COUNTERPOINT is a collaboration between pianist and composer Conrad Tao and choreographer and dancer Caleb Teicher. The duo explores the dichotomy of their different perspectives and artistic practices, expanding their individual expressive capacity through a collective experience. Harmonic, rhythmic, and theatrical counterpoint between the artists seeks to map out constellations linking their disparate traditions, driving the imagination and opening the heart. The stylistically diverse music of COUNTERPOINT includes the Aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Art Tatum’s demented stride piano, Arnold Schoenberg’s ironic take on the Viennese waltz, a delicate miniature from Tao and Teicher’s More Forever, and threading it all together, a work that bridges traditions, approaches, and styles—Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.  

Presented without the Nashville Symphony. 

Karen Slack — the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence winner and a featured soloist from The Jonah People — is one of today’s most celebrated sopranos. Widely admired for her voice of extreme beauty and dramatic depth, she returns to the Schermerhorn with her latest work, African Queens. Featuring new music written for her by both African and American composers, each song reflects the beauty, humility, passion, and power of a different queen. Featuring works of Jasmine Barnes, Damien Geter, Jessie Montgomery, Shawn Okpebholo, Dave Ragland, Carlos Simon, and Joel Thompson with text by Lorene Cary, Alicia Haymer, Tsitsi Ella Jaji, Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton, and Creative Collaborator Jay Saint Flono.  

Presented without the Nashville Symphony.