Join musicians from The Dream Unfinished for the chamber ensemble premiere of Brittany J. Green’s Letters to America, a work that asks what America might become if it truly listened to Black women.

Built from community-sourced letters and excavation poetry, Letters to America brings present-day Black women into direct conversation with the documents America has used to tell its story. Green does not treat history as settled ground. She opens it, questions it, and lets other voices speak through the cracks: voices the official record was never built to hold.

The result is music with consequence. Letters to America looks at what has been written down, what has been left out, and what becomes possible when Black women answer back.

GRAMMY Award-winning soprano Karen Slack and the American Composers Orchestra premiered the chamber orchestra version of Letters to America at Carnegie Hall in March 2026. Karen Slack will return to Letters to America with a chamber ensemble comprised of musicians from The Dream Unfinished joined by guest pianist Kamilla Arku. The program also features music by Courtney Bryan, Nkeiru Okoye, and Ebun Ogontola.

Throughout the evening, music and spoken reflection meet in the spirit of TDU’s activist-orchestra mission: to make classical music a place where urgent questions can be heard, felt, and faced together.

PROGRAM

Nkeiru Okoye - Euba’s Dance
Courtney Bryan - And What I Mean Is This
Brittany J. Green - Portraits
Ebun Ogontola - The Dimensions
Brittany J. Green - Letters
Nkeiru Okoye - Movements

The program will include spoken reflections and one intermission.

FEATURING

Karen Slack, soprano
Kamilla Arku, piano
Aurora Mendez, violin
Emily Kalish, violin
Chala Yancy, viola
Noah Koh, cello