Mohican/Munsee-Lenape composer Brent Michael Davids’s (2024 Creative Capital Awardee) Requiem for America pairs Indigenous letters with founding-era genocidal texts to lay bare, state by state, the dark foundations of the United States of America. A contralto narrator embodying the Earth guides us along a deeply moving musical arc, from the colonial “Doctrine of Discovery” to a final Threnoedia.

As a sort of anti-requiem, Requiem for America foregrounds our Indigenous communities to shine a light on historic injustice and to build collaborative relations with Indigenous people today.

Conducted by Teddy Abrams, Davids’s monumental work features the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, an ensemble of Native American singers and Davids himself, on Native American flute. This landmark world premiere is more than a concert – it’s a reckoning, a remembrance, and a call to truth through music.

Requiem for America is commissioned by White Snake Projects and The Lenape Center.