ADJ•ective New Music •

She Persisted

SKU: AN-010-S
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Composer: Anne Neikirk

Duration: 8:00

Scoring: piano​

Materials: Score (8.5x11)​​

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Program Note

I wrote this piece in 2017 when the phrase “Nevertheless, She Persisted,” originally an admonishment directed at Senator Elizabeth Warren by then Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, went viral and was re-framed as a feminist rallying cry. Warren was objecting to President Trump’s nomination of Jeff Sessions for US Attorney General. During the Senate Confirmation Hearing, she took to the Senate floor to read a 1986 letter by Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King, Jr., detailing Sessions’s history of African American voter suppression tactics back when he was nominated as a Federal Judge in Alabama. McConnell objected and called a vote to force Warren to take her seat, which was sustained along party lines, prohibiting her from speaking for the remainder of the hearings. After the hearings, McConnell said, “Senator Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

This piece embodies the spirit of that persistence. You will hear persistent motives throughout the piece, stated again and again in various ways, among and through various other voices and melodies, textures, dissonances and consonances. She Persisted is dedicated to anyone who has ever had to speak truth to power.

— Anne Neikirk
Reproduction Notice:
This program note may be freely reproduced in concert programs, provided that proper credit is given to the composer.