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But five years ago, Liverman was stuck in the same limbo as the rest of us, locked down in his Wrigleyville apartment without a gig for months. The lull gave the opera singer the latitude to try something new: writing music. He spent more hours tinkering behind the keyboard \u2014 his \u201cfirst love\u201d as a young musician \u2014 than he had in decades. He even completed an entire opera set in a South Side barbershop: \u201cThe Factotum<\/a>,\u201d which premiered at Lyric in 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cBranching out was healing,\u201d Liverman told WBEZ in an interview from the Berkshires, where he was working with young singers at the prestigious Tanglewood Music Festival. \u201cIt\u2019s something I felt was always in there.\u201d<\/p>\n The whole time, Liverman was also at work on a two-album project called \u201cThe Dunbar\/Moore Sessions,\u201d inspired by the poetry of married African American writers Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson. Both albums \u2014 which feature Liverman on voice and keys, plus guest performances by the likes of opera star Isabel Leonard and Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Mykal Kilgore \u2014 were just issued as a complete collection.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Paul Laurence Dunbar, Liverman\u2019s muse, gained wide acclaim in the U.S. as a leading Black voice, writing about racism and African American life with unflinching directness.<\/p>\n By Baker, photographer – The Booklovers Magazine, July 1903<\/p>\n Much like \u201cThe Factotum\u201d \u2014 which, he still insists, was \u201cmeant to be a mixtape\u201d \u2014 Liverman didn\u2019t set out to complete an entire album, at least not initially. While he was writing his opera, soprano Lauren Snouffer formally commissioned him to write a short song. He responded with \u201cA Golden Day,\u201d which became the second song on \u201cThe Dunbar\/Moore Sessions.\u201d <\/b><\/p>\n Dunbar, Liverman\u2019s muse, may be a familiar name to some Chicagoans. While still in his 20s, the poet had already gained wide acclaim in the U.S. as a leading Black voice, writing about racism and African American life with unflinching directness. He briefly moved to Chicago to seek work during the 1893 World\u2019s Fair, during which time he befriended Frederick Douglass. Today, Bronzeville boasts both a park and a vocational school named in Dunbar\u2019s honor.<\/p>\n Sitting with Dunbar\u2019s verses for long hours stirred something in Liverman. He delved into another poem: Dunbar\u2019s \u201cGood-Night,\u201d which ends the album. And another. And another.<\/p>\n At that point, Liverman wasn\u2019t responding to any commission at all. He just wanted to set Dunbar\u2019s verses to music himself.<\/p>\n \u201cSeeing the breadth of work that he put out in his very short life, I felt a deep connection to his writing,\u201d Liverman said. \u201c[I thought], \u2018Why not? What do I have to lose by not waiting for permission and not waiting for someone to tell me to do something?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Liverman stresses that no survey of Dunbar\u2019s life and work would be complete without Dunbar-Nelson, also a prolific poet. She was a pathbreaker in her own right: Her poetry and short story anthology, \u201cViolets and Other Tales,\u201d was considered the first known work of its kind by a Black woman upon its publication in 1895, and she advocated for anti-lynching laws and on behalf of Black women and girls.<\/p>\n Their marriage, however, was fraught. Dunbar was physically abusive, and though they never divorced, they lived apart from 1902, when Dunbar-Nelson left him, to 1906, when Dunbar died of tuberculosis. <\/b>Ultimately, Liverman set to music five of Dunbar-Nelson\u2019s poems as part of the project, including \u201cFarewell\u201d and \u201cTo the Negro Farmers of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI had no idea that Alice was a poet,\u201d Liverman confessed. \u201cI was just really blown away by her writing. When things were good, they wrote poems together.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIn undergrad, my teacher would assign me a Faur\u00e9 or Schubert song. Then I\u2019d look at the poetry and I\u2019d have no connection to it,\u201d Liverman recalled. \u201cI was like, \u2018I don\u2019t want to sing about some flowers and a German river!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n As a music student at suburban Wheaton College, younger Liverman surely would have been baffled by the very notion of \u201cThe Dunbar\/Moore Sessions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn undergrad, my teacher would assign me a Faur\u00e9 or Schubert song. Then I\u2019d look at the poetry and I\u2019d have no connection to it,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI was like, \u2018I don\u2019t want to sing about some flowers and a German river!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s come around, of course. \u201cThe Dunbar\/Moore Sessions\u201d seeks to bring other genres, such as gospel and R&B, into dialogue with the classical tradition.<\/p>\n In that spirit, Liverman recorded the project with a cast of singers who could straddle styles. Opera stars Isabel Leonard and Joshua Blue sing on \u201cThe Threefold Heart,\u201d a triptych of songs. \u201cNight\u201d features Kilgore, an R&B and musical theater artist. Jacqueline Echols, who recently portrayed Rosa Parks in Chicago Opera Theater\u2019s \u201cShe Who Dared<\/a>,\u201d sings a powerhouse balladic setting of Dunbar-Nelson\u2019s \u201cA Plaint.\u201d Though in demand as an operatic soprano, Echols had left a lasting impression on Liverman after a fiery rendition of Kurt Carr\u2019s \u201cFor Every Mountain\u201d on a concert bill they shared.<\/p>\n In a new turn for Liverman, he accompanies his colleagues on piano throughout the album, in addition to singing a few songs himself. \u201c[Playing piano] was really fun to come back to \u2014 and it was a challenge too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Not that he has ever backed down from one of those.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chicago-based baritone Will Liverman is booked and busy. He\u2019s become a regular fixture at the country\u2019s premier opera…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":145178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-145177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115027367096626142","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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