by Christina Smiley
Visiting Scholar and Ph.D. Candidate in Musicology
Washington University in St. Louis

Robert Nathaniel Dett was born in 1882 in Drummondville, Canada, a small town located on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. In 1893, the Dett family moved to the U.S. side of Niagara Falls, and the composer remained stateside until his passing in 1943. Dett’s musical education began at home with his talented multi-instrumentalist parents, and it continued at Oberlin College. At Oberlin, the young composer became introduced to the work of Antonín Dvořák, who believed that Native American and Black folk idioms were the future of American art music. This introduction was pivotal, causing him to reflect on the spirituals and folk melodies his formerly enslaved grandmother had introduced him to as a child.

As an educator, performer, scholar, and composer, Dett made it his mission to preserve the sanctity of spirituals, using them as the basis for large art music forms. This imperative is evident in his magnum opus, The Ordering of Moses (1937). Dett composed the work in 1932 for his master’s thesis at Eastman but made amendments to the composition before its premiere with the May Festival Chorus five years later. Although the national radio broadcast by NBC suspiciously halted a little over half-way through the piece, it was reviewed positively and promoted in multiple Black publications. The Crisis magazine encouraged readers to purchase the score. Chicago Defender named it “the Race’s best contribution in the field of music.”

Throughout the work, the spiritual “Go Down, Moses” serves as its primary focus. Leaning into the double-voicedness of the spiritual tradition, Dett intentionally conflates the plights of Biblical Hebrews and African Americans. From this synthesis emerges a musical hybridity pieced together by Negro spirituals, Klezmer scales, and Western Art music compositional techniques. While Dett’s “Biblical Folk Scene,” as he called it, bears close resemblance to the oratorio genre, it is unique in that it does not fully ascribe to the genre’s formal expectations. Rather than oscillating neatly between solo recitativo sections, arias, and choruses, it is continuous. Unlike Handel’s Messiah, for example, it does not scrupulously regurgitate the Biblical text. Indeed, as both librettist and composer, it is Dett’s poetic retelling of the Exodus narrative. Dett does not recount the entire drama. Events such as Moses and Aaron’s encounters with Pharoah, the 10 plagues, and even the Egyptian military pursuit of the children of Israel are unnarrated, voiced through dramatic orchestral interludes. The characters Aaron and Pharoah never appear in the work, only Moses (tenor soloist), Miriam (soprano soloist), and two conceptual “characters,” the Voice of Israel (alto soloist), and the “Word/Voice of God” (baritone soloist). Dett also features an SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, and bass) ensemble, which functions akin to an ancient Greek chorus. It mediates between actor and audience, taking on various personas from the Children of Israel to a collective and formidable representation of God.

Prelude. The piece begins with a serene orchestral introduction blossoming from a recurring syncopated rhythmic pattern. There is a sense of wonder and apprehension as Dett explores diverse colors and textures. The rhythmic motif blooms into lush grandiosity but then retracts. The end of the movement is marked by an intimate cello solo bridging the first movement to the second.

All Israel’s Children. The baritone soloist (“The Word”) enters with interpolated melodic material from the verse of “Go Down, Moses” (All Israel’s children sorely sighed). This introduces a call-and-response gesture wherein the chorus immediately responds (By reason of their bondage). Dett’s Near East soundscape is painted by string and wind solos built on the melodic minor scale as well as the percussive rattling of chains.

O Lord, Behold My Affliction. The Voice of Israel sings a poignant and meditative prayer, representing the Israelites’ cries for freedom and justice. The sighing gestures of the alto soloist and chorus showcase Dett’s scrupulous text-painting (Zion sigheth in her mourning). This descending minor-second motif increases in intensity as the fervor of the prayer increases.

God Looked on Israel. From the horn’s light and lilting melody, the baritone, alto, and soprano soloists emerge. Their tune, which has finally left the dreary key of F minor, has entered its relative major key, A-flat. The spritely nature of the movement becomes augmented by the chorus’s unworried bocca chiusa. However, this mood is quickly troubled as the chorus’s lower voices take over the trio’s melody. Responding with “Mercy Lord,” the upper voices’ lingering desperation for liberation takes over the once serene soundscape, plunging the ensemble into frenzy and ultimately, despair.

From the Burning Bush. The chorus takes on the collective role of narrator, recounting Moses’ encounter with the Divine. In the A section, the wind and string sections play swirling thirty-second notes that sonically represent the mystical fire of God consuming the bush. In the B section, the chorus enters with the hook of “Go Down, Moses.” Although fragments of the melody appear in prior movements, this is the first time it is sung in its entirety. At this moment, Dett no longer alludes to the spiritual but secures it as the basis for the entire piece. This melodic material blossoms into an intricate four-part fugue. This militant and unrelenting take on “Go Down, Moses” gives way to another reflective instrumental interlude.

Lord! Who Am I? As Moses protests his “ordering” and confesses his fears to God, there are direct musical responses that further display Dett’s intentionality with text-painting. In Moses’ series of questions, he asks how he can prove his ordination to both the Israelites and the Egyptians (What signs or wonders show?). The chorus, as narrator, reenters with the familiar text “and God spake unto Moses,” however, this does not propel an expected return of the spiritual. Instead, it introduces the majestic entrance of the Voice of God.

Who Hath Made a Man Dumb? The baritone soloist returns, now as the Voice of God. The majesty and magnitude of God are characterized by the baritone’s resonant lower register as well as the intensity of the low brass section of the orchestra. A brief but vivacious orchestral interlude then reintroduces “Go Down, Moses.” The resolute and lively ending appears to be a natural point of conclusion for the work until the chorus releases on a surprising deceptive cadence.

Orchestra Interlude. The piece continues with an expressive and meditative musical interlude. While this movement does not have text, it invites the listener to imagine the Prophet’s encounters with Pharoah, the 10 plagues sent to display the power of God, and finally, the Israelites’ release from Egyptian enslavement.

And When Moses Smote the Water. Once more, the baritone soloist takes up the role of The Word. This leads to an almost cinematic moment wherein Dett indexes the parting of the Red Sea through towering and rich sonorities in the brass and string sections. A menacing brass interjection from the orchestra interrupts to suggest the ensuing presence of the Egyptian army.

March of the Israelites Through the Red Sea/Egyptian Pursuit. A slow march depicts the Children of Israel’s journey through the Red Sea. The combination of pentatonic melodies, triplet figures, and syncopation captures the essence of popular late nineteenth-century American folk tunes Dett would have been well acquainted with, such as “The Turkey in the Straw.”

And When They Reached the Other Shore/I Will Praise Jehovah. The tenor soloist reenters with the style of a sacred chant and gives praise to God. Here, Dett seems to draw inspiration from the Anglican and Gregorian chant traditions, not only through the emphasis on a reciting note, but also by directly referencing the “Psalms of David” (Psalm 18 and Psalm 62), which refer to God as “the Rock of My Salvation.”

Then Did the Women/Come Let Us Praise Jehovah. The baritone soloist’s recitative precedes a lilting 3/4 waltz sung by Miriam and the treble voices. Castanets are featured prominently in the musical texture, representing the women’s celebratory dance in “Exodus, Chapter 15.” The use of the castanets may conjure associations with Europe and the exotification of Spanish and Romani cultures. However, Dett’s use of the castanets reminds us that the instrument originated in the Near-East.

Sing Ye to Jehovah/He is King of Kings. Moses continues his exhortations and praises Jehovah. The chorus responds with equal exuberance and begins to interpolate the spiritual “Ride on King Jesus.” As the piece continues toward its climax, the tempo surprisingly slows again, and Moses and Miriam return to the style of sacred chant. The Biblical Folk Scene ends by calling back to “Who Hath Made a Man Dumb?” However, rather than closing with a deceptive cadence, it reaches a satisfying harmonic and narrative conclusion.

Betsy Burleigh is Thomas R. Kasdorf Professor of Choral Conducting and professor of music at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she was chair of the Choral Conducting Department from 2013 to 2024. Burleigh served as music director of the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh from 2006 to 2015, leading performances of Brahms’ Requiem, Bach’s B Minor Mass, Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, and Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor, and preparing the choir for performances with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO). As a guest conductor, Burleigh has led the PSO, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Akron Symphony, Canton Symphony, and Handel Society of Dartmouth College. She prepared the Tanglewood Festival Chorus for performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati May Festival Chorus for performances with the Cincinnati Pops. Burleigh served as assistant director of The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus for 11 years, during which time she prepared the chorus for all performances at the Blossom Festival and oversaw the chorus for Pierre Boulez’s Deutsche Gramophone recording of Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette. Other positions have included directing the Providence Singers, Akron Symphony Chorus, Canton Symphony Chorus, and Mastersingers of Lexington. Acclaimed for her oratorio conducting, Burleigh’s Chorus pro Musica performance of Haydn’s Creation was praised as an “expansive, poetic reading” (The Boston Globe). Her rendition of Orff’s Carmina Burana was called both “nuanced” and “hair-raising” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer). She won the 2000 Northern Ohio Live Achievement Award for best classical/opera performance for Ulmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis and conducted The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus on an Emmy Award-winning concert for the 9/11 Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. Burleigh previously held teaching positions at Tufts, Clark, Southeastern Massachusetts, and Cleveland State universities, Longy School of Music, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree with distinction from Indiana University, a Master of Music in Choral Conducting degree with distinction from the New England Conservatory of Music, and a Doctor of Music in Choral Conducting from the Jacobs School. (Photo by Sarah J. Slover)

Jake Taniguchi is a dynamic conductor and educator from Honolulu, Hawaii. He currently serves as assistant conductor for IU Jacobs Opera and Ballet Theater and regularly works as assistant conductor with the Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra. In the 2025-26 season, he has collaborated with mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung and led performances of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker in addition to Dove’s Mansfield Park with Jacobs Opera and Ballet Theater. He has served as resident conductor and conducting faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Music, principal conductor of the Hawaiʻi Chamber Music Festival, and assistant and cover conductor for the Grant Park Music Festival Orchestra, Northwestern University’s symphony and chamber orchestras, Baroque Music Ensemble, and Opera Theater. He has worked alongside distinguished conductors Leonard Slatkin, Mei-Ann Chen, Dane Lam, and Anthony Parnther, and has collaborated with soloists including violinists Jaime Laredo, Jessica Lee, and Stefan Jackiw; pianists Sean Kennard, Michelle Cann, and David Kaplan; clarinetist Yoonah Kim; and saxophonist Steven Banks. A passionate advocate for contemporary music, he has developed artistic partnerships with composers Marcos Balter, Sebastian Currier, Billy Childs, Keith Fitch, Christopher Cerrone, and Joan Tower, among others. Taniguchi received his training from the Jacobs School of Music, Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, and Cleveland Institute of Music. His conducting mentors include Arthur Fagen, Jeffery Meyer, Thomas Wilkins, Victor Yampolsky, and JoAnn Falletta. He is pursuing a Doctor of Music in Orchestral Conducting at Jacobs.

Ambriehl Ivy, soprano, is a native of Brandon, Mississippi, and is pursuing a Performance Diploma in Voice at the Jacobs School of Music. She earned a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Mississippi College in 2024. Ivy made her collegiate operatic lead debut in 2022 and has since performed a variety of roles. Most recently, she made her Jacobs School operatic debut on the Musical Arts Center stage in fall 2025 in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges. She was also selected to participate in a collaborative workshop between the Jacobs School of Music and the Metropolitan Opera.

Known for her “rich voice and noble phrasing” (New York Times), Grammy-nominated mezzo-soprano Ronnita Miller returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic this season as Schwertleite in Act III of Die Walküre led by Gustavo Dudamel and joins the Washington National Opera as Tituba in Robert Ward’s The Crucible. She enjoyed a varied 2024-25 season, returning to the Metropolitan Opera as the Voice from Above in Die Frau ohne Schatten and covering Antonia’s Mother in Les contes d’Hoffmann. She also appeared with the Pacific Symphony as Erda in Das Rheingold and Columbus Symphony for Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 and debuted with Kentucky Opera for the premiere of This Little Light of Mine, portraying civil rights activist Fanny Lou Hamer. Miller’s recent operatic highlights include her return to the Lyric Opera of Chicago (Marquise de Birkenfeld, La fille du régiment, and Erda, Siegfried); the Metropolitan Opera (Big Stone, Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice); San Francisco Opera, Teatro Real, Madrid, The Atlanta Opera, and Semperoper Dresden (Erda, Das Rheingold); Detroit Opera, Seattle Opera, and Opera Omaha (Ella, X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X); the Metropolitan Opera (First Norn, Götterdämmerung); and Los Angeles Opera (Mistress Quickly, Falstaff, and Mary, Der Fliegende Holländer).

Hailing from Norfolk, Virginia, Grammy Award-winning tenor Freddie Ballentine was the 2021 recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Marian Anderson Award and is an alumnus of the Cafritz Young Artists of Washington National Opera and LA Opera’s Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program. Ballentine’s 2025-26 season includes his Bayerische Staatsoper debut as the Third Jew in Salome, which he will also record with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería. He returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess, makes his role debut as Max in Le Freischütz with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, debuts the role of Anatol in Vanessa with Heartbeat Opera, and makes his Rurhtriennale and Tiroler Festspiele Erl debuts, reprising Venables/Huffman’s We Are The Lucky Ones. He continues his collaboration with pianist Kunal Lahiry, presenting their program Our People: A Celebration of Black and LGBTQ Voices Through Song and Vogue at New York City’s 92nd Street Y and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. The pair has recently performed Our People at St. George’s Bristol, Konzerthaus Berlin, Theatre de l’Athenee in Paris, and the Kennedy Center. Next season includes The Cunning Little Vixen at The Dallas Opera, his debut with Lyric Opera of Chicago, and a return to Cincinnati Opera. Recent highlights include the world premiere of We Are The Lucky Ones (Dutch National Opera); Kevin Richardson in The Central Park Five with Detroit Opera; Ben Marco in The Manchurian Candidate (Austin Opera); The Witch in Hänsel und Gretel (Utah Opera); Sam in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah (Opera Theatre of Saint Louis); Jack O’Brien and Toby Higgins in Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Opera Vlaanderen); Loge in Wagner’s The Rhinegold and Nick in The Handmaid’s Tale (English National Opera); Sportin’ Life (Metropolitan Opera, English National Opera, Dutch National Opera); Don José in Carmen (Seattle Opera); the Steersman in Der fliegende Höllander (Cincinnati Opera); and Monastatos in Barrie Kosky’s production of Die Zauberflöte and Amon in Akhnaten (LA Opera).

A baritone from Asmara, Eritrea, Benhur Mosazghi is a second-year M.M. in Voice Performance student at Jacobs studying under the tutelage of Russell Thomas. Praised by the Cleveland Classical as “a name and gift predictive of success,” he has appeared in operatic roles singing Sid in Albert Herring, Geronimo in Matrimonio Segreto, Polyphemus in Acis and Galatea, and Il Commissario di Polizia in Amelia al Ballo with Oberlin Opera Theater, and Simone in Gianni Schicchi and Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville with the Janice Opera Company at Brevard. He made his IU Jacobs Opera Theater debut last spring as Dancaïre in Carmen and recently appeared as Marcello in La Bohème. Mosazghi earned a B.M. in Voice from Oberlin College and Conservatory, where he studied with Salvatore Champagne, and he also studied with Timothy Noble at IU. Mosazghi was a prizewinner in the Crescendo Competition of Union Avenue Opera and the Lunigiana International Music Festival, and he has been an American Voices music scholar. A versatile performer in both concert and chamber music, he was also a soloist with CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra and bass soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Oberlin College Choir and Orchestra, as well as baritone soloist in Dvořák’s Mass in D with the IU University Chorale.

Cham In Yoon is a Korean violinist who studied in the Russian musical tradition at the Central Music School of Moscow and the Moscow State Conservatory. She studied under Alexander Vinnitsky, a distinguished representative of the David Oistrakh lineage, through whom she developed a strong artistic and technical foundation. As a soloist, Yoon has performed with ensembles including the Tchaikovsky Melodia Chamber Orchestra, Sarasate Orchestra, and Vivaldi Orchestra. In addition to her solo career, she has appeared as an orchestral musician at Jacobs and with the Moscow State Conservatory Symphony Orchestra, demonstrating versatility across both solo and ensemble settings. She has performed at major venues such as the Great Hall and Rachmaninov Hall of the Moscow State Conservatory as well as leading concert halls in South Korea, including Incheon Art Center, Ulju Art Center, and Kumho Art Hall. Alongside her solo work, Yoon remains actively engaged in chamber music, performing in a wide range of ensemble settings. Her repertoire includes major violin concertos by Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Khachaturian, and Szymanowski, and her playing is characterized by a refined musical sensibility rooted in the Russian tradition. She is currently studying at the Jacobs School of Music with Kyung Sun Lee, while actively expanding her presence on the international stage. Deeply connected to the emotional dimension of music, she seeks to create performances that resonate with both intensity and sincerity.