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Sacred Nine Project: American Martyr, a new, ‘come-all-ye’ cantata
Fall River & a fallen women risen in glory
Friday, March 27, 2026, 8:00 PM, Lang Concert Hall, Swarthmore College
preceded by “History in Translation,”
a conversation between Leonard Raybon & Bruce Dorsey, author of Murder in a Mill Town
4:30-5:30 PM, Scheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall
Just after its release, I discovered Bruce Dorsey’s brilliant book, Murder in a Mill Town, about the sensational murder of Sarah Maria Cornell in 1832. Please do yourself the favor of consuming this writing, for which Dorsey was awarded the Peter J. Gomes Memorial Book Prize, and which planted the seed for a new cantata, American Martyr. Thanks to Bruce, we gained the support of the Departments of Music and History at Swarthmore, as well as a grant from the William J. Cooper Foundation, I am beyond grateful that this cantata came to fruition!
Maria’s life was a journey in every sense of the word: sending letter after letter in order to connect with her family to whom she seem’d inconsequential; moving from factory to factory to earn a living, while being derided for staying in a profession unsuitable for a young woman; landing in town after town, perhaps to escape suspicious deeds or questionable relationships she may have left in the last one; switching to a different Christian denomination in order to gain some agency over her eternal destination, only to be betray’d by that newfound community; and searching for true love, only to find herself forced into sex, with an unplanned pregnancy, and a life cut tragically short. In addition to what we know about Maria, my aim is to depict sonically a more linear (if at times fanciful) account of her education, friendships, religious devotion, and even her afterlife.
I would never claim that I can see the world through the eyes of a 19th-century woman from New England, raised a Calvinist. However, learning about her resonated so deeply with me, a 20th-century gay man from the Deep South, raised a Southern Baptist; I understand what it’s like to chase acceptance and community, feeling pressured to be the very best, do the absolute most, and still be unable to emerge from a perpetual vortex of guilt and shame.
I see Maria as a dreamer when aspiration was not afforded to people of her gender and way of life ... a free spirit when ‘freedom’ & ‘spirituality’ were mutually exclusive ... a survivor until she wasn‘t. Tonight we liken her walk to that of Christ. At the conclusion of this tuneful ceremony, Sarah Maria Cornell, our “Mould’rin’ Maria,” blooms again, glorified, beatified, incorruptible.
Embedded in the music is a succession of notes, a ‘cosmic chord’ when play’d together, imbued with a kind of tense poignancy befitting her life’s story, and purified by a resolution to C Major, arguably the holiest of harmonies:
I draw heavily on the broadside ballad, a simple ditty that often related current events. It was also sometimes called a “come-all-ye,” a doubly-apt name, since you are being ask’d to perform along with us at various times! The program reveals where those opportunities are, and contains every word that you will hear. The house lights will be kept on so that you can follow along.
Yes, Maria bore witness to the truth. Now, can we bear witness to a kind of justice nearly 200 years removed? Let us take our cue from Maria and keep persisting ... questioning ... moving ...
—C. Leonard Raybon
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