Voices of mannahatta

Tuesday, April 8, 2025 @ 7:30 pm
Church of the Ascension
36 Fifth Avenue at Tenth St
New York, NY 10011

Hai-Ting Chinn, Curator, Voices of The New

 The settlement of Manhattan Island embodies a complicated legacy marked by the colonization, clash of cultures, displacement of Indigenous and Black communities, and the continuation of this land as a hub for commerce, art, and connection. 

Voices commissioned composer Danielle Jagelski (Oneida/Ojibwe) and multimedia artist Sage Ahebah Addington (Navajo) to write and produce an extended narrative choral piece exploring the piece of land where the Church of the Ascension sits today on the unceded lands of the Munsee Lenape, Mannahatta.

“My vision for the piece, Voices of Mannahatta, is centered on the land. Specifically a plot on 5th Ave between 10th and 11th streets where a building called The Church of the Ascension stands —  in Mannahatta, in Sapokanikan, in Lenapehoking, in gichi-mookomaan-aki, on Aki.

This piece is an effort of learning what this little plot of land has to say to those who inhabit it. Presently, this land hosts people to worship, play music, gather, eat, get married/buried/blessed with care. Not too long ago, this land gave tobacco, medicine, and soapstone to make pipes. Did you know that she has been giving us a place of worship and connection before we built the church? In between those two events, there was not worship, connection, or respect. But the land seems to give us more chances than we deserve. How do you acknowledge this land we are all so lucky to be living on?

In this piece, written for 6 unaccompanied voices, is composed to be sung specifically in the acoustic conditions of the Church of the Ascension, with a goal of expressing the spirit of worship that has been hosted on that little plot for hundreds of years. What happens if we sing for the land, what happens if, rather than extracting, we nourish? What will happen if we stop excavating, but instead start listening? What does she have to teach us?”

- Danielle Jagelski, 2024

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