Sasha Cooke

Thinking of Juneteenth today, the elusive winding story of freedom in our country and a piece I’m incredibly thrilled to be singing again this summer ‘American Lament’ by Jasmine Arielle Barnes at Music Academy of the West. The song cycle includes one of Langston Hughes’ most well known and today even more profound poems, Let America be America Again. Somehow the questions he asked 100 years ago still resonate. What moves me most is how the work invites us to celebrate freedom while also asking us to reckon with how unfinished that promise remains.

Gemma New will conduct our performance July 18 and on the first half will be Copland’s Lincoln Portrait with Christopher Lloyd narrating. Jasmine amazingly will also be in residence with us in Santa Barbara and I couldn’t be more thrilled to see her and share this piece.

😅💪 this was fun! Did you know Elim Chan loves boxing!

I thought of Michael so much on my trip to San Francisco this week. Somehow singing his music made it feel real that he no longer is with us. But it also reminded me of the way in which music transports us to places of respite and people we love. Singing his Rilke song ‘I live my life in ever-widening circles’ as an encore with the San Francisco Symphony did just that. Through the playful, touching, reflective nature of his music, I felt Michael in the room.

Michael brought so much joy to everything he did. He was sort of like a child in an adult body. And the fact that he quotes this perfect Noël Coward song both sums up Michael and shows that part of his nature. I have so many memories of his limericks and stories told like no one else on the planet! And until his last day his eyes were sparkling and his hand was conducting. I’m so grateful I was able to say goodbye.

Being in San Francisco, a city so intertwined with his life and artistry, it really hit me that I wouldn’t see him again. And yet, everywhere I turned, there were reminders of him, in the orchestra, in the music, even in the new music director Elim Chan who shares his effervescence and heart. Most of all I felt the imprint he left on all of us. It was as if those ever-widening circles were still going. They had reached across time and brought him close again. I still miss him terribly.

See the rest of the Coward song in the wonderful interview with Lesley Stahl on YouTube ❤️

And how did Elim know to pick exactly the perfect poem…
‘I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not ever complete the last one,
but attempt it I will.

I circle around God, that primordial tower.
I have been circling for thousands of years,
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?’

Someone captured the encore here https://youtu.be/0oGr7g4MLh0