoln Memorial. In 1922, Robert
Todd Lincoln, the only surviving son and last direct descendant of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln,
was present at the dedication. Holding Jill’s hand, I tried to imagine what it must have been like for him
and for his family, to see his father there so large and illustrious. I imagined what it must have felt like
for Abraham and Mary to lose their three other sons. I tried to imagine that sense of loss for Mrs. Emma
Darwin, as her “love, precious love,” died in agonizing pain in their home, in their shared bed. I stood
silent and thought long and hard about the thousands of Haitians starving, shivering, crying, drowning,
dreaming, and dying in their homes, holding hands, in their shared beds. In that moment, I took a moment and said a silent prayer and looked out onto that lawn, onto that pool of water and wonder, into
that precious space that is utterly American, and allowed myself to feel the flaws of my humanity and
the limits of my life.
Darwin’s Mediation for the People of Lincoln is a poem, a simple gift, and musical expression of
that precious moment between resolve and regret. To draw from the words of Lincoln and Beaty:
“Four score and seven years ago my heart began to break, and for awhile, I did not know what it
means to be free.”
Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR)
Margate, Florida
August 26, 2008