The Strangers' Case: Songs and Chronicles of the Immigrant Experience
Schedule
Sat, 28 Mar, 2026 at 07:30 pm
UTC-05:00Location
MATCH - Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston | Houston, TX
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Musiqa and Kinetic Ensemble partner to present the world premiere of Canadian-American composer Karim Al-Zand’s The Strangers’ Case. The GRAMMY® award-winning, Lebanese-American tenor Karim Sulayman joins the ensemble for this song cycle for tenor and string orchestra that gathers poems and other turn-of-the-century accounts by immigrants to the United States, and situates them among texts from canonically venerated authors including Shakespeare and Dickinson.The Strangers' Case celebrates the 250th anniversary of our country by honoring the stories of the immigrant experience that have shaped our collective identity. “Lady in the Harbor” is the story of a young Polish girl destined for the textile sweatshops, and “Such an Illumination” comes from a Syrian refugee fleeing persecution in his homeland. “Island of Angels” excerpts lines written in the wake of the 1882 Asian Exclusion Act. This anonymous poem, translated from Chinese, was found inscribed on the walls of a San Francisco Bay immigrant detention facility.
The Strangers’ Case is preceded by the incidental music to Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Apollon Musagète, which he wrote contemporaneously with many of Al-Zand’s texts. Both the composer and his longtime collaborator, choreographer George Balanchine, have cited Apollon as a turning point in their careers: the pair themselves later immigrated to the United States, where their professional partnership continued to flourish.
In Al-Zand’s words, “The Strangers’ Case aims to remind us of our shared history, fraught as it is with contradiction, filled with both selfless generosity and selfish indifference. By using text materials that span diverse nationalities, stories, voices and historical periods, The Strangers’ Case aims to make a case of its own: though our commitment to immigrants and refugees has been equivocal, nonetheless their success forms the basis of American strength and renewal. As the child of an immigrant, I believe this sort of consciousness-raising is the only way forward. And as an artist, I believe that music is an ideal spark to kindle the altruism in our better natures.”
On the Program:
Igor Stravinsky: Apollon Musagète (1928)
1. Prologue: The Birth of Apollo
2. Variation of Apollo
3. Pas d'action (Apollo and the Three Muses)
4. Variation of Calliope (the Alexandrine)
5. Variation of Polyhymnia
6. Variation of Terpsichore
7. Second Variation of Apollo
8. Pas de deux
9. Coda
10. Apotheosis
Karim Al-Zand: The Strangers’ Case (2024 — world premiere)
1. The Lady in the Harbor (text: Sadie Frowne, 1906; anonymous, 1906)
2. Who Can Pity My Loneliness? (text: anonymous, ca. 1920)
3. Whither Would You Go? (text: William Shakespeare, 1601)
4. The Stranger Within My Gate (text: Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 1895; Rudyard Kipling, 1912)
5. They Came From Terror and Tumult (text: Jaime Torres Bodet, 1950)
6. Exile (text: Harold Hart Crane, 1926)
7. When Dawn Comes to the City (text: Claude McKay, 1920)
8. The Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor, A.D. 2900 (text: Arthur Wheelock Upson, 1908)
9. These Strangers (text: Emily Dickinson, 1890)
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Where is it happening?
MATCH - Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston, 3400 Main St, Houston, TX 77002-9515, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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