Tenor Victor Ryan Robertson belonged to a rock band and performed on the opera stage, but this week he brings a surprising musical style to Charlottesville – singing more than a dozen Gullah spirituals given to him by a friend in Charleston.
“He goes down into the basement and comes upstairs with this book – dusted off. He said, 'I really want to trust you with these songs. I think you can do something with them.'”
Growing up in South Carolina, he didn’t think much of the Gullah people.
“We thought they were uneducated. They talked funny. They were poor – all these things, and that was kind of the sentiment around the Southeast. That changed dramatically in the past 15-20 years. Everybody wants to know what’s going on with them now.”
The songs he was given were rich with accounts of every human emotion.
“About hunger, about pain, about joy, about marriage, about loneliness, escape – every living experience you could think of.”
He was inspired and reached out to a friend in Los Angeles – Adrienne Duncan. As it happened, her father was an academic in Atlanta – someone who knew a lot about the Gullah people. Growing up, she visited one of their islands each summer and heard their music.
“You know I was a hard-core classical player of piano from a really young age. When I was little my parents took me to see the Sea Island Singers, who would do Gullah spirituals, and my dad was the thesis advisor for this fantastic Gullah scholar.”
So she was excited to arrange the compositions Robertson shared with her.
“You know it’s a heavy responsibility to do this. When you read these lyrics, they’re super deep.”
A founding member of the Victory Hall Opera Company in Charlottesville, Robertson reached out to his friends in Virginia. They were interested in this project, dubbed Gullah Meditations, hired a gifted dancer who had performed with Alvin Ailey’s company and arranged for Saturday’s performance at 4 p.m. in University Baptist Church.
For ticket information, visit VictoryHallOpera.org.
