A world premiere is in the works at Lang Concert Hall on Friday, November 22 at 8 PM. Esteemed baritone and composer Roderick Williams OBE will join the Swarthmore Chorus and Orchestra to debut a piece he’s written especially for the concert.  The visit is made possible by a grant from the William J. Cooper Foundation and was organized by Andrew Hauze, Orchestra director; Nathan Reiff, Chorus and Garnet Singers director; and Jeanette Honig, concert programming director. Williams will hold a composition workshop on Thursday November 21 as part of the visit.

“I've been dreaming of bringing Roderick Williams to Swarthmore for years,” Hauze said. “He's one of my musical heroes: I feel that he is one of the greatest singers of our era who is able to communicate the wide variety of music that he sings with incredible sincerity and beauty. He is also a marvelous and versatile composer, and a wonderful teacher and broadcaster about music.”

Williams boasts a diverse repertoire, from opera to Baroque to contemporary music, and performs regularly with major orchestras and operas around the globe. He’s worked extensively with the BBC presenting for radio, and has multiple award-winning recordings to his name. Williams is also a composer, having performed at and composed for the coronation of King Charles III and taken the role of Composer in Association of the BBC Singers.

At Swarthmore, Williams will join the Chorus as baritone soloist for Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs. Backed by members of the Swarthmore Orchestra, the spectacle will include one pianist, 42 string players, and about 80 singers on stage at once. Garnet Singers will perform a selection of shorter pieces on texts centering around the theme of “sky” during the program, and a new octet of section leaders from Chorus will perform pieces by Henry Purcell and Caroline Shaw.

But what makes this concert especially unique is the world premiere of a piece written by Williams specifically for the Chorus: Cats in Airpumps.

“It has really been a thrill to work with Mr. Williams on the commissioned piece, Cats in Airpumps! From the very beginning of the process, he has been committed to writing something that will connect with singers in the Swat community while also challenging us and helping us to grow as an ensemble,” explains Chorus director Nathan Reiff. The piece started with emails between Williams and Reiff discussing themes, texts, and reference points. Williams suggested Poor Richard’s Almanack by Benjamin Franklin as a starting text for Cats in Airpumps because of its wordplay and local connection to Philadelphia. Working virtually across the Atlantic Ocean with Swarthmore, Williams sent sections of the piece to practice and refine until it was completed.

“Premiering a new piece is one of the most exciting things that we can do as performers, and we're especially fortunate in this case that Mr. Williams will be here for our final rehearsals and performance,” Reiff said. “It's not often the case that we get to make music with the composer together in the same room. For me, one of the best parts of an experience like this is being able to hear from the composer directly about the musical choices they made when writing and how we can best bring the work to life off the page for the first time. Of course, there's also an added responsibility to do our very best to realize this vision in the very first performance of a brand new piece of music!”

The Chorus will do the first run-through of Cats in Airpumps with Williams physically in the room on Wednesday, November 20. In the meantime, they have been sending recordings for him to review. Lizzie Culp ‘26, the Chorus soprano section leader, is looking forward to having Williams there. Her favorite movement of the piece is at the end, where the fast tempo slows down into a harmony she describes as soft, gentle, and pretty. She says working on a challenging piece has been very rewarding, and across the diverse range of pieces performed during the concert everyone has been working tremendously hard.

Reiff said that Cats in Airpumps is a “brilliant, delightful, and quirky piece that excellently captures the spirit of Franklin's words” and is “undoubtedly the most challenging piece that Chorus has performed” since he began at Swarthmore. Yixin Cui ‘25, the Chorus tenor section leader, agrees that the piece is difficult. It involves floating pitches, jazz-inspired movements, and complicated rhythms.

“It's very challenging, but it's very fun,” Cui said. “It'll be an interesting contrast, because the Vaughn Williams piece is a very serious and grand piece, but Cats in Airpumps is an almost mischievous one.”

Culp also highlighted the contrasts between the two larger works in Chorus’ program. “[The Vaughan Williams is] a gorgeous piece,” she said. “All the movements are really cool and have very different characters. I'm really excited to hear what it sounds like putting it all together, because we've been working on the choral parts in isolation. I'm excited to get the whole experience.”

The concert will be on Friday, November 22, at 8 p.m. in Lang Concert Hall. Williams will return to Swarthmore in February 2025 for another performance - this time a recital with Julius Drake, famed English pianist. Williams and Drake will be giving masterclasses for student singers and pianists, respectively.