Making America: Requiem for America
19:30
Sun 17 May 2026
Barbican, London
Mohican/Munsee-Lenape composer Brent Michael Davids’s Requiem 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.
Conducted by Teddy Abrams, Davids’s monumental work features the ѿý 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.