The worlds of jazz, classical and spirituals have shown companionship in the past with gratifying, uplifting results. Duke Ellington did it. So did Mary Lou Williams. Mark Shapiro is the Music Director of the 150+ voice Cecilia Chorus of New York. Cyrus Chestnut is a world class pianist whose jazz works are legion; his classical and spiritual inspiration are deeply rooted in his repertoire of performance and recordings.
On April 19 at Carnegie Hall, the Cecilia Chorus of New York, with a classical orchestra, will perform Beethoven’s Christ on the Mount of Olives. The Chorus will then join the Cyrus Chestnut Trio for the world premiere of Cyrus’ Power in the Blood, also marking his debut as a headliner at this world-renowned performance venue.
Recently, Cyrus and Mark stopped by the WBGO Studios to chat with me about this significant collaboration of classical, jazz and spirituals.
Listen to our conversation, above.
Interview transcript:
Gary Walker: How did the worlds of Mark Shapiro & the Cecilia Chorus and Cyrus Chestnut first come together?
Mark Shapiro: Charlotte Small is a singer who is going to be a soloist in the performance. We are colleagues at the New School and Mannes College of Music in New York, and she has a connection to Cyrus, which I will let him explain if he wishes to. We were talking as the pandemic was receding about projects that did and didn't happen. Cyrus had this project for The Saga of the Cross. It is Power in the Blood, that was part of a larger piece that had been scheduled at the Kennedy Center, but that did not happen.
I thought, “This sounds like the kind of thing I would love to do.” I've known about Cyrus for decades, and I've been a huge fan. We love performing with great artists. The Cecilia Chorus has performed with winners of the Metropolitan Opera Competition whom we've given their debut at Carnegie Hall.
We are actually discovering that this will be Cyrus's first time as a headliner at Carnegie Hall. We are thrilled to be the people presenting that long overdue occasion. For us to share the stage with Cyrus is something we are so excited to do. When I heard about Cyrus's piece, this Beethoven piece tells the same story, and it's the same length, and I thought it's just amazing to have, we've really been feeling it in rehearsal, Beethoven's telling of the story of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane is very touching, very powerful. You feel the loneliness and despair, and then the power of what happens. Then Cyrus’s telling of the same story with incredible musical force. It's going to be quite a night.
Now, will Cyrus join the first part of the program as well?
Mark Shapiro: It’s a great performance for people who love both. The first half of the performance is without Cyrus. It's Beethoven, soloists, chorus and orchestra. It's about 50 minutes. Then we reset the stage and the second half is Cyrus and his trio and the chorus and two soloists—Charlotte and Makudu Senaona, a South African tenor, who will be joining us.
When you talk about the Cecilia Chorus of New York, you're talking about voices 150 strong that will work their way through Beethoven’s Christ on the Mount of Olives. Cyrus's portion of the program is Power in the Blood, which is kind of like reduction. If you want to cook something over the stove and you want reduction and you want it to really be sweet at the end. Well, that's what you do. It’s gleaned from The Saga of the Cross. Cyrus, talk about that if you would.
Cyrus Chestnut: It will be a splendid time. It'll be a historic occasion, I'd like to say, just being able to share this one story from two points of view on such a major stage in the world. Power in the Blood is an excerpt of works from The Saga of the Cross. It's the story of Easter told from the African American perspective. One could go into any standard hymn book, and read basic meter, whether it be 3/4, 4/4, 6/8, whatever. And you could read this music the way it is. But, when I was growing up, music was interpreted a little different way.
Music was interpreted through his father's hands. If you aren't aware of this recording, My Father's Hands, it tells the story, before he ever puts his hands on the piano, about growing up in a house with a father who played piano, mostly gospel piano and played in the church. A very young Cyrus, before he could ever climb up on the bench, was there taking in the inspirations of his own father.
Cyrus Chestnut: That's so true. My first exposure to music was through my father. I like to say that, growing up, the triplet was a great part of the culture. The quarter note was always broken into three. So rather than have it one, two, three, four, it was always one and a two and a three and a four. 4/4 becomes 12/8 3/4 becomes 9/16. The music was just simply putting the swing feel to it. The Saga of the Cross employs the gospel feel and also the jazz feel.
There's part of it that kind of feels like a second New Orleans second line, I believe.
Cyrus Chestnut: It really brings in, I like to say, out of that spot where it's not too many times when one says, okay, we're just going to do a jazz thing. It's one thing, or we're going to do a classical thing. Hopefully that's very unique.
Mark Shapiro: I think not only are there all these musical connections, but I've been really struck by the way the story is so universal. Whatever one's particular faith may or may not be, the experience of loneliness, of the telling of the crucifixion as a kind of general story of persecution, is really powerful in both works. In the movement “Calvary” that Charlotte sings, it's very strong. And in Beethoven's portrayal of Christ, he has an aria that is really moving. I think that there's a kind of universal appeal to these stories that for me, and I think for Cyrus too, is probably very important. That it's not only in the context of a particular religion, but even beyond that, that these pieces have such power.
Power indeed, and I would imagine also a classical reference. Cyrus, if you're familiar with his body of work, is certainly comfortable in the world of classical, be it Debussy or Ravel or Mozart or Chopin on one of his previous records, but Kaleidoscope features himself in the trio setting with Eric Wheeler and Chris Beck.
And those gentlemen will be on stage with him at Carnegie Hall on April 19, working through the power in the blood with the 150-voice Cecilia Chorus. It should be something very special. Now, when you take a group of classically trained voices and bring them into the world of jazz, there's the element of improvisation that comes into play there. And when I think about the relationship of the Cecilia Chorus of New York and the Cyrus Chestnut Trio, I think of a call and response kind of element that maybe Cyrus learned a whole lot about, working with legends like Betty Carter, for example. There would be that kind of thing happening that night, I suspect.
Cyrus Chestnut: Yes, very much so. I could go back to the record with Kathleen Battle, So Many Stars. It’s pretty much a fusion of different points of view. We think of it as a very unique dish of where all of these various elements will be dropped in and then we stir them around and then the result is what you hear. It'll be great for it. I'm looking forward to just human beings coming together at a point around this story, but also leaving of being inspired. I say respectfully in in these days when there seems to be so much fragmentation in society, I think this is a great opportunity for many different walks of life to come together. The notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B with an occasional sharp and flat.
Whatever it takes to bring people together. Recently it was the solar eclipse, but on a daily basis, it happens in the world of music. And this particular world of music comes together. Mark, was it hard for them to work with a jazz cat?
Mark Shapiro: Well, we're going to find out when we meet Cyrus on Saturday, but I think that the answer is going to be no. I think that the way the piece is set up, the chorus is a kind of frame in which we want to give Cyrus the freedom to do what he's going to do. The piece is designed for 150 voices and there'll be actually more. We will set up a very clear frame and then the trio has a lot of room to expand on that. I think something we're really looking forward to is we've built into the sequence, which Cyrus called “Meditation,” where Cyrus is going to improvise on all the themes of the piece. The idea is there's a kind of storytelling that the chorus frames in the music, that also has the arc of the story. And that has this similar arc to Beethoven, where it goes to some very difficult, painful, sad places, and then ends in tremendous joy and glory. I think Cyrus is going to take us on the same journey.
The interesting part about Cyrus, and I know this firsthand, is whether he's performing or in the studio, he never takes the same trip down the same street twice. So there's going to be something a little bit different and that's what keeps it in the moment, right?
Cyrus Chestnut: Yeah, improvisation. I like to think about spontaneous composition, theme and variations. Now granted, there's a specific framework, but the greatest fun will be working right inside and all around the theme, so I'm looking forward to a most momentous time.
If you're looking for inspiration, this would be the place I would think where it would all come together for you.
Mark Shapiro: Joining us on stage will be members of the Teachers College gospel chorus and some tenors and basses. One of the things that we do as part of our mission is we really want younger people, and especially people who are going to be future teachers, to have this exposure to the repertoire. We are very excited to have been able to create this opportunity for future teachers of music to perform with Cyrus at Carnegie Hall. For us, that's extra meaningful.
Mark, you said you want to come to Carnegie Hall to see the athletic abilities of Cyrus Chestnut. Tell me about that. What are we talking about here?
Mark Shapiro: I think it's athletic in both the mind and the body. I've seen Cyrus play. It's athletic in the biggest possible sense of the word that you hear. I think the way Cyrus's musical mind is working that he finds possibilities in harmony and travels to those places. Physically what he's able to do with the keyboard is incredible. Beethoven too was a really good pianist. I think that a lot of Beethoven's inspiration as a composer came from what he could do at the keyboard. I think Cyrus could certainly resonate with that.
If you look at our promotional materials, we had a lot of fun doing some Photoshop and putting Cyrus and Beethoven side by side, each of them at a keyboard. We really enjoyed that. We actually included the quote from Time Magazine—“The best jazz pianist of his generation“—about Cyrus. And then, in a bit of humor for us, we quoted a contemporary German paper from Beethoven's time, saying that he was sublime.
When you put the two photos together, it's obvious to me that Cyrus seems to be having a better time than Beethoven.
Mark Shapiro: I think that could be true. He certainly has a more fun outfit than Beethoven did. We haven't talked about it, but I don't know what Cyrus is going to wear at Carnegie Hall.
Cyrus, when you were putting together the Power in the Blood and creating that, did you ever envision that it would involve a collaboration with 150 voices?
Cyrus Chestnut: Here at Howard University, I'm around a lot of vocalists. I've been put in situations where I can start to write for vocal ensembles. Going back to 2017, when I was putting together The Saga of the Cross, it was designed for a large ensemble.
At the Abyssinian Church where it first premiered, there were close to 150 voices there as well. So the more voices, the merrier for me. I think, in this season of my musical life, that I'm really getting into working with the voice, trying to figure out different ways of how to navigate, There is a specific way how things are traditionally done. But Gary, I'm talking Betty Carter here, if I dare try to do anything that was done before, she will come out of her grave and probably pop me on the back of my neck.
One of the important things that you learn from Betty Carter is “Don’t play something that you played before,” which sounds like a simple mantra, but maybe not so simple when you have to keep coming up with new things.
Cyrus Chestnut: To take all elements of rhythm, melody, and harmony and figure and, first and foremost, understand the traditional trajectory of how everything moves. I understand that. I do not limit myself to that. If everybody goes through the right door, I'm going to look at the left door and figure out what's going on there and make it feel like the right door.
I think there's a lot of different ways to get from point A to point B. Even if I go back to my days at the Peabody Preparatory, myself and this other pianist, David Drucker, we used to have “Harmony Wars.” We used to sit and say, “We're going to start in this one key and we're going to this next key, and we’re going to get to this next key in so many moves.” We would battle figuring out different ways of how to get from point A to point B. That’s how my life has always been—always figuring out many different ways to get from point A to point B. With Saga of the Cross and Power in the Blood, it's not about telling the story the same way that has been told before. It's finding a different way of telling the story.
This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
