In the 24/25 season the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Cleveland Orchestra, and the Hallé will premiere an extended version of Thomas Adès’ America: A Prophecy for mezzo soprano, chorus, and orchestra. Andris Nelsons will conduct the world premiere of the expanded version with the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Kelley O’Connor, and the MDR Rundfunkchor Leipzig on 19 December. Adès then conducts the US premiere with the Cleveland Orchestra in February 2025 and its UK premiere with the Hallé in March.
It was commissioned by Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, The Cleveland Orchestra and the Hallé; Adès is currently engaged in a two-season artistic residency with both Gewandhaus and Hallé. The extended version adds a third movement, giving it a new duration of approximately 22 minutes. Adès sets further passages, adapted by himself, from the Mayan Chilam Balam (visionary ‘Jaguar seers') and the ‘ensalada’ La Guerra by Catalan composer Matteo Flexa – a medley of popular tunes from the sixteenth century, contemporaneous to the Mayan miscellanies and the brutal Spanish colonisation of Central and South America, whose presence shadows the portentous and apocalyptic work.
In America the mezzo-soprano sings both a prophecy and lament, mostly in slow, sure phrases in the strong middle register, increasing in speed only as she registers alarm that ‘they will come’. The modally-inflected ‘Maya’ music that opens the work – Paul Griffiths calls it a “wobbling, warbling iteration…a forest polyphony” – increasingly comes into conflict with eruptions of Spanish music, just as the Mayan text faces off against the Christian liturgical writings given to the chorus. Its original iteration ends with a low, faltering, invocation of ashes from the soloist, with the piece receding into darkness.
The first version of America was commissioned as a ‘Message for the Millenium’ by the New York Philharmonic with generous support from the Francis Goelet Fund, and premiered in New York in 1999 with Kurt Masur, Beth Taylor and the New York Philharmonic; it was recorded in 2004 by the City of Birmingham Orchestra and Chorus and Susan Bickley, conducted by the composer. Adès has previously conducted the work with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Crouch End Festival Chorus (at the BBC Proms), the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the LA Master Chorale, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the London Philharmonic.