Portara Ensemble Presents:
Sanctuary - a Post-Pride Celebration
of Resilience
Sunday, July 14, 2024

Jason Shelton, Artistic Director
Patrick Dunnevant, Assistant Director
Horacio Guendulain, Accompanist
Chris Autry, Bass

Program

Host Introduction
Miss Tammy Whynot

Still Rising
Words & Music: Jason Shelton (2019)

Welcome
Ashley & Beth Hampton, Healing in the Margins

Asking…
Words & Music: Jason Shelton (2013)

Imagining
Words: John Lennon, Lady Gaga, Kylie Minogue & RuPaul; Music: Joseph Twist (2020)

Healing Heart
Words: Robert Bode; Music: Jacob Narverud (2020)

 Client Testimony
Healing in the Margins

Finally, On My Way to Yes
Words: Pesha Gertler; Music: Elizabeth Alexander (2000)
Solo: Debrina Dills

Would You Harbor Me?
Words & Music: Ysaye M. Barnwell (1994)

Sanctuary
Words & Music: Jason Robert Brown (2020)

 Clinician Testimony
Healing in the Margins

Meet Me Here (from Considering Matthew Shepard)
Words & Music: Craig Hella Johnson (2016)
Josh Post, solo

This Is Me (from The Greatest Showman)
Words & Music: Benj Pasek & Justin Paul; arr. Mac Huff (2017)
Marina Winthrop, solo

True Colors
Words & Music: Bill Steinberg & Tom Kelly (1986); arr. Deke Sharon (2002)
Alana Griffith, solo

Closing
Miss Tammy Whynot

Dance the Night (from the Barbie Movie)
Words & Music: Dua Lipa, Andrew Wyatt, Mark Ronson & Caroline Ailin; arr. Alan Billingsley (2023)

Program Notes

Still Rising
Words & Music: Jason Shelton (2019)

Composed in 2019 as part of a collection of anthems for small choirs, this lyric was inspired by the words of the Rev. Gretchen Haley of Ft Collins, CO.

When you’ve reached the end
But the fire still is raging
And the way is so unclear
O love…

There’s a sweet release
In the risk of possibility
Oh, still rising…

When your patience fails
And the winds of change are howling
And the way is so unclear
O love…

Giving thanks and praise
For surprise and possibility
Oh, still rising…

Still rising high, like the butterfly
That opens with the kiss of the sun
Still rising high, like the phoenix cry
At the promise of a new day begun

Still rising high, as we wave goodbye
To the fear that blocks our living as one
Still rising high, as we testify
To the beauty found in everyone

Still rising…

Asking…
Words & Music: Jason Shelton (2013)

This is the second movement of a three movement work commissioned by Nashville in Harmony for their 10th anniversary season. Suite Progress was premiered at Schermerhorn Symphony Center in 2014.

Do you remember
on the playground
making friends and picking teams?
All that waiting
to be chosen
wondering if they truly see

The gift of every person deep inside
That there's no reason anyone should hide
Asking...

How long will this feeling last?
How far do we have to go?
How many times will we ask why?  

Do you remember
back in high school
learning what and how to be?
Wanting only
to be noticed
hoping other hearts might see 

The gift of every person deep inside
That there's no reason anyone should hide
Asking...

How long will this feeling last?
How far do we have to go?
How many times will we ask why?

And still today we find the questions never ending
Just what more evidence will we be asked to show
To prove that we belong, that our lives are worth living?
We need to know!

How long…

Imagining
Words Inspired By: John Lennon, Lady Gaga, Kylie Minogue & RuPaul; Music: Joseph Twist (2020)

Commissioned for the SGLC’s ‘Silver Linings’ 25th Anniversary concert, premiered by the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Choir and dedicated to victims of the Pulse Night Club mass shooting in Orlando FL, 2016. Imagining is an uplifting work which is a plea for a brighter, more loving future.

Imagine there is no heaven
Imagine there is no hell
Imagine if it didn’t matter if you loved her, loved him, or capital H-I-M

Imagine if you loved yourself,
Because how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?

So we’ll be waiting all day, imagining
Because it’s true what the say:
The better the devil you know…

Imagine there is no heaven
Imagine there is no hell

Dona nobis pacem…

Healing Heart
Words: Robert Bode; Music: Jacob Narverud (2020)

The healing power of time is beautifully represented in this tender piece for unaccompanied chorus. Narverud’s gentle repetitions of the words “healing heart” show us how, with each new breath and every heartbeat, the pain of life’s disappointments is transformed into hope. - Robert Bode

Here, time is moving
In quiet breaths and
In the long, slow turn of seasons.

Here, the pain of love’s arrow,
once scarlet,
Fades to memory.

Here, the sigh of tides
And fall’s surrender into snow
Mark a white forgetting.

Here, layers of wonder
And the heart’s gentle song
Call us out again
into the morning
into the light.

Finally, On My Way to Yes
Words: Pesha Gertler; Music: Elizabeth Alexander (2000)

Note from the composer:

I am altered in some way by every song I write, but Finally on My Way to Yes has always felt like a turning point for me. Pesha Gertler’s short poem, “The Healing Time,” was like a blessing guiding me in a new musical and emotional direction. With ferocity and soulfulness, Gertler affirms that our missteps and mistakes are something to be cherished even if they have wounded us or others. In my case, I had long felt constrained by others’ expectations about the serious concert music I “ought” to be composing. Finally on My Way to Yes helped me learn to love my “old misdirections” as well as the “coded messages” that had been sending me down the wrong street again and again.

It seems that everyone who encounters my song or Gertler’s poem hears something deeply individual and personal. Many members of the LGBTQ choir for whom I wrote this song heard their own coming out stories. Others have shared with me how it applies to drug addictions, suicide attempts, self-mutilation, racial identity, and the brutal losses that life eventually dishes out to all of us. Clearly “The Healing Time” taps into a deep something about what it is to be human. If my musical setting enriches this healing message in any way, I am grateful for that.

Finally on my way to yes
I bump into
all the places
where I said no
to my life
all the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain
carved into my skin, my bones,
those coded messages
that send me down
the wrong street
again and again
where I find them
the old wounds
the old misdirections
and I lift them
one by one
close to my heart
and I say    holy
holy.

Would You Harbor Me?
Words & Music: Ysaye M. Barnwell (1994)

Dr. Ysaÿe M. Barnwell is a native of New York City who has lived in Washington, DC since 1968. In 1979 she was invited to join the world renowned a cappella ensemble, Sweet Honey In The Rock®. In her first year as a singer in the group, Barnwell (who had trained as a Sign Language interpreter) facilitated the practice of including Sign Language as part of the ensemble’s performances. She retired from Sweet Honey In The Rock in 2013, after 34 years, to pursue her other interests.

Dr. Barnwell appears as a singer (and occasionally as an instrumentalist) on more than thirty recordings with Sweet Honey In The Rock and other artists. In addition, she is highly sought after as a master teacher and choral clinician in African American cultural performance. She has been a commissioned composer on numerous choral, film, video, dance and theatrical projects.

Would You Harbor Me was commissioned as a dance performance, and premiered on the hallowed grounds of a runaway slave graveyard. The trio of names in the lyric - Tubman, Garrett, Truth - refer, of course, to Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, but also to one buried in the graveyard with only the name Garrett to mark their passage through the world.

Would you harbor me?
Would I harbor you?

Would you harbor a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew
a heretic, convict or spy?
Would you harbor a runaway woman, or child,
a poet, a prophet, a king?

Would you harbor an exile, or a refugee,
a person living with AIDS?
Would you harbor a Tubman, a Garrett, a Truth
a fugitive or a slave?

Would you harbor a Haitian, Korean, or Czech,
a lesbian or a gay?

Would you harbor me?
Would I harbor you?

Sanctuary
Words & Music: Jason Robert Brown (2020)

Note from the composer:

On New Year’s Eve, I performed, as I often do, in the Concert for Peace at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The first time I was part of that concert was in 1999, the eve of the Millennium, and so this year I wanted to commemorate that 20-year anniversary by doing something I’d never done before: I wrote a new song to be premiered at the concert. Further, since the Cathedral is such a huge part of my family’s history – it’s where I proposed to Georgia and where we got married – I asked my family to share the stage with me, the very first time we’ve all performed together in public. The title of the song is “Sanctuary,” and that word is significant in our life as well: when Georgia and I moved back to New York City six and a half years ago, I said probably too many times that my biggest concern was that I wouldn’t have a safe place to work, to think, to breathe in this chaotic city; what would be my sanctuary? These many years later, it’s clear: the Cathedral is my sanctuary, SubCulture is my sanctuary, and my family is my sanctuary. The last song I sang in 2019 was the premiere at the Cathedral, and now it’s the first song I sang in 2020. The feeling I had when I glanced upstage to look at my children and my wife singing in bright, major harmony with me is some kind of miracle, like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

That's a siren
There's an ambulance down in the street
Shut the window
Close the curtain, the lights are blinding

I can't hear with the children crying
I can't think with the anger flying
I can't breathe with my mentors dying

And I, I am searching for sanctuary
Will you shelter me?
Will you shelter me?
I am searching for sanctuary
Will you shelter me?
Will you shelter me?
I am writing your name in the air
Can you see me?
Can you see me?
I am writing for sanctuary
Will you shelter me?
Will you shelter me?

You've been waiting
I can tell from your steps in the hall
You've been silent
Keeping watch as the world's unwinding

You are standing in isolation
You have shut down communication
You are leading your own migration

And I, I am searching for sanctuary
Will you shelter me?
Will you shelter me?
I am searching for sanctuary
Will you shelter me?
Will you shelter me?
I am stretching my arms to the sky
Can you reach me?
Can you reach me?
I am reaching for sanctuary
Will you shelter me?
Will you shelter me?

If you'll be my walls
If you'll be my roof
If you'll keep me safe
I will give you music

I am searching for sanctuary
Will you shelter me?
Will you shelter me?
I am searching for sanctuary
Will you shelter me?
Will you shelter me?
I am lost at the end of the world
Can you find me?
Can you find me?
I am reaching for sanctuary
Will you shelter me?
Will you shelter me?

I am reaching for sanctuary
Will you shelter me?
Shelter me
I am praying for sanctuary
Will you shelter me?
Shelter me
I am here, I am here, I am here
Will you shelter me?

Meet Me Here
Words & Music: Craig Hella Johnson (2016)

Meet Me Here comes from the contemporary oratorio Considering Matthew Shepard. This is the singers’ and the listeners’ first chance to begin the healing process. To meet ‘where the old fence ends and the horizon begins.’ We are reminded that there's a balm in the silence, there's a joy in the singing, as we dance in memory of all those children who’ve been lost along the way.

Meet me here
Won’t you meet me here
Where the old fence ends and the horizon begins
There’s a balm in the silence
Like an understanding air
Where the old fence ends and the horizon begins

We’ve been walking through the darkness
On this long, hard climb
Carried ancestral sorrow
For too long a time
Will you lay down your burden
Lay it down, come with me
It will never be forgotten
Held in love, so tenderly

Meet me here
Won’t you meet me here
Where the old fence ends and the horizon begins
There’s a joy in the singing
Like an understanding air
Where the fence ends and the horizon begins.

Then we’ll come to the mountain
We’ll go bounding to see
That great circle of dancing
And we’ll dance endlessly
And we’ll dance with the all the children
Who’ve been lost along the way
We will welcome each other
Coming home, this glorious day

We are home in the mountain
And we’ll gently understand
That we’ve been friends forever
That we’ve never been alone
We’ll sing on through any darkness
And our Song will be our sight
We can learn to offer praise again
Coming home to the light . . .

This Is Me
Words & Music: Benj Pasek & Justin Paul; arr. Mac Huff (2017)

Oscar nominee for best original song category at the 2018 Oscars, from the unapologetically old-fashioned musical “The Greatest Showman.” A rousing ode to anyone who has ever felt marginalized or overlooked, the song is performed in the film by P.T. Barnum’s “Oddities,” led by the Bearded Lady, played by Keala Settle (in her film debut).

I'm not a stranger to the dark
Hide away, they say
'Cause we don't want your broken parts
I've learned to be ashamed of all my scars
Run away, they say
No one will love you as you are

But I won't let them break me down to dust
I know that there's a place for us
For we are glorious

When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out
I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I'm meant to be, this is me
Look out 'cause here I come
And I'm marching on to the beat I drum
I'm not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me

Another round of bullets hits my skin
Well, fire away 'cause today, I won't let the shame sink in
We are bursting through the barricades
And reaching for the sun (we are warriors)
Yeah, that's what we've become

Won't let them break me down to dust
I know that there's a place for us
For we are glorious

When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
Gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out
I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I'm meant to be, this is me
Look out 'cause here I come
And I'm marching on to the beat I drum
I'm not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me

True Colors
Words & Music: Bill Steinberg & Tom Kelly (1986); arr. Deke Sharon (2002)

True Colors is a number one hit song written by American songwriters Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly. It was both the title track and the first single released from American singer Cyndi Lauper's second studio album of the same name (1986). Released in mid-1986, the song spent two weeks at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, being Lauper's second and last single to occupy the top of the chart. It received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

You with the sad eyes
Don’t be discouraged
Oh, I realize
It’s hard to find courage
In a world full of people
You can lose sight of it all
And the darkness inside you
Makes you feel so small

But I see your true colors shining through
I see you true colors, that’s why I love you
Don’t be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
Your true colors are beautiful like a rainbow

Show me a smile then
Don’t be unhappy
Can’t remember when
I last saw you laughing
If this world makes you crazy
And you’ve taken all you can bear
You call me up
And you know I’ll be there

Dance the Night
Words & Music: Dua Lipa, Andrew Wyatt, Mark Ronson & Caroline Ailin; arr. Alan Billingsley (2023)

From Barbie the Album, the soundtrack of the film Barbie (2023). English-Albanian singer Dua Lipa and Caroline Ailin wrote it with its producers Andrew Wyatt and Mark Ronson. "Dance the Night" is about dancing through life despite enduring sadness. The song reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, becoming Dua Lipa's fourth number-one single in the country. In the United States, the song peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the singer's fifth top-ten single in the country. It was nominated for Song of the Year and Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards and for Best Original Song at the 81st Golden Globe Awards.

Baby, you can find me under the lights
Diamonds under my eyes
Turn the rhythm up, don't you wanna just
Come along for the ride?
Ooh, my outfit so tight
You can see my heartbeat tonight
I can take the heat, baby, best believe
That's the moment I shine

'Cause every romance shakes and it bends
Don't give a damn
When the night's here, I don't do tears
Baby, no chance
I could dance, I could dance, I could dance

Watch me dance, dance the night away
My heart could be burnin', but you won't see it on my face
Watch me dance, dance the night away (uh-huh)
I'll still keep the party runnin', not one hair out of place

Lately, I've been movin' close to the edge
Still be lookin' my best
I stay on the beat, you can count on me
I ain't missin' no steps

'Cause every romance shakes and it bends
Don't give a damn
When the night's here, I don't do tears
Baby, no chance
I could dance, I could dance, I could dance

Watch me dance, dance the night away
My heart could be burnin', but you won't see it on my face
Watch me dance, dance the night away (uh-huh)
I'll still keep the party runnin', not one hair out of place

When my heart breaks (they never see it, never see it)
When my world shakes (I feel alive, I feel alive)
I don't play it safe (ooh)
Don't you know about me? (Uh-huh)
I could dance, I could dance, I could dance

Even when the tears are flowin' like diamonds on my face
I'll still keep the party goin', not one hair out of place (yes, I can)
Even when the tears are flowin' like diamonds on my face (yes, I can, yes, I can)
I'll still keep the party goin', not one hair out of place

Watch me dance…