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Book Andrew Egbuchiem for a groupmuse

Music Speaks


Details

Andrew Egbuchiem full profile / Voice and Keyboard / 2 musicians


Full program notes

Music Speaks: Love, Risk, and What Could Not Be Said

An intimate Groupmuse recital

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❤️ I. Love — What Could Not Be Said to the Beloved

(Intimacy, restraint, longing spoken indirectly)
• Du bist die Ruh — Franz Schubert
Love expressed as stillness and surrender rather than confession.
• Après un rêve — Gabriel Fauré
Love permitted only in dreams, lost upon waking.
• Two Lips — Gerald Finzi
Tenderness that knows it cannot last.
• For You There Is No Song — Leslie Adams
Silence as the final language of devotion.

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⚖️ II. Risk — When Words Are Dangerous

(Truth voiced safely through music)
• Va tacito e nascosto — George Frideric Handel
Power and justice expressed through restraint, not accusation.
• Go Down, Moses — Spiritual
Freedom spoken through biblical allegory when truth could not be named directly.
• I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired — Spiritual, arr. Jacqueline Hairston
Renewal through endurance — strength reclaimed quietly.

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🧬 III. Memory — What Survived Because It Was Sung

(Ancestry, inheritance, communal truth)
• Ori mi — Alaba Akinselure
Community voiced as shared prayer and destiny.
• River Chant — Hall Johnson
Memory carried forward like water — continuous and alive.

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🌱 IV. Renewal — What Music Says Back to Us

(Grounded restoration, not spectacle)
• My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord — Florence Price
Gratitude grounded in survival and steadiness.

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Historical context

My work as a countertenor is shaped by moving between musical worlds where the human voice carries meaning beyond words. Trained in European classical traditions while deeply connected to African art music and African American spirituals, I am drawn to repertoire in which singing becomes a form of speaking — a way of expressing love, truth, memory, and endurance when direct language feels insufficient or unsafe.

The Baroque arias and art songs in this program come from traditions that trusted the voice to convey interior life, devotion, and moral reflection. The African art songs and spirituals I perform arise from oral traditions where music preserved history, faith, and communal identity across generations. In both lineages, song functions as a necessary language rather than ornament.

Music Speaks reflects my commitment to honoring these histories while bringing them into dialogue, allowing the voice to serve as a bridge between cultures, eras, and shared human experience


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