Briana Hunter - De La Chica: Dispersed And Transcendental Chants, Op. 18 (2023)

Briana Hunter‘s career in opera has been nothing short of a meteoric rise. The dedication to her craft is ever-present in the care she takes to fully embody the essence of her characters. With a repertoire that includes roles in Carmen, Jeanine Tesori’s Blue, and Terrence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, she has earned critical acclaim, establishing herself as a mezzo-soprano to watch. For the 2023-24 season, Hunter’s performance schedule is packed as she returns to the Metropolitan Opera with roles in Dead Man Walking, Carmen, Fire Shut Up in My Bones, and Madama Butterfly. She is also set to produce a number of projects as an Artist Propulsion Lab Fellow for WQXR.

Another remarkable milestone is the release of Dispersed and Transcendental Chants, Op. 18, a new collaboration with composer Julián De La Chica featuring poetry by Hunter and interdisciplinary artist, facilitator, and cultural worker Rae De Vine.

Out Nov. 17 on Irreverence Group Music, the deeply emotional album forges bridges between this world and ancestral veneration, African spirituality, personal confession, grief, and strength. Based on African Diasporic tradition, the song cycle for mezzo and piano is open to interpretation yet hauntingly grounded in its own truth. “Chant No. 7: Mother” is the work’s anchor; its soft yet poignant lyrics are a beautiful ode to the worlds that had to exist for Hunter to have life. The piano accompaniment does not seek to stand out; instead, it lightly accentuates Hunter’s voice as she delicately expresses the connection between herself and her mother (“You, mother, found me in my dreams and made a new reality when I couldn’t face my mothers or my fears”). Weighted and deeply-rooted downbeats in the piano shape most of the tracks, but “Chant No. 5: Yemaya” and “Chant No. 10: Ring Shout” pick up the momentum and infuse color in an otherwise blue and gray album.