♪ Hey, everybody, I'm Felicia Curry, and welcome to "WETA Arts," the place to discover what's going on in the creative and performing arts in and around D.C.

In this episode... Now is the time for the truth.

Curry, voice-over: The National Museum of African American History and Culture launches a new exhibition.

Instead of saying we don't know, we embrace the idea of, What can we know?

♪ Curry, voice-over: A pianist is captivated by Chopin.

Man, voice-over: I can remember thinking, How can music be so beautiful that it hurts?

[Singing in Italian] Curry, voice-over: And I meet with famed mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves about opera and activism.

Graves, voice-over: The stories that's important for me to tell now are those stories of truth.

It's all ahead on "WETA Arts."

♪ I'm so excited to celebrate the opening of "In Slavery's Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World."

Isn't this an amazing night?

10 years in the making.

Since it opened in 2016, The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, NMAAHC for short, has been dedicated to inspiring a full accounting of African Americans in our nation's story.

A new exhibit called "In Slavery's Wake" expands on that mission.

This history is ours, and we must reckon with it.

A lot of people think about slavery as something that is relegated to our past.

♪ "In Slavery's Wake" helps us understand that this past really continues to shape our present.

Singers: ♪ Wade in the water, children... ♪ We really lean on this metaphor of the wake.

We're thinking about the wake of a ship going through water and the waves that sort of form in its trail.

♪ We're still feeling the reverberations of things that have happened in the past.

Curry, voice-over: The museum's congressional mandate is to tell the story of African Americans in the United States.

The exhibition "In Slavery's Wake" tells a global story.

Obenda, voice-over: We have collaborating curators from across 4 continents and nearing to 200 objects and artifacts.

Gardullo, voice-over: This spirit of collaboration has really broadened our horizons, not just about what this museum can do, but what museums should be doing.

Curry, voice-over: This exhibition innovates how history is told in museums.

Gardullo, voice-over: Many exhibitions lean into the systems of violence and tend to leave out the stories of freedom-making and the perspective of those who were enslaved.

Obenda, voice-over: The story of Tahro was actually proposed to us by one of our collaborators in Belgium.

Tahro was trafficked from what at that time was the Kingdom of Kongo aboard a slave ship called the "Wanderer."

A big group of survivors arrive in Edgefield, South Carolina, and they're forced to work as enslaved potters.

Tahro was one of those potters.

Scholars today believe those survivors also made personal pottery for themselves.

They make a lot of connections between these face vessels and different Central African ritual objects called minkisi.

We're able to bring that cup together with a minkisi from our partners in Brussels, and we're able to tell the story of illegal slave trading that might not be familiar for a lot of our visitors, but we're also able to think about how enslaved people like Tahro are forced to make new lives for themselves on the other side of the Atlantic world.

Gardullo, voice-over: In the course of our research, we came upon this thread of people who were enslaved mounting rebellions and revolutions and rallying under banners of freedom.

But there's just traces of this history.

Instead of saying we don't know, we embrace the idea of, What can we know?

And this is what led us into conversations with artists.

Obenda, voice-over: Artist Nyugen E. Smith has created flags in honor of historic anti-slavery movements and anti-colonial movements.

They're his interpretation of what's recorded in the history and really sort of an homage.

Smith, voice-over: It struck a chord with me that banners or flags were actually created by those who were fighting for their literal lives.

Haiti has the tradition of creating voodoo flags that incorporate sequins as a way to create the illustrations on the actual flags themselves.

And so this is a nod back to Haiti being the first successful Black revolt.

We have the Tailors' Revolt.

The flag has the white stitching as a border, and then some of those stitches just kind of hanging was one of those ways I'm thinking about people who were part of the rebellion themselves.

Curry, voice-over: An 1800 Richmond-area revolt called Gabriel's Rebellion was planned by an enslaved blacksmith.

Smith: My uncle is a blacksmith, Anthony Phillips, and immediately I knew that I wanted to collaborate with him to create these flags as a way to, one--connect this blacksmithing tradition and to connect my family and lineage and legacy within this project.

Gardullo, voice-over: Through the incorporation of art directly into the exhibition, we are pushing the envelope of what history exhibitions can do.

Curry, voice-over: In this exhibition, the word freedom does not mean the abolition of slavery.

Gardullo, voice-over: We look at freedom as a process of making freedom, and we thought that this concept was so important that we cede a large portion of the space to have an artist help visitors not just think about that idea but feel it, to inhabit it.

Man, voice-over: I began it with a simple idea of the people who were brought over here in slave ships and how they manifest their desire to build a world for themselves.

The whole background is collaged, torn, ripped in pieces, and quilted back together to form pattern and texture.

You walk in and you hear the sound of water.

[Water flowing] Woman: ♪ Mm... ♪ Minter, voice-over: Then you hear the sound of my mother singing.

Woman: ♪ Mm... ♪ Minter, voice-over: The image of hands weaving became a really strong metaphor for freedom-making.

Woman: ♪ Mm... ♪ Minter, voice-over: Are only historians allowed to say what happened?

No.

Everyone can do that.

Obenda, voice-over: Daniel Minter captured a space that's meant to be serene, to really provoke and invite reflection.

I think that's a way that I would like to learn this history.

Minter, voice-over: I hope that people can feel the connection to that history and that they can see a future that this history is building on.

Obenda, voice-over: To infuse art into a history exhibition has been really exciting for me.

It's something I'd love to carry forward in future projects.

Gardullo, voice-over: Museums should be transformational spaces.

That's what people are sort of hungry for, is this deeper sense of what these institutions mean and can do, not just as dictating thought or ideas.

Woman: ♪ By the waters of Babylon ♪ Gardullo, voice-over: This exhibition is a bridge between peoples, periods of time, and between ourselves and our responsibilities to making the world better.

We can't change the past.

It is only when we confront it that we can forge a basis for unity amongst ourselves.

[Cheering and applause] Curry, voice-over: "In Slavery's Wake" runs through June 8th.

Check nmaahc.si.edu for details.

Since 2011, the Music Center at Strathmore has been hosting a series called Extreme Chopin.

Chopin is considered one of the most important composers in history.

His music has inspired musicians worldwide, including Maryland-based pianist Brian Ganz, who is featured in the Extreme Chopin project.

♪ Ganz, voice-over: Chopin is, for me, the greatest storyteller in the history of music.

♪ He knew how to take this language of music and tell vivid stories that are emotionally-- sometimes gut-busting.

♪ I remember falling in love with the "First Ballade in G minor" and doubling over and thinking, "How can music be so beautiful that it hurts?"

Now we're going to hear it in one of the most gorgeous, emotional explosions of joy you will ever hear in a piece of music.

♪ I sometimes say Chopin wounded me and that wound shaped my life.

♪ There is no therapy better than playing that passage.

[Chuckles] ♪ My intention after falling in love with Frederic Chopin's music was always to play his complete works.

♪ There is nothing by Chopin that I don't want to play.

♪ One of the aspects of Chopin's music that absolutely captivated me is Chopin's evocation of mystery.

♪ The piece ends, but it does not resolve.

And that, for our ears, is pure mystery.

And this is what I love most about his music and what I'm so eager to share about his music.

Curry, voice-over: Ganz started studying piano at age 9.

Ganz, voice-over: My grandfather was my first inspiration.

He could sit down and just tell a story with the piano, and I knew that I wanted to do that someday.

Curry, voice-over: His teachers inspired him to immerse himself in music, and his performance career began.

Ganz, voice-over: I couldn't leave school officially until I turned 16.

But at age 15, I was already traveling around the country to play concerts and I was playing with orchestras and I was playing solo recitals.

Curry, voice-over: Ganz eventually dropped out of high school and fully devoted himself to music.

Ganz, voice-over: I was practicing 6, 7, 8 hours a day.

I wanted to be the best pianist in the world.

I was 17 the first time I played at the Kennedy Center, and Arthur Fiedler was conducting the program with the National Symphony.

I played the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto.

It was a phenomenal privilege and thrill, but it was not an entirely positive experience.

There was a certain amount of unhealthy perfectionism.

The slightest mistake would embarrass me.

And I thought, "No.

I've got to step back."

I had to find answers.

Curry, voice-over: He found answers in a spiritual book called "A Course in Miracles."

Ganz, voice-over: I fell passionately in love with that book the way I fell in love with Chopin, and it became my spiritual bread and butter daily.

And I spent hours and hours reading it and meditating, and it saved my life.

It made it clear it's not about me.

It doesn't matter if I'm the greatest pianist in the world.

It doesn't even matter if I'm the best pianist I can be.

What matters is that I contribute to the beauty in the world, that I have something to share, and that I share it with love and with eagerness and with passion.

And the more I immersed myself in that, the more I felt ready to return to solo playing... ♪ until finally, I can remember-- I was listening...to one of the great Chopin etudes and thinking, "How can I live with not playing this?

I can't.

I cannot live with not playing this piece."

I went back.

I was 25 years old.

This was 1985, and my first concert back, all Chopin.

Ha!

I couldn't get enough.

Ha ha!

Curry, voice-over: Ganz went on to perform internationally.

Ganz, voice-over: Just after I went back to solo playing, there was an opening at St. Mary's College of Maryland.

And I didn't know whether they would be interested in somebody who hadn't even graduated from high school.

And they said, you know, "Well, that's not great, but come on down and audition for us."

So, I went down and I played the G minor Ballade.

They hired me as the piano teacher there, and I found my home.

♪ Better.

That was the best one.

♪ So--this is an excellent candidate for juxtaposition.

We have... ♪ De da ♪ and then... ♪ Deee daaa!

♪ Can the second one have a little more power?

-Yeah.

-Try it one more time.

♪ Ganz, voice-over: I could never live without teaching.

I can be teaching a piece I've played dozens of times, but when I'm teaching it, I will see something that I did not see when I was just playing it myself.

♪ Good, good, good.

That was gorgeous.

The deep listening is taking effect.

Performing, teaching.

I'll never stop either one, voluntarily, at least... [Chuckles] till the day I die.

Here's our first waltz of the piece.

It's a slow, mournful waltz.

Curry, voice-over: And in this lecture at St. Mary's, he dissects the First G minor Ballade.

This, by the way, is where I doubled over in pain as a 12-year-old-boy.

Ha ha!

♪ What was it that was so beautiful about that?

I think it was the dissonance resolution.

Dissonance resolution.

♪ New chord.

♪ And then that intensifies and things get more dramatic.

♪ [Applause] Thank you.

Thank you.

Woman, voice-over: He plays like nobody else, and he explains his music that goes to your soul, to your head, to-- to all of you.

He's just magnificent as--not only as an artist but as a person.

Ganz, voice-over: This is about contributing to the beauty in the world, inspiring others, about sharing my love, my joy, my freedom as best I can.

That has been the journey of being a musician for me.

Curry, voice-over: In partnership with the National Philharmonic, Brian Ganz performs the 14th installment of the Extreme Chopin series on February 28th.

Go to strathmore.org for details.

♪ [Singing in Italian] Curry, voice-over: Although internationally renowned singer Denyce Graves performs in the most prestigious opera houses in the world, she's also local.

Hi.

Hello!

So, why don't we go up to the garden?

Sounds great.

That's one of my happy places.

Well, all of this is my happy place, actually.

It looks like it.

Ha ha!

I love getting my hands dirty, and I always wanted space.

I imagine people, when they think of you onstage in gowns, are not thinking of this at all.

I know!

Curry, voice-over: Graves shares her time between the world's most famous concert stages and Parkton, Maryland, where she maintains an 88-acre farm.

Look at that.

Look at that.

So, we'll put that in our salad today.

How do you marry a life where you stand onstage with something like this?

I feel like this place is what allows me to continue to do the work that I'm doing.

♪ For love is... ♪ Curry, voice-over: With a vast repertoire of countless critically acclaimed performances, Denyce Graves became one of the most celebrated mezzo-sopranos in the world, and her journey started right here in Washington, D.C. [Gospel choir singing] Curry, voice-over: Graves grew up with her mother, brother, and sister on Galveston Street in Ward 8 in Southwest D.C.

Her early exposure to music was singing gospel in her church.

Growing up, opera was not something she was aware of, much less a future she envisioned.

I'm excited to learn how she got to where she is today.

Denyce, thank you for inviting us into your home to chat today.

It's a joy for me, too.

Thank you.

So, for a young Black woman to grow up in Southwest D.C., how does opera become the genre that you want to pursue?

It was quite the journey from there to here.

My music teacher from kindergarten, actually, Judith Grove Allen, told me about the Duke Ellington School.

[Organ music] ♪ The Duke Ellington School and the Kennedy Center have a relationship, and I went to a final dress rehearsal of Beethoven's "Fidelio."

[Woman singing in German] [Man singing in German] That really did it for me-- I just thought, "I don't know what this is, but this is what I want to do."

That and also hearing a recording of Leontyne Price sing and being just stunned by the sheer beauty of her voice.

[Price singing in Italian] Specifically Leontyne.

Specifically Leontyne because she sings, and you hear the choir singing.

[Singing in Italian] Graves: It's just one of those exquisitely, heartbreakingly beautiful voices that will stop you right in your tracks.

♪ To see this woman who looks like us doing this thing called opera and saying, "I would love to be able to do this with my life."

And did this lead to wanting to go to a conservatory?

Yes.

I graduated early from the Ellington School, went to Oberlin College, and then went to New England Conservatory and then went on to Houston Grand Opera.

[Chorus singing "Habanera" in French] Curry, voice-over: Her star rose with her first appearance in the title role in the opera "Carmen" by Bizet at the Minnesota Opera in 1991, and from there, she took to the world's great opera houses, and fame among opera fans followed.

[Applause] Patti LaBelle: I think she has the most special voice that I've ever heard... Curry, voice-over: Her celebrity crossed over to mainstream with appearances with pop stars, at national memorials, and even on "Sesame Street."

I just want to ask, the path to opera when you have a voice like this but live in a community that maybe doesn't know or understand about opera, how is that?

So, this is part of a really large conversation in terms of American history and what has been intentionally left out of the telling of the story.

During the pandemic, there was a student of mine who was singing outside of what was formerly known as the National Negro Opera Company that was created by Mary Cardwell Dawson.

She was this Black woman who wanted to be an opera singer, so she went to the New England Conservatory.

That was 1925.

For her to star as a leading lady on the world's opera houses as a Black woman was not gonna happen, so, her response to that was, "Well, I'll create my own opera company."

She hired all the singers and the orchestra and the conductor, the director, the designers, and she took them all over the United States, including the Metropolitan Opera at a time where Black performers were not at the Metropolitan Opera.

The union would not allow them to do standard repertoire, so, they did a piece by African American violinist and composer Clarence Cameron White called "Ouanga."

Of course, it was to great acclaim.

She taught piano.

She taught voice.

She taught languages.

She taught stage direction and launched the careers of so many spectacular artists, like Robert McFerrin, Ahmad Jamal, Lillian Evanti, Camilla Williams.

The first woman impresario of opera was a Black woman.

I did not learn that in the conservatory, not at all.

You started the Denyce Graves Foundation, which is highlighting voices of Black opera singers that none of us knew about.

Our Hidden Voices program is showing that Black classical performers have existed from the very, very beginning.

We are working on creations of works of art that tell the story of these wonderful, great heroes.

So, that's the Hidden Voices program, and then there's the Shared Voices program, which is an HBCU conservatory exchange program.

Choir: ♪ Oh, when we get way over in Beulah lan' ♪ ♪ Yes, way over in Beulah lan'... ♪ We pair a HBCU student with a conservatory student, and they learn from each other.

♪ Way over in Beulah lan' ♪ Graves, voice-over: We know that HBCUs have a great tradition of glee clubs and choral groups and some of the most spectacular voices we've ever heard.

[Singing in French] Graves: We've got Morgan State, Peabody, Fisk, and Morehouse and Howard, Oberlin College, Manhattan School, and the Juilliard School.

I'm just over here beaming because the idea of access, opportunity, and community are all part of what you're doing, and that is-- As a young, Black musician growing up, that's what was missing.

That's exactly right.

The foundation's work is much larger than music.

We go through the lens of music because that's been the area of my experience.

♪ My soul is a witness... ♪ We're celebrating and lifting into rightful prominence those great individuals who have contributed to our cultural fabric, who make America what it is, but who have been left out of the telling of the story.

Why is it that when I went to the conservatory, I had White professors say to me, "What are you doing here?"

Right.

I don't necessarily blame them.

They've heard a story that didn't include a face like mine.

And this is why it's exciting for me to know that you're in conservatories teaching.

It's so important because it helps us all as a nation.

The reason that this country is so great is because it's made up of all kinds of different people who have contributed to make it what it is.

It isn't just one group of people who've done all the work and done everything.

I've portrayed all kinds of characters.

For more than 40 years, I've told all kinds of stories, and the stories that's important for me to tell now are those stories of truth, are those stories of inclusion, are those stories that remind us that we are more alike than unalike.

That's so vitally important for our survival.

So, we're gonna keep sharing so that people realize that it's a place for all types of people.

Well, Denyce Graves, you are the Leontyne Price of your generation, and I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to sit down and speak with you today.

I loved every moment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for doing this.

Denyce Graves appears in the Washington National Opera's "Porgy and Bess" May 23rd to 31st.

See kennedycenter.org for details.

Also, Graves is the director of a world premiere called "Loving v. Virginia" with the Virginia Opera and Symphony, whose performances start April 25th.

Go to vaopera.org for details.

Thank you for watching "WETA Arts."

Be well, be creative, and enjoy the art all around you.

I'm Felicia Curry.

Lonnie Bunch: When you think about James Baldwin's words saying that we carry history within us and it shapes all we do and who we are, that is what this exhibition is about.

Listen to this next chord.

♪ It's so dissonant that some publishers thought Chopin had made a mistake.

♪ But he did mean it.

I think it's necessary to be able to create art, to be able to live, and to be able to have something to sing about.

Announcer: For more about the artists and institutions featured in this episode, go to weta.org/arts.