Media highlights on Valerie Coleman’s “This Is Not a Small Voice” Premiere at Carnegie Hall

Soprano Angel Blue with the Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin at Carnegie Hall (Photo credit: Steve J. Sherman)

On February 9, the media has highlighted the recent World Premiere performance of Valerie Coleman’s new work “This Is Not a Small Voice.” It was performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City on February 8, 2022 by soprano Angel Blue and The Philadelphia Orchestra, led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Zachary Woolfe of The New York Times: “There was grandeur, too, in Valerie Coleman’s ‘This Is Not a Small Voice,’ her new setting of a poetic paean to Black pride by Sonia Sanchez that weaves from rumination to bold declaration. The soprano Angel Blue was keen, her tone as rich yet light as whipped cream, in a difficult solo part, which demands crisp speak-singing articulation and delves into velvety depths before soaring upward to glistening high notes.”

Rick Perdian of New York Classical Review: “‘This Is Not a Small Voice,’ a work for soprano and orchestra, is Coleman’s setting of a poem by Philadelphia poet Sonia Sanchez. The words and the music united in celebrating the strength, resilience and genius of black individuals and communities. It’s a big, bold work with strings and harp yield to a joyous free-for-all of brass and percussion. Above it all are soaring vocal lines that were seemingly tailor-made for Blue’s soprano. She brought the same ebullience and ravishing tone to Coleman’s work that she had lavished on the Barber, albeit on a much grander scale.”

Justin Davidson of Vulture: “‘This is not a small voice,’ the soprano Angel Blue sings at the beginning of Coleman’s song, and that guarantees that by the end, we’ll get to hear her loud and high like a seraph’s shout. Coleman set Sonia Sanchez’s raging 1995 poem (‘This is the voice of LaTanya. / Kadesha. Shaniqua …’) to music, but the music transfigures the anger into celebration. Coleman’s score has a velvety iridescence that suits Blue’s voice, which in turn melds with the Philadelphians’ rich orchestral palette.”