Words and Prayers
- Benjamin Lerner
- 7 days ago
- 7 min read
CARLOS SIMON PREMIERES A HIGHLY ANTICIPATED A CAPPELLA COMPOSITION AT TANGLEWOOD
By Benjamin Lerner
Photos By Hilary Scott, Courtesy of the BSO
On Sunday, August 24, the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) will debut composer Carlos Simon’s Words and Prayers of My Fathers in the Koussevitzky Music Shed at Tanglewood. The four-movement a cappella choral work is built around themes of heritage, faith, and intergenerational wisdom. Commissioned by the BSO with support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s New Works Fund, the piece will be performed by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus under the direction of James Burton. The program also will feature Beethoven’s epic Symphony No. 9 conducted by Zubin Mehta.
Simon, whose past compositions have drawn on Black American musical traditions, Afrofuturist storytelling, and deep spiritual currents, is an acclaimed voice in contemporary classical music. He was recently appointed as the BSO’s first Deborah and Philip Edmundson Composer Chair, a newly created role that tasks him with composing new works, curating concerts, and leading educational and community engagement efforts that bring the orchestra into a closer cultural dialogue with the city of Boston and its surrounding communities. Simon is also composer-in-residence at the Kennedy Center and has received commissions from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, and the Metropolitan Opera, among others. His body of work spans orchestral scores, chamber music, concept albums, and large-scale vocal pieces. The upcoming premiere will mark the culmination of a busy summer at Tanglewood for Simon, serving both as a milestone for him and a poignant bookend to a remarkable season in the Berkshires.
A Family Album, Set to Music
Simon returns to his roots in Words and Prayers of My Fathers, drawing on archival recordings, memories, and the layered spiritual influence of three generations of Black Pentecostal pastors: his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father, each of whom founded churches across Washington, D.C., and Atlanta. Their sermons, prayers, and individual legacies are transformed into music, fusing gospel rhythms and cadences into a moving composition. “I’m using their personalities to shape the music,” says Simon. “I was able to get some recordings from my great-grandfather and grandfather. I chose words and prayers from my patriarchal heritage to show the wisdom of these great men and where I come from.”
The piece holds deep personal meaning for Simon. Growing up, his life revolved around the weekly rhythms of his family’s church. By age ten, he was already at the piano each Sunday, accompanying hymns and honing the improvisational skills that would become a hallmark of his compositional voice. By his teens, Simon was directing music at the church, learning how to shape a congregation’s spiritual journey through harmony, rhythm, and call-and-response. At the same time, he discovered the structural rigor of Beethoven and Brahms, the swing of jazz, and the lush lyricism of neo-romantic composers—ingredients he blends into his works today.
In Words and Prayers of My Fathers, not all of his ancestors’ wisdom is expressed in words. One movement honors his maternal grandfather, a quiet deacon who was a man of few words. “That movement doesn’t have any words at all,” shares Simon. “It’s vocalise—humming and oohing—because there is still wisdom in silence.”
The decision to forego orchestration altogether for Words and Prayers of My Fathers wasn’t a limitation for Simon; it was a deliberate act of reverence. “It’s a cappella because I wanted the words to be heard and understood,” says Simon. He used choral and harmonic structure to guide the listener through his spiritual and patrilineal legacy. In place of orchestral color, quietly glowing harmonies do the preaching—an invocation carried by the breath and body of the voice alone.
Activism Through Music
For Simon, the music is inseparable from the message. His creative path has walked the line between art and activism, giving a much-needed voice to marginalized communities. “Music has the ability to connect people and convey a message that words may or may not achieve,” shares Simon. This belief animates many of his most widely recognized works, including brea(d)th (2023), an orchestral-spoken-word collaboration with poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph composed in the wake of George Floyd’s tragic death and infused with unfiltered urgency toward America’s unfinished reckoning with systemic injustice.
Simon’s 2022 album, Requiem for the Enslaved, nominated for a Grammy® for Best Contemporary Classical Composition, fuses elements of spirituals, hip-hop, and liturgical melodies to honor the lives of 272 enslaved people sold by Georgetown University in 1838. Both works stand as musical monuments, engaging with America’s legacy of racial violence through deep musical dialogue. “Sometimes, I’m intentional about what I want to say,” he says. “Other times, I leave it to the audience to get what they need from it.”
One of Simon’s most intriguing musical and cultural influences is Afrofuturism, which he channels in works like Motherboxx Connection—an orchestral tribute to Black Kirby’s speculative graphic art—and his forthcoming opera In the Rush, commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera for an anticipated 2027 premiere. Afrofuturism blends elements of science fiction, fantasy, and African diasporic culture to imagine futures where Black identity, experience, and creativity are central.
“Afrofuturism, to me, is about thinking of Black people in the future without the white gaze,” says Simon. He cited cultural forebears like science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler and the futuristic staging of George Clinton’s P-Funk ensemble as inspirations for his own creative process. Simon describes the opera as a story that explores themes of social inequality, love, and survival. “It’s a safe place for me to write from; an imaginative space to build a future we haven’t yet been allowed to see."
Words and Prayers of My Fathers will mark the BSO’s final performance of the 2025 Tanglewood season, which also has featured several of Simon’s other compositions. On July 10, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players performed a program largely centered on Simon’s works, including “move it” (a playful solo for flute), “between worlds” (a meditative piece for solo cello), and “Giants” (a jazz-inflected wind quintet), presented alongside Jessie Montgomery’s “Strum” and Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring.”
On July 27, Simon’s compositional versatility was on full display in African Queens, a dynamic, interdisciplinary program presented by the Tanglewood Learning Institute and curated by soprano Karen Slack. Simon’s contribution, “Behold, the Queen,” was written as part of a collective of seven Black composers known as “The Blacknificent 7.” The work, which Simon described as “very declamatory,” centers on themes of majesty, pride, and presence. “It’s about honoring regal nature, persona, and power,” he says.
Boston and Beyond
Those summer highlights reflect the latest chapter in a longstanding and steadily deepening relationship between Simon and the BSO—one that has unfolded across multiple seasons and increasingly prominent commissions. The collaboration began during the orchestra’s pandemic-era streaming season in 2021, when Music Director Andris Nelsons led the BSO in Simon’s Fate Now Conquers, a tightly woven and rhythmically driven orchestral work inspired by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. The piece was quickly followed by a high-profile performance of Motherboxx Connection, which premiered at Tanglewood in 2022 and was later performed at Symphony Hall.
In 2023, the BSO commissioned Four Black American Dances, an ambitious and vibrant suite of movements rooted in historically Black forms of movement and music, from "Ring Shout" to "Holy Dance." The work premiered under Nelsons, receiving acclaim for its power, complexity, and cultural resonance. In 2024, Simon’s WAKE UP!, a percussive and politically charged concerto for orchestra inspired by Nepali poet Rajendra Bhandari, received its first BSO performance following its San Diego premiere. During the same season, the orchestra unveiled the expanded string orchestra version of Warmth from Other Suns, Simon’s sweeping meditation on the Great Migration and Isabel Wilkerson’s acclaimed historical text.
That growing body of commissioned works made Simon’s appointment as the BSO’s inaugural Deborah and Philip Edmundson Composer Chair a logical yet visionary next step. The new position, which Simon stepped into in 2024, was created to redefine a composer’s role in a modern orchestra. Simon’s three-season term entrusts him not only with composing new works, but also with helping to shape the BSO’s programming, curating special events, and leading educational and community engagement efforts throughout Boston.
Simon’s first major public initiative under the Composer Chair role came in September 2024, when the Boston Symphony Chamber Players presented a free community concert at Union United Methodist Church in Boston’s South End. The program, curated by Simon, featured his own work alongside pieces by his Blacknificent 7 colleagues, who also include Jasmine Barnes, Damien Geter, Jessie Montgomery, Shawn Okpebholo, Dave Ragland, and Joel Thompson. The event highlighted his dual commitment to excellence and accessibility, expanding the BSO’s presence far beyond Symphony Hall and into the heart of Boston’s neighborhoods.
In March 2025, he curated a landmark Symphony Hall program devoted entirely to the legacy of jazz legend John Coltrane—a first for the BSO. “People came, supported it and really enjoyed it,” Simon recalls. The program represented more than just a tribute to Coltrane—it was a vivid illustration of Simon’s broader mission: to expand the cultural reach of classical music and to challenge long-held assumptions about who and what belongs on the concert stage.
As part of his work as Composer Chair, which continues through the 2026–2027 season, Simon goes to Boston several times a year from his home base in Washington, D.C., using his time not only to compose and consult with Nelsons and BSO President and CEO Chad Smith, but also to engage with local students, artists, and cultural institutions. Simon’s goal, as he puts it, is “to bring in the culture that is outside in the community onto the concert stage so it becomes a reflection of what we see outside of the hall.”
The Edmundson Composer Chair is not simply about placing a single composer in the spotlight—it’s about broadening the lens of what classical music can express, represent, and include. For Simon, that means opening doors for others, challenging norms, and ensuring that the concert hall reflects the full complexity—and beauty—of American life. As he continues to build bridges between communities and concert stages, this inaugural role positions him not only as a creator of music, but as a changemaker in the orchestral world. n
Sunday, August 24, 2:30 p.m.: Carlos Simon, Words and Prayers of My Fathers (world premiere) and Beethoven Symphony No. 9, Koussevitzky Music Shed, Tanglewood. Zubin Mehta, conductor; James Burton, conductor (Simon); Federica Lombardi, soprano; Isabel Signoret, mezzo-soprano; Pene Pati, tenor; Ryan Speedo Green, bass-baritone; and Tanglewood Festival Chorus with Burton, conductor. bso.org/tanglewoodwww.