New Colossus, The - Baritone Voice and Piano

Commissioned by bass baritone Simon Chalifoux for a concert of words and music by women presented at the Société d'Art Vocal de Montréal (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) on March 10, 2019.

The text of Juliana Hall’s musical setting for baritone and piano is the famous sonnet The New Colossus by American poet Emma Lazarus, written in 1883, and now inscribed on a plaque on the inner wall of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Lazarus’s famous sonnet depicts the Statue as the “Mother of Exiles”: a “symbol of immigration and opportunity—symbols associated with the Statue of Liberty today.” The sonnet was originally written in aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund (an art and literary auction to raise funds for the Statue’s pedestal run by the American Committee for the Statue of Liberty). Duration: 5:30