gullah Meditations

Victor and Adrianne at Coffin Point Community
Praise House, St. Helena Island, South Carolina

While performing at the Spoleto Festival, GRAMMY®-nominated tenor Victor Ryan Robertson (Metropolitan Opera, Royal Albert Hall, Kennedy Center) was given an out-of-print edition of sheet music of little-known 19th-century Gullah Geechee spirituals from the islands off the coast of his home state of South Carolina. The history, melodies and lyrics resonated deeply with him. In 2022, he invited his friend and colleague – pianist, composer and Georgia native Adrianne Duncan – to set the a cappella melodies to music that reflected their backgrounds in opera, jazz and classical music. Their hope is that this contemporary take on spirituals from the rich Gullah Geechee culture will help preserve and bring forward this profoundly moving music to a new and wider audience.

Gullah Meditations is now a program of 18 spirituals and been performed at venues as diverse as the historic Morton Theatre in Athens, Georgia; Penn Center, a National Historic Landmark District on St. Helena Island, South Carolina; Greenwich House, a 120-year-old continuously operating music facility in New York City; and independent company Victory Hall Opera in Charlottesville, Virginia, where the project was presented in a staged version with Alvin Ailey dancer Fana Minea Tesfagiorgis and directed by Miriam Gordon-Stewart.

With generous grants from the University of Georgia Willson Center for Humanities & Arts, Penn Center and the Boeing Company, the project will next undergo a series of workshops with Opera Parallèle in San Francisco.

FOR BOOKING INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: gullahmeditations@gmail.com