Last month, the National Constitution Center hosted a musical performance and conversation about the women who fought for the right to vote. On this episode you’ll hear the premiere performance of RESOLVED—a song cycle about the 19th Amendment and the American women’s suffrage movement—by composer/soprano/creator Patrice Michaels, performed by renowned mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges and pianist Laura Ward and produced by NBCUniversal. Next, you’ll hear a discussion featuring scholars Marcia Chatelain of Georgetown University and Gail Heriot of the University of San Diego School of Law, and Center Exhibit Developer Elena Popchock exploring some of the iconic women highlighted in the performance who fought for the 19th Amendment and the Equal Rights Amendment. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.
This program was presented in partnership with Vision 2020’s Women 100 and as part of the Center’s yearlong initiative, Women and the Constitution, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment and the Center’s new exhibit The 19th Amendment: How Women Won the Vote.
The pinnacle of the Women and the Constitution initiative will be the awarding of the 32nd annual Liberty Medal to the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, for her efforts to advance liberty and equality for all. The program, featuring performances by internationally renowned opera singers and tributes from special friends of Justice Ginsburg and produced by NBCUniversal, will debut at constitutioncenter.org/liberty-medal this Thursday, September 17, at 6:30 p.m. EDT.
FULL PODCAST
Or, listen on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts.
PARTICIPANTS
Performance Participants
- J’Nai Bridges, known for her “plush-voiced mezzo-soprano” (The New York Times), has been heralded as “a rising star” (Los Angeles Times), gracing the world’s top stages. Her 2019-2020 operatic engagements in the U.S. this season include her debut at The Metropolitan Opera, singing the role of Nefertiti in Philip Glass’ opera Akhnaten, and her house and role debut at Washington National Opera performing Dalila in Samson et Dalila. Bridges will sing the title role of Carmen for the first time in Europe at the Dutch National Opera and will make her debut with the Festival d’Aix-en-provence singing Margret in a new production of Wozzeck, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Bridges opens her season with her Tanglewood Festival debut, performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She continues her concert repertoire by making her debut with San Antonio Symphony in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, and debuting with the New Jersey Symphony in Handel’s Messiah, and closes her season by making her debut at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Chineke! Orchestra and Friends.
- Patrice Michaels is a composer, creator, and soprano. Her singing has been featured on more than 25 albums on Decca, Neos, Albany and Amadis labels, plus 14 releases for Cedille Records. Her compositional interests center around works with words, including incidental music for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a one-act opera on Euripides’ The Trojan Women, the children’s show A Song for Harmonica, and several song cycles, most recently THE LONG VIEW: A Portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Nine Songs. Formerly Professor of Voice and Opera in the Conservatory of Music at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, she currently serves as Director of Vocal Studies at The University of Chicago and as Lecturer in the Voice & Opera program at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University.
- Laura Ward is pianist and Artistic Director of Lyric Fest. As a distinguished collaborative pianist she is known for both her technical ability and vast knowledge of repertoire and styles. Concert engagements have taken her to Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Teatro Colon, the Spoleto Festival (Italy), the Colmar International Music Festival and Saint Denis Festival in France. She has served on the faculty of AlpenKammermusik, The CoOPERAtive Program at Westminster Choir College, The Academy of Vocal Arts, Temple University, Ravinia Festival Stean’s Institute, Washington Opera, University of Maryland, Music Academy of the West and as the official pianist for the Washington International Competition, the Astral Artists Auditions and for the Marian Anderson Award.
Town Hall Participants
- Marcia Chatelain is a professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University. The author of South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration, Chatelain is a scholar of African American life and culture. Her most recent book is Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America. She has contributed to TheAtlantic.com, Time.com, Ms. Magazine, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, which also named her a "Top Influencer in Higher Education" in 2016. She has appeared on local and national television outlets including C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, BBC America, and PBS. She is also former host of the Slate podcast, “ The Waves,” a bi-weekly show that covers feminism, gender, and popular culture.
- Gail Heriot is a professor of law at the University of San Diego (USD) School of Law. Prior to entering academia, she practiced with Mayer, Brown & Platt in Chicago and Hogan & Hartson in Washington, D.C. She also served as civil rights counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary and as associate dean and professor of law at the George Mason University School of Law. She joined the USD School of Law faculty in 1989. Heriot co-wrote the National Constitution Center's Interactive Constitution explainer on the 19th Amendment.
- Elena Popchock is the exhibition developer at the National Constitution Center, overseeing exhibit content from conception through installation. Since 2016, she has served as the lead developer for several exhibits, including Hamilton: The Constitutional Clashes That Shaped a Nation, the permanent exhibit Civil War and Reconstruction: The Battle for Freedom and Equality, and most recently, The 19th Amendment: How Women Won the Vote.
- Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
This episode was engineered by Greg Scheckler and produced by Jackie McDermott, Lana Ulrich and Tanaya Tauber.
Stay Connected and Learn More
Questions or comments about the show? Email us at [email protected].
Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.
Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.
Please subscribe to Live at the National Constitution Center and our companion podcast We the People on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.
To watch National Constitution Center Town Halls live, check out our schedule of upcoming programs. Register through Zoom to ask your constitutional questions in the Q&A or watch live on YouTube.
