THE ALL SING
“HERE LIES JOY”

Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) (Co-creator) is a prolific and endlessly collaborative composer, performer, educator, and social entrepreneur. “About as omnivorous as a contemporary artist gets” (The New York Times), DBR has worked with artists from Philip Glass to Bill T. Jones to Lady Gaga; appeared on NPR, American Idol, and ESPN; and has collaborated with the Sydney Opera House and the City of Burlington, Vermont. He is a composer of chamber, orchestral, and operatic works; has won an Emmy for Outstanding Musical Composition for his collaborations with ESPN; and created large scale, site-specific musical events for public spaces. DBR earned his doctorate in Music Composition from the University of Michigan and is currently Institute Professor and Professor of Practice at Arizona State University.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph (Co-creator) is a 2017 TED Global Fellow, an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice initiative, and an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship. Bamuthi’s opera libretto, We Shall Not Be Moved, was named one of 2017’s “Best Classical Music Performances” by The New York Times. His evening length work created in collaboration with composer Daniel Bernard Roumain, The Just and The Blind, was commissioned by Carnegie Hall and premiered to a sold out house at Carnegie Hall in March 2019. His upcoming piece, In His Name, is inspired by the forgiveness exhibited by the congregation of Emanuel AME church in Charleston, and will premiere at The Perelman Center in New York.

Damien Sneed is a pianist, vocalist, organist, composer, conductor, producer, arranger, recording artist, instrumentalist, and arts educator whose work spans multiple genres. He has worked with musical legends including the late Aretha Franklin and Jessye Norman (featured on Norman’s final recording, Bound for The Promised Land), Wynton Marsalis, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Ashford & Simpson, J’Nai Bridges, Lawrence Brownlee, and more. Sneed has served as music director for several Grammy Award-winning gospel artists. He is a 2014 Sphinx Medal of Excellence recipient, a 2020 Dove Award winner, and a 2021 NAACP Image Award winner for his work as a featured producer and writer on the Clark Sisters’ recently released album The Return. Sneed is currently a faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music and Artist-in-Residence at Michigan State University. During the 2018-2019 season, he served as music director, composer in residence, and cover conductor for the staff of the Houston Grand Opera, who commissioned him to compose a new chamber opera about the life of Marian Anderson, Marian’s Song, which had its world premiere in 2020. Other commissions include the original score for Testament, a contemporary response to the 60th Anniversary of Revelations, for Alvin Ailey Dance Theater’s first virtual season; and a chamber opera, The Tongue & The Lash, for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in 2021. He is currently commissioned to compose his fourth opera, a reimagined adaptation of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha, which premieres May 20, 2023, to open OTSL’s season.