REQUIEM for four soprano voices, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, tuba, and percussion written for Quince Ensemble and Musicians of Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Requiem is inspired by death rituals of various cultures including the Anglican Church Order for the Burial of the Dead, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Neoshamanist dying rituals including the “Great Death Spiral,” and New Orleans jazz funeral celebrations of life. The form is in five sections, with English text from the Bible and Greek and Latin from the traditional Catholic mass: 

I.	“All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.” – Ecclesiastes 3:20 (NIV) 
II.	“Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” – 1 Corinthians 15: 51-52 (NRSV)
III.	“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.” – Psalm 23 (NRSV)
“Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem. Dona eis requiem sempiternam.”
“Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison.”
IV.	 (no text)
V.	“See, the home of God is among mortals. [God] will dwell with them; they will be [God’s] peoples, 
and God will be with them; [God] will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” – Revelation 21: 3-4 (NRSV altered)

Requiem is commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association for MusicNOW 
and made possible through the generous support of Helen Zell.

Requiem

Shedding Skin for orchestra, a reading by American Composers Orchestra, Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute, Miller Theatre, New York, NY, 2013.


Shedding Skin for orchestra, read by American Composers Orchestra, 2013

From This Little Light of Mine (2010) http://www.lightofmineonline.com/html/listen.php

I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray, performed by Troi Bechet, 2010

Intercession for solo improvised piano, performed by Courtney Bryan, Callaloo literary conference, Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ, 2012.


Intercession for solo improvised piano, performed by Courtney Bryan, 2012

A Time for Everything for chorus: I. A Time for Everything (meditation on Ecclesiastes 3), 2013

House of Pianos: V. Praise House

World Premiere and Commissioned by American Composers Orchestra at Jazz at Lincoln Center on April 9, 2015, Conductor George Manahan

Sanctum, for orchestra and recorded sound, explores the sound of improvisation in Holiness-preaching traditions. I draw inspiration from recorded sermons, The Praying Slave Lady by Pastor Shirley Caesar, The Eagle Stirs His Nest by Reverend C. L. Franklin, and Reverend Charles Albert Tindley’s hymn, Stand By Me. Included are the voices of Marlene Pinnock and of activists in Ferguson, Missouri from 2014. Sanctum is my artistic response to recent events of police brutality. By employing techniques of layered repetition, rhythmic intensity, sounds of moaning and whooping, and voices of the past and present, Sanctum invokes solace found in the midst of persecution and tribulation.


Sanctum was commissioned and premiered by American Composers Orchestra with the generous support of The Jerome Foundation and The Peter Heller Fund.

http://acosoundadvice.blogspot.com/2015/03/courtney-bryan-native-of-new-orleans-is.html 

Sanctum for orchestra and recorded sound

CAAS mix

This version of Spirits is performed in May 2015 at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival by the Courtney Bryan ensemble including Troi Bechet (voice), Brian Quezerque (bass), and Miles Labat (drum set). It is part of a larger set. 

Spirits is an excerpt from Prophetika: an Oratorio - premiered at La MaMa Experimental Theatre March 2015 - Charlotte Brathwaite (director)/Courtney Bryan (composer)/Abigail Deville (artist) with Jadele McPherson (voice/acting), Brandee Younger (harp), Justin Hicks (voice/electronics), and Courtney Bryan (piano).

Spirits

His Love Endures Forever for jazz orchestra is one movement of After Coltrane, a suite by the four composer collective including Rufus Reid, Bernard Hoffer, and Jeremy Howard Beck, commissioned by the New York Jazzharmonic in tribute to John Coltrane's A Love Supreme. His Love Endures Forever is inspired by various aspects of A Love Supreme: the repetition of a musical mantra as a core of the piece, a modal language, symmetry, intervallic patterns, symbolism, and text in the form of a psalm as inspiration for the music. Text used for inspiration includes Psalm 100, 117, and 136 from the Christian Bible. Symbols are notated into the score in the form of music notes, including a heart, cross, peace symbol, and triangles representing the Holy Trinity.

Sunday, May 15, 7:00pm - (World Premiere) New York Jazzharmonic. Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space, New York, NY.
http://www.nyjazzharmonic.org

His Love Endures Forever, Mvt 4 of After Coltrane

A Presence for solo improvised piano and recorded sound 
Fromm Players at Harvard University, Creative Music Convergences curated by Vijay Iyer. 
John Knowles Paine Concert Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge MA. 
Friday, April 8, 2016

Courtney Bryan - A Presence

commissioned and premiered 2017 by Duo Noire (Thomas Flippin and Christopher Mallett)

Courtney Bryan Soli Deo Gloria Premiere

A World Premiere by the 
Colorado Springs Philharmonic
November 12-13, 2016
Pikes Peak Center for the Performing Arts, Colorado Springs, CO
Josep Caballé-Domenech, Music Director
Marcelo Lehninger, Conductor

White Gleam of Our Bright Star was commissioned by Colorado Springs Philharmonic 

COMPOSER’S NOTE
As an American composer, my inspiration often comes from the landscapes where I have lived. Growing up in New Orleans, La, I am accustomed to living in a city that feels like it is simultaneously in the past, present, and future. I am inspired by the living history in this fascinating city. During my years living in the Midwest and East Coast, and visits to the West Coast, I have been inspired by the landscapes to hear different sounds and explore new possibilities. 
 
When Katharine Lee Bates composed the poem “America the Beautiful,” originally entitled “Pikes Peak” (1895), she drew inspiration from the beauty of the Pikes Peak region of Colorado Springs, illustrating an idealistic vision of the United States of America. Describing “spacious skies,” “amber waves of grain,” “purple mountain majesties,” and the “fruited plain,” she wrote a request for God to “shed his grace” on the country and to “crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.” The beauty of the natural landscape could represent the potential beauty within the country among its citizens, brothers and sisters. 

The potential of what America can be at its best has been inspiration for American artists over the decades. Writer James Baldwin wrote, “I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” In 1938, poet Langston Hughes’ “Let America be America Again” appealed to the ideals of America while addressing the challenges America must overcome to reach its potential. The opening lines seem to be in conversation with Bates’ view of America: 

“Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)”

In defining “me,” Langston Hughes writes:

“I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.”

He remains hopeful of the great heights Americans can reach together in this line:

“O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!”

In the same decade Bates wrote her poem, writer James Weldon Johnson, in 1899, wrote “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” set to music by his brother, composer J. Rosamond Johnson. The final stanza acknowledges the perils of the past while pressing on towards better days. This stanza is addressed to God, praying that God, “keep us forever in the path,” and that, 

“Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.”

While composing “White Gleam of our Bright Star,” a phrase borrowed from Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” I musically meditated on the themes of sister/brotherhood, freedom, and equality.

Courtney Bryan - White Gleam of Our Bright Star - Colorado Springs Philharmonic

A World Premiere by Imani Winds
May 3, 2017
Performance Hall, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago, IL

Blooming was commissioned 
by Imani Winds and UChicago Presents for Imani Winds

COMPOSER’S NOTE
Blooming for Wind Quintet is one movement of a collective composition including works by Valerie Coleman and Nkeiru Okoye, commissioned by Imani Winds in tribute to the life and legacy of American poet Gwendolyn Brooks on the occasion of her centenary. Blooming is inspired by the closing lines of Brooks' "The Second Sermon on the Warpland," written in 1968 as part of "In the Mecca." 

"It is lonesome, yes. For we are the last of the loud.
Nevertheless, live.
Conduct your blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind."

Blooming for Imani Winds

Courtney Bryan Quartet at Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro of New Orleans - Oct 1, 2017

Courtney Bryan (piano), Joe Dyson (drums), Stephen Gladney (electronic wind instrument), Brian Quezerque (electric bass) ft. Chuck Perkins (spoken word), Gary Washington (cello)

Courtney Bryan Quartet - "Mother Mary" (Rihanna)

Courtney Bryan Quartet at Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro of New Orleans, October 1, 2017
Courtney Bryan (piano), Joe Dyson (drums), Stephen Gladney (saxophone), Brian Quezerque (electric bass)

Courtney Bryan Quartet - Translinear Light (Alice Coltrane) / My Favorite Things (John Coltrane)

Written for Talea Ensemble, In the Heart of God for flute, clarinet, violin, and cello is named from Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet “On Love” (1923). The premiere by Talea was 4.5.18 at Dixon Hall, Tulane University. This recording is from a performance at St Peter's Chelsea 4.13.18.

Bryan - In The Heart Of God - Talea Ensemble

https://newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/duo-noire-night-triptych
"With its title, Courtney Bryan’s Soli Deo Gloria signals its alignment with centuries of work dedicated to the glory of a higher being and purpose. The composition’s journey is framed in terms of Bryan’s relationship to the stages of prayer — Contemplative, Unsettled and Searching, Questioning and Hoping, a Prayer, Pursuing, Realization, Acceptance. Bryan’s incorporation of jazz and gospel elements is subtle, integrated elegantly into her evolving compositional argument."

Bryan.Soli Deo Gloria.Duo Noire

Rejoice is written for the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. This work is inspired by Philippians 4: 4-7, and is dedicated to my family.

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

A World Premiere by the
Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra
November 21-23, 2019
The Orpheum Theater, New Orleans, LA
Carlos Miguel Prieto, Music Director
Rejoice was made possible by the League of American Orchestras’ Women Composers Readings and Commissions 
supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.

2019 November 21

Courtney Bryan - Rejoice - Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra

Courtney Bryan is “a pianist and composer of panoramic interests” (New York Times). Her music is in conversation with various musical genres, including jazz and other types of experimental music, as well as traditional gospel, spirituals, and hymns. Bryan has academic degrees from Oberlin Conservatory (BM), Rutgers University (MM), and Columbia University (DMA) with advisor George Lewis, and completed postdoctoral studies in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Bryan is currently an Assistant Professor of Music in the Newcomb Department of Music at Tulane University, the Mary Carr Patton Composer-in-Residence with the Jacksonville Symphony, a 2019-20 recipient of the Samuel Barber Rome Prize, and 2020 United States Artists Fellow. She was the 2018 music recipient of the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. Bryan’s work has been presented in a wide range of venues, and she has two recordings, Quest for Freedom and This Little Light of Mine.

CourtneyBryanMusic

Popular tracks