What does resistance sound like? More than 150 New York singers are about to offer an answer at Lincoln Center, with a work written nearly 90 years ago that still feels strikingly familiar.
The New York Choral Society (NYCHORAL), in partnership with the Mannes School of Music, will perform Sir Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time on Monday, October 26 at 7:30 p.m. at David Geffen Hall. The concert, which opens NYCHORAL’s season, falls one week before the 2026 midterm elections.
Tippett wrote the oratorio after witnessing the rise of fascism in Europe and the violence of Kristallnacht in 1938. But he didn’t set out simply to retell history. Instead, he asked a bigger question: if every one of us is capable of both darkness and light, what happens when fear, anger and hatred take over?
His answer isn’t a work of despair. Tippett wove five African American spirituals into the score, including “Steal Away,” “Deep River” and “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” because they speak to something universal: even in the face of injustice, the human spirit endures. Over the course of the piece, the music moves from darkness toward understanding, reconciliation and hope. And you don’t need any background in classical music to feel it.
The performance brings together more than 150 NYCHORAL singers, the Mannes School of Music Orchestra and a cast of soloists from the Mannes voice faculty: soprano Laquita Mitchell, mezzo-soprano Margaret Lattimore, tenor William Burden and baritone Stephen Powell. NYCHORAL Music Director David Hayes will conduct.
“To perform a work as profound and urgently relevant as A Child of Our Time in David Geffen Hall is an incredible privilege,” said Ellen PutneyMoore, NYCHORAL’s executive director. “At a moment when many of us are searching for connection and hope, Tippett reminds us that music has the power to bear witness, challenge injustice, and bring people together.”
With Americans heading to the polls a week later, NYCHORAL describes the concert as an invitation to come together, “not to be told what to think, but to reflect on where we’ve been, where we are, and the kind of future we want to create.”
Founded in 1960, NYCHORAL is made up of auditioned volunteer singers from every borough. By day, they’re physicians, teachers, attorneys, baristas, nonprofit leaders, engineers, artists, students and retirees, and more than half of them are under 35.
Tickets are available here, or you can buy them directly through Lincoln Center.
