The center of Karen Slack’s season is African Queens—a commissioning project that has grown from an evening-length recital into an orchestral canvas. The Naples Philharmonic unveils African Queens for Soprano and Orchestra, placing Slack’s narrative arc amid full symphonic orchestration—expanded winds and brass for coloristic punch, percussion for rhythmic lift—between Jennifer Higdon’s blue cathedral and Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony. The programming places new Black voices in dialogue with modern American sonority and a canonical symphony, a frame that heightens contrasts in tessitura, dynamic range, and instrumentation.
Elsewhere, Slack leads a major world premiere with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra: Kathryn Bostic’s Drag, conducted by Marin Alsop. Centered on Harlem Renaissance icon Gladys Bentley, Bostic’s score mines blues phrasing and speech-song inflection—expect chest-register shimmer, bent pitches at the phrase edges, and late-chorus breakdowns that strip texture for maximum impact before tuttis bloom with orchestral reverb. The bill sets the new work between Strauss and Brahms, a context that underscores Slack’s versatility in pivoting from late-Romantic tone painting to contemporary pulse.
In chamber music, Slack turns architect of texture with the Miró Quartet. Tamar-kali’s new cycle Pleasure Garden (world premiere/AFCM commission) interleaves the soprano line with string voicings—call-and-response entrances, off-beat syncopation, and sostenuto writing that allows overtones to bloom without miking, the kind of production values that let audience ears catch bow articulation and vowel color. The project then receives its Philadelphia premiere at Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, where the program frames Tamar-kali with Barber and Price to map a coherent sonic landscape from Americana lyricism to newly minted idioms.
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Slack’s season also threads civic-minded orchestral work: at Carnegie Hall, she is featured soloist for the American Composers Orchestra in Brittany J. Green’s Letters to America, part of ACO’s Hello, America: Letters to Us, from Us—one of the flagship projects within Carnegie’s “America at 250” initiative. For a text-forward score like this, Slack’s diction, long-breathed legato, and mic-less projection become the expressive engine as the orchestra shapes the harmonic subtext.
All of it rides the momentum of Slack’s debut album, Beyond the Years: Unpublished Songs of Florence Price (Azica), recorded with Michelle Cann. The release won Best Classical Solo Vocal Album at the GRAMMYs—an historic first for a recording composed entirely by a Black woman—and gathers 19 previously unpublished songs, including 16 world-premiere recordings. On disc, the mix favors natural hall reverb, unforced edits, and text-first mastering, letting Price’s prosody and Slack’s pliant upper register lead. The album continues live across recital platforms—including a reunion with Cann in Cincinnati and a Spivey Hall date—reinforcing national press that has praised Slack as one of opera’s most compelling artistic and cultural leaders.
The recital version of African Queens also remains on tour, opening Portland Opera’s season. As the company’s Artistic Ambassador, Slack brings together composers including Jasmine Barnes, Damien Geter, Jessie Montgomery, Shawn Okpebholo, Dave Ragland, Carlos Simon, Will Liverman, and Joel Thompson, crafting a through-line of spoken narrative and art song that spotlights under-told histories with immediacy and style.
Dates & key engagements:
— Portland Opera: African Queens — Patricia Reser Center for the Arts (season opener).
— Dallas Symphony Orchestra / Marin Alsop: World Premiere — Kathryn Bostic’s Drag.
— Arizona Friends of Chamber Music (Tucson Desert Song Festival): World Premiere — Tamar-kali’s Pleasure Garden with Miró Quartet.
— Philadelphia Chamber Music Society: Philadelphia Premiere — Tamar-kali’s Pleasure Garden with Miró Quartet.
— American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall (Zankel): World Premiere — Brittany J. Green’s Letters to America.
— Artis—Naples / Naples Philharmonic / Alexander Shelley: World Premiere — African Queens for Soprano and Orchestra; program with Higdon and Dvořák.
— Chamber Music Cincinnati (Memorial Hall): Slack & Cann in Price-focused recital.
— Spivey Hall: Slack & Cann in recital inspired by Beyond the Years.
— Amherst College (Buckley Recital Hall): Slack with Pacifica Quartet & Casey Robards.
— Yale School of Music — Oneppo Series (Morse Recital Hall): Slack with Pacifica Quartet.
