African Queens
Karen Slack, soprano
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Recital
Karen Slack, soprano
Kevin Miller, piano
African Queens
Sunday, March 9, 2025 / 7:30 p.m.
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Recital
“Not only one of the nation’s most celebrated sopranos, but a leading voice in changing and making spaces in classical music.” – Trilloquy
Karen Slack is an operatic virtuoso who debuted the role of Billie in the 2019 world premiere of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, and who has amassed a body of work highlighting living composers. Simultaneously she has developed a career as sought-after curator and collaborator and now brings her new commissioning project, African Queens, to its regional debut. The evening-length vocal recital of art songs celebrates the history and legacy of seven African queens, revered as rulers but not widely heralded in the western world. The program weaves historical narrative through new works by acclaimed composers Jasmine Barnes, Damien Geter, Jessie Montgomery, Shawn Okpebholo, Dave Ragland, Carlos Simon, and Joel Thompson along with carefully selected traditional repertoire – further illuminated through passages of spoken text and thematic artwork.
Washington Performing Arts is a project co-commissioner of African Queens. This performance is the third-annual Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Recital—a yearly performance honoring a dear friend of Washington Performing Arts and elevating new work of both established and renowned artists.
Presented in cooperation with the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts.
This performance is an external rental presented in coordination with the Kennedy Center Campus Rentals Office and is not produced by the Kennedy Center.
Program Details
Dave Ragland – Precatio
Carlos Simon – Behold, The Queen
Dave Ragland – The Queen of Sheba
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – A Prayer from African Romances, op. 17
Florence Price – Night
Will Liverman – Invocation
Fred Onovwerosuoke – Luwah (Bitter Tears)
Damien Geter – Amanirenas
Fred Onovwerosuoke – Duniya (Mystic Universe)
Florence Price – Bewilderment
Jasmine Barnes – I Am Not Your God
Jessie Montgomery – The Song of Nzingha
Will Liverman – Incantation
Joel Thompson – Queen Nanny
Shawn Okpebholo – A Letter From Queen Ufua
More About the Artist
Praised for her “sizeable voice that captured all of the vacillating emotions” (The New York Times), Karen Slack is “not only one of the nation’s most celebrated sopranos, but a leading voice in changing and making spaces in classical music” (Trilloquy). Her debut album Beyond the Years: Unpublished Songs of Florence Price on Azica Records was nominated for a 2025 GRAMMY Award in the category, Best Classical Solo Vocal Album.
Over recent seasons, Slack has amassed a body of work reflecting her dedication to premiering works by living composers, with a particular focus on using her platform to elevate works by Black artists. When the pandemic limited live performances during the 2020-2021 season, Slack made premiere digital performances with Houston Grand Opera, Madison Opera, and Minnesota Opera. She starred in a new production of the opera Driving While Black, presented by UrbanArias, and launched a digital talk show, #kikikonversations, drawing acclaim from Opera News and The New York Times.
Karen Slack has performed on the stages of the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, Scottish Opera, San Francisco Opera, Dallas Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Austin Opera, New Orleans Opera, Minnesota Opera, Vancouver Opera, Edmonton Opera, Sacramento Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Madison Opera and Arizona Opera, among others. Abroad, she has appeared with the Melbourne Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestras, and St. Petersburg Philharmonic. Slack made her Carnegie Hall debut with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and performed as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra in the world premiere of Hannibal Lokumbe’s Healing Tones with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. She made her New York Philharmonic debut in May 2024.
A recipient of the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, Slack is an Artistic Advisor for Portland Opera, serves on the board of the American Composers Orchestra and Astral Artists, and holds a faculty position at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada. She has been named Lyric Unlimited Artist-in-Residence at Lyric Opera of Chicago for the 2024-2025 season as well as Artist-in-Residence at leading entrepreneurial institution Babson College.
A native Philadelphian, Slack is a graduate of the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music, as well as the Adler Fellowship and the Merola Opera Program at the San Francisco Opera. For more information, please visit sopranokarenslack.com.
“We artists need institutions that say, ‘We see and hear you and want to give you the space.’ I’ve been in the trenches. When you have someone support what you do, like Washington Performing Arts does, I’m grateful for that.”
– Karen Slack
Our Partners
Washington Performing Arts’s presentation of this project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
This event was also made possible through the generous support of Kerrien Suarez.
Washington Performing Arts’s classical music performances this season are made possible in part through the generous support of Betsy and Robert Feinberg and the Dallas Morse Coors Foundation for the Performing Arts.
Washington Performing Arts also thanks the dozens of donors to the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Award and Recital Fund who helped make this concert possible.
Special thanks to the following lead supporters of Washington Performing Arts’s mission-driven work: Jacqueline Badger Mars and Mars, Incorporated; D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities; the National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs Program and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts; and The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation.
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