Jasmine Barnes came to national attention in 2022 when her choral work Portraits:  Douglass and Tubman was released on a CD paired with the Mozart Requiem, performed by the Baltimore Choral Arts Society under the direction of Anthony Blake Clark.  The documentary chronicling the genesis and performance of this work won a Capital Emmy Award in 2023.

Barnes, a trained soprano, has a particular affinity for vocal and especially choral music.  Sometimes I Cry quickly became a hit with choral groups from coast to coast.  It was one of three works on poems by gangsta rapper Tupac Shakur (1971-1996), commissioned by the Harry T. Burleigh Festival at Tennessee State University in 2019.  

Shakur’s all-too-brief life was marked by extreme violence; he was murdered in Las Vegas at the age of 25.  In the present poem, he showed a tender, vulnerable side of his personality, one that he only expressed in rare private moments–“when I’m alone.”  The composer has described her setting of this moving poem as “concert spiritual.”  Inspired and nourished by the African American experience, this is music that addresses itself to everyone.  Identifying deeply with the poem and its complex background, Barnes has written a piece that promises to form an integral part of the American choral repertoire for years to come.

~ Notes by Peter Laki, copyright 2025