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Selected Concert Recordings

Philadelphia Fanfare

by John Conahan

Singing City's Fall 2017 concert featured works by three composers–Jennifer Higdon, Carol Barnett, and John Conahan, pictured at right with SC Artistic & Music Director Jeffrey Brillhart. John's work–Philadelphia Fanfare–was commissioned by Singing City in memory of Dr. John K. Knorr, a descendant of three centuries of Philadelphians, and his wife Elizabeth, a Philadelphian by marriage, and was made possible by a grant from the John K. and Elizabeth Knorr Foundation. The text for the work comes from a poem entitled "Philadelphia"  by Rudyard Kipling from his book Rewards and Fairies. Jeffrey Brillhart and Parker Kitterman, piano.

The Heavens Declare

by Kile Smith

The Heavens Declare , for SATB, SAB solos, piano, and optional audience participation. Duration about 4-½ minutes. Commissioned by Lyric Fest, Suzanne DuPlantis and Laura Ward, artistic directors, and premiered by Lyric Fest and Singing City, Jeffrey Brillhart, artistic director, with soprano Elizabeth Weigle, mezzo-soprano Chrystal E. Williams, and baritone Randall Scarlata.

Premiered April 19, 2015, The Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia. Supported in part through a grant from the American Composers Forum, Philadelphia Chapter. This was the final work of my 2014–15 residency with Lyric Fest, for a concert bringing Lyric Fest together with Singing City. The concert was inspired by James Weldon Johnson’s poem “The Creation,” exploring the gifts of the natural world, the art that reflects those gifts, and the bounty and need that live side-by-side in the 21st-century experience.

-Kile Smith

The Children's March

by Andrew Bleckner and Charlotte Blake Alston

Spring 2013
The Children's March - World Premiere
Friday, April 26, 8 p.m. at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, PA

May 2013 marked the 50th anniversary of the Children’s March in Birmingham, Alabama that was the catalyst for bringing about the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. On May 2, 1963, the children of Birmingham, Alabama, flooded the city’s streets—and the city’s jail—to challenge segregation. With dogs and fire hoses, police tried to stop them. Yet, in ways their parents could not, the children prevailed, defying the police intimidation that long had plagued Birmingham’s black community. Singing was a large part of the protest that resulted in the arrest of thousands of children. A DJ  used code and song to spread the word, transmitting news of the march over the radio. Singing City commissioned this riveting work by Philadelphia composer Andrew Bleckner and acclaimed Philadelphia storyteller and narrator Charlotte Blake Alston that tells the story of one moment that changed the course of civil rights in America. The work premiered in April 2013 as part of PIFA (Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts).