A programme inspired by the culture and heritage of the African diaspora. 

This recital programme highlights the personal journey from New Orleans to Europe and back of Joshua Stewart, who will perform the title role in Idomeneo this season. It is his coming to terms with feelings of being alien in most spaces. Realizing that those places were not created for him. With so much talk about having a seat at the table drowning out the essence of art, struggling was an option, but thriving in his authenticity was the antidote. 

One day, as he sat, newly married, at his mother’s country house outside of Birmingham, Alabama, he began to ask himself what the word ‘home’ meant to him. Was it a feeling? Was it place? A person? It was first a breath, then a poem with dreams of becoming a song: Man Without a Home. 

Under this title, Joshua Stewart and Courtney Bryan will present a recital centred on the legacy of the African diaspora, combining works by such African American composers as Moses Hogen, Alvin Batiste and Margaret Bonds with essential classics by Samuel Barber and Leonard Bernstein, and with some rare gems by Franz Liszt and Joseph Bologne.