Yearning to Breathe
A Choral Exploration of Belonging, Compassion, and Identity
Experience Kantorei’s upcoming performance featuring works by Caroline Shaw and Melissa Dunphy
What does it mean to belong? To be seen, heard, and connected? Kantorei’s upcoming concert dares to ask these questions—and invites you into a powerful, emotional journey through sound, story, and shared humanity.
In this timely and moving program, Kantorei presents To the Hands by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw. This haunting and deeply personal work is Shaw’s modern response to Dieterich Buxtehude’s 17th-century Ad Manus, which will also be featured on the program. While Buxtehude's original work focuses on religious devotion, Shaw's reimagining shifts our attention to modern expressions of suffering and compassion, particularly in the context of the global refugee crisis. Through striking harmonies and poignant text, To the Hands asks us to consider our role and responsibility in the suffering of others. It’s a call for empathy, awareness, and, ultimately, action.
Complementing Shaw’s work is another contemporary masterwork: N-400 Erasure Songs by Australian-American composer Melissa Dunphy. This multi-movement piece transforms the bureaucratic language of the U.S. naturalization process into a raw, poetic meditation. Drawing from the N-400 Application for Naturalization—the form every immigrant must complete to become a citizen—Dunphy employs the “erasure” technique, selectively removing words to expose the emotional undercurrents hidden within an otherwise clinical text. The result is a powerful reflection on identity, migration, and the complex meaning of becoming “American."
Together, these works create a powerful dialogue that juxtapose old and new, sacred and secular, and personal and political. Their contrasting voices illuminate the evolving landscape of cultural identity and artistic expression, speaking to our shared humanity and inviting contemplation on the nuanced elements that bind us together.
3. change [y]our Country
By Melissa Dunphy
you Are Home
this IS where you live now
Home
your space
Your Time
Your History
How many have been
persecuted
occupied
arrested
detained changed
Have Been
Failed
lied to
removed, excluded
deported
but you did not
f al t e r
you
are willing
true
release
re form
prepare
S t a n d Firm
you are the best of u s
you will b re a the
free
Meet the Composers: Bold Voices for a Complex World
Caroline Shaw is a creative force unlike any other. She moves fluidly between genres and roles—composer, violinist, vocalist, producer—always reaching toward sounds that feel both timeless and entirely new. A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Music and four Grammy Awards, Shaw has collaborated with an eclectic mix of artists, from Yo-Yo Ma to Rosalía to Kanye West. Her work spans everything from classical ballet to TV scores, including Fleishman is in Trouble (FX/Hulu) and The Sky Is Everywhere (A24). When not reshaping the soundscape of modern music, Shaw’s favorite color is yellow and she loves the smell of rosemary.
Melissa Dunphy brings her own unique voice as an immigrant, storyteller, and provocateur. Raised in an Australian immigrant family and now based in the U.S., Dunphy gained national recognition with The Gonzales Cantata, a musical take on a political scandal that landed her on The Rachel Maddow Show. Her work often deals with politics, justice, and social identity. In addition to her composition work, she’s a podcaster (The Boghouse), citizen archaeologist, and co-founder of the forthcoming Necessary Museum in Philadelphia. Dunphy is also on faculty at Rutgers and leads two nonprofit music organizations.
Why You Shouldn’t Miss This Performance
Kantorei invites you to witness a performance that goes far beyond the concert hall. With works that challenge and inspire, this program asks us to consider our place in a complicated world—and how music can create space for reflection, healing, and hope.
Don’t miss this unforgettable night of choral storytelling.
