Performer: Lucas Meachem, Irina Meachem
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Rubicon
Catalogue: RCD1071
Release: 2021
Size: 887 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Scheer: American Anthem
02. Farwell: Three Indian Songs, Op. 32: No. 1, Song of the Deathless Voice
03. Still: Grief
04. Weill: Four Walt Whitman Songs: No. 2, Beat! Beat! Drums!
05. Musto: Shadow of the Blues: No. 2, Litany
06. Hagerman: The Rich Man
07. Price: Night
08. Heggie: Pieces of 9 / 11: IV. That Moment On
09. Jacob-Bonds: A Perfect Day
10. trad.: Oh, Shenandoah
11. trad.: In the mornin’
12. Gordon: We Will Always Walk Together
13. Foster: Hard times come again no more: Hard Times Come Again No More
14. Emmett: Old American Songs, Set 1: No. 1, The Boatman’s Dance
15. Lowry: Old American Songs, Set 2: No. 4, At the River
“Shall We Gather” responds to the darkness of the pandemic and social distancing with the simple question of its title. Through fifteen art songs by and about a broad swath of people from the United States, Lucas and Irina Meachem offer a vision of Americanness centred around the things that call on us to gather and that we gather to call upon. Those things, they say, are rooted in an act of hope in the promise of resilience that underlies our national character. By channelling the feelings of those gatherings we are missing, we can, perhaps, conjure a greater sense of togetherness, of commonality. “Shall we Gather” is an emotional and heartfelt plea for a better, more tolerant world, a world that one hopes will emerge a better place after the trauma of the pandemic.