Okpebholo: The American Road
A Choral Suite in Six Movements
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- Composer: Shawn Okpebholo (1981-)
- Format: Vocal Score
- Instrumentation: Piano, Mixed Choir
- Work: The American Road (A Choral Suite in Six Movements) (2025)
- Work Language: English
Description
Commissioned by the Santa Fe Desert Chorale under Artistic Director Joshua Habermann, The American Road is a dynamic choral suite that explores the complexities of America's history through six reimagined folk songs, hymns, and spirituals. The work traverses themes of sacrifice, oppression, care, faith, healing, and quiet resilience. By drawing on melodies that have carried the experiences of the enslaved and the emancipated, the suite weaves these profound narratives into the wider American story.
The journey begins with "Prepare Me One Body," a solemn invocation drawn from a spiritual meditation on the crucifixion. Featuring a baritone or tenor soloist supported by an a cappella choir, this opening movement serves as both prayer and preparation. The focus then shifts from the end of life to its beginning with "Little Cuckoo," a treble-voice cradlesong inspired by a contemporary folk lullaby by Rhiannon Giddens. It tells the story of an enslaved woman nursing her enslaver's child. Beneath its gentle surface lies an unbearable tension, as tenderness is sustained within a system defined by violence, revealing the deep complexities of care and survival.
This thread of care continues into "He's Got the Whole World," reimagined as a second, far more expansive lullaby. The music leans into quiet assurance, offering a sense of being held by faith, by community, and by something larger than oneself. Stillness then gives way to urgent motion in "Left Foot, Peg Foot (Follow the Drinking Gourd)," which evokes the danger, peril, and whispered trust of the Underground Railroad.
Providing a vital moment of pause, "Shall We Gather at the River" transforms the familiar hymn into a space for reflection and renewal, creating a threshold where burdens can finally be set down. The suite culminates with "Shine! (This Little Light of Mine)." The soloist returns to join the choir and piano in a spirit of joy and affirmation. What begins as a personal, interior light grows into a collective declaration, carrying the work toward a shared sense of purpose and brightly illuminating the road ahead.
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Okpebholo: The American Road
