An all-star line-up of female composers at National Sawdust in Brooklyn

Musical excellence isn’t everything, even in a concert. Beth Morrison Projects, the estimable Brooklyn-based operatic producer/commissioner, collaborated for the first of two different programmes of songs by her superb stable of composers. Her presenting partner in 21c Liederabend Op Senses was Paola Prestini, the composer and founding artistic director of National Sawdust, the small, innovative performance space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This was the first public performance there since March 2020.

Morrison has presented song evenings over the years. This was an intimate version of that series, and perhaps to compensate, all manner of extra ingredients were ladled on: a pre-performance stand-up supper, a post-performance of music made by sounding everyday objects, narrator Helga Davis filling time too chattily during set-ups and visual artist Kathryn Hamilton providing cutesy “sensorial objects” to complement each song.

The music was excellent, and all 11 of the composers on both nights were women, as was the conductor on Wednedsay (Kamna Gupta), where pieces required. But with everything else added on, it was all too much. And confusing. Despite a detailed digital programme, maybe the best way to appreciate the evening would have been to let the music simply wash over you.

The music itself was something of an all-star line-up of Morrison’s greatest hits. Wednesday’s parade led off with Prestini’s “Distance to the Market”, followed by Missy Mazzoli’s evocative “As Long as we Live”, based on a poem by Walt Whitman; Molly Joyce’s haunting “East River,” to Christopher Oscar Peña’s text; and “Lumee’s Dream” by Ellen Reid, libretto by Roxie Perkins, from their Pulitzer Prize-winning opera p r i s m. Finishing off the evening was Constellations by Emma O’Halloran, winner of Morrison’s Next Generation contest, with a newly commissioned opera on the programme for next month’s Prototype Festival in New York.

The singers, all recent graduates of the Juilliard School, were equally excellent. The strongest was the Mikaela Bennett, who took on three songs. A soprano trio of Yvette Keong, Mer Wohlgemuth and Katherine Whyte sounded superb in “Letras Para Cantar” by Angélica Negrón. Chance Jonas-O’Toole, a sweet-voiced tenor, did Du Yun’s “Zolle”, an excerpt in Italian from her 2005 opera of that name; and Nicole Thomas, a mezzo, was telling in the Reid. The strong baritone Adam Richardson sang the Prestini.

★★★☆☆

bethmorrisonprojects.org