Letters Abigail Levy Franks wrote nearly 300 years ago will reach new ears next week at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. "Dear Hearts: The Letters of Abigail Levy Franks" is a song cycle that offers insights into the thoughts, hopes and experiences of a Jewish woman in colonial New York.
A portrait of Abigail Levy Franks can be found at Crystal Bridges. Yesterday, principals involved in the world premiere performance were in the Firmin Garner Performance Studio to talk about it: Samantha Stinson, spiritual leader at Temple Shalom of Northwest Arkansas, who will be performing the song cycle; Emily Bieber, a Tyson Scholar at Crystal Bridges and PhD candidate in art history at the University of Delaware; Jonathan Stinson, the composer of the new work; and Erin Cohen, community engagement manager for the Jewish Federation of Arkansas.
Samantha Stinson says the project developed when she met Emily Bieber and asked about her year-long residency at Crystal Bridges.
Samantha Stinson: I asked what her focus was, which is —
Emily Bieber: I focus on portraits of Jewish sitters from the 18th and early 19th centuries.
Samantha Stinson: And I immediately thought of the Levy Franks family, because that's my favorite part of Crystal Bridges. Both that and the sculpture work by Beth Lipman, a contemporary artist who works in glass. So those two works, even though they're centuries apart, are positioned right next to each other with the commonality that they both depict the experience of Jewish families moving to and settling in America.
Emily Bieber: I think we had this shared interest in this group of portraits. And this group of portraits is actually what brought me from my home in Maryland to the state of Arkansas in the first place, since they are the focus of a chapter of my dissertation project. And so we realized we had this shared enthusiasm for these objects. And I had also brought up during our conversation — I can't recall if you had come across them before — but I brought up the fact that one of the members of the family who's depicted in these portraits wrote these letters to her son, and that they're just a remarkable survival of a Jewish woman's voice in a textual archive. And so I think that sort of helped us go down this road.
Stinson: Yes. So I was very excited to learn this because in the tradition of American art song, there are works that are frequently composed to letters. The text of letters can be set. There are many famous American composers — Dominick Argento, Lori Laitman, Libby Larsen, just to name a few — but there are many more that have set diary entries or letters or Craigslist posts for voice and piano, which is the traditional instrumentation of art song. It's text for voice and then piano accompaniment. And that's what I told Emily, and she told me where to find the letters. I looked them up and immediately said, yes, we can definitely do something with this.
Kyle Kellams: Abigail Levy Franks died 20 years before the Declaration of Independence. She's writing these letters from colonial New York to her son, who has moved back to Europe. Is that right?
Bieber: That's correct. He's living in London, which is actually where both Abigail and her husband Jacob were born. Her eldest son, Naphtali, goes back there to pursue his career and has family in the city, so he doesn't go back completely on his own. He does have this community of people supporting him, but obviously she misses her child. And so they have this transatlantic correspondence. The half that Abigail composed has survived. Unfortunately, at this point in time, we don't know what Naphtali is writing back to her, although you get some context clues by reading Abigail's letters.
Kellams: You mentioned that it's a register of a Jewish woman's voice in the 18th century. It also gives us clues to what Jewish life was like in colonial New York?
Bieber: That's correct. It definitely offers insight on a micro level and also more of a macro level. On a micro level, we're learning about Abigail's life, her immediate family, we're learning about what she's reading, we're learning about the different foods that she's shipping across the ocean to her son — the different types of pickled things and various sweetmeats that she's sending to him. But we're also getting glimpses into the Jewish community of colonial New York, which at this point in time is a mix of both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish people. Ashkenazi, meaning that they have European ancestry, more German and Central European, and Sephardic, more Spanish and Portuguese in background.
Kellams: Erin, let's bring you in and tell me about the Jewish Federation of Arkansas and the role in bringing this to life.
Erin Cohen: The Jewish Federation of Arkansas is a nonprofit organization, and we are set to strengthen, support and ensure the future of Jewish life across the state. My role as community engagement manager is to work with the community to do programming and community outreach within the Jewish community and beyond. And so this is just a perfect mix of bringing Jewish voices — these three local Jewish voices, which is so exciting — working with a Jewish subject, which is also incredibly exciting. And then with Crystal Bridges, how amazing to be working with this world-class art museum. The Jewish Federation of Arkansas is able to help with logistics, promotion and some of the financial matters. And as the Jewish community in Northwest Arkansas continues to grow — because it is growing — this is the kind of thing that we want to see more of.
Kellams: And then there is the art that is in Crystal Bridges. Will that be in proximity to the performance?
Bieber: Happily, we are able to hold the event within the gallery space itself. So Samantha, while she is performing, will literally be right near the portrait of Abigail and the other portraits of her father, her husband and several of her children. So I think that adds another really exciting layer — we're able to activate these works of art in perhaps a new way, both through addressing historical context through a more familiar format of a gallery talk, but then also being able to approach them from another angle with a musical performance as well.
Kellams: I think in contemporary times, when we think of New York, we think of a city, a state, a region that has a vibrant, rich Jewish community and history and heritage. Was that the case when Abigail and her family lived there?
Bieber: To an extent. Historically, there is a robust exchange across from both sides of the Atlantic, of Jewish communities. Along the eastern seaboard of what was then the colonies and now is the United States, there are active Jewish communities in Newport, Rhode Island; in New York City; in Charleston, South Carolina; and in Savannah, Georgia. And these communities are in touch with one another and they're supporting one another in different ways. Not only are these communities providing communal support and financial support — and I'm sorry, I left out Philadelphia. There are five along the eastern seaboard. And they're also in touch with their counterparts in Amsterdam and in London. There are these fascinating documents where there's even kosher meat being shipped between these Jewish communities. So New York is not — from my perspective and my understanding — it's not necessarily the singular kind of bastion of Jewish culture or Jewish community, perhaps the way that we see it today. But it is this important node in this larger network that spans the Atlantic and also includes the Caribbean, which I think easily gets left out of the story. There are robust Jewish communities in places like Jamaica and Barbados and Curaçao and Suriname. So New York is certainly significant, but it's not standing alone at this moment in time.
Cohen: I just want to point something out from that. Emily, you're talking about the Jewish communities, these five Jewish communities supporting each other from a community perspective, but also financially, and then back to Europe as well. And that's exactly what the Jewish Federation of Arkansas is doing for the communities in Arkansas, especially the Northwest Arkansas region and Little Rock, but the smaller ones as well. And then the Jewish Federation of North America is doing that among the United States and Canada, and then worldwide. So I think that's a fascinating tidbit there.
Bieber: I think, like Samantha has said, it's another thing that feels very resonant with today — this desire that Jewish communities have to see other Jewish communities thrive and to do what they can to make that happen. It's very poignant to me to see that happening across centuries.
Cohen: And today, Northwest Arkansas has a few thousand Jews who have self-identified. And Little Rock similar, but we are in touch with rabbis in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Kansas City, St. Louis and Memphis. Basically, that's our web. But if we need a mikvah because someone is converting, or if we need kosher meat for a Passover dinner for 100 people, those are the networks that we are able to tap into. Kosher meat is still a challenge nationwide, at least in the heartland. So you're right, it is resonant. And that's partly because as Jews, we teach each generation and we reinterpret our law in each generation. The Torah, the Tanakh, the holy writings have not changed in a couple thousand years. They get rewritten by hand. It takes a year. And we have to make sure that every single Torah worldwide is the same because we love consistency. We want to keep our traditions alive. First it was through the oral law, the Mishnah, and then later it was in the written law. And now that we have widespread literacy, it's through both. But I do believe that it is that through line that has kept the Jewish people alive and kept us in really strong communication, now worldwide.
Kellams: We have an example we're going to put in this — was this from a rehearsal recording earlier today?
Stinson: With Tracy Hall, our absolutely wonderful pianist, who is also learning this for the first time, a brand new work. And it's especially difficult when you don't have any recordings to listen to or lean on. But happily, we have the living composer who can be in rehearsal with us and help us. We wanted to speak about one of the songs in particular and an excerpt from that song. The song is called "A Violent Secret" and it was written — that was the first one, hang on — Oct. 17, 1739. Emily, do you want to read the excerpt first? Because you were the one who brought it up.
Bieber: This is the one that addresses portraits. So Abigail writes to her son: "My dear boy, your pictures are quite an acceptable present. You will make my compliments of thanks to Mrs. Franks for those of her family. The whole family was in raptures. Your father walks about the parlor with such pleasure in viewing them as is not to be expressed."
[Musical excerpt]
Stinson: The title "A Violent Secret" comes from potentially my favorite sentence in all of the letters that I read. As she is being so motherly and loving and at the same time trying to encourage Jewish identity within the family and within the greater culture, she also proves to be a little bit of a gossip. And so there's a line — in fact, the very next line after that paragraph — "I am now to acquaint you with a violent secret."
Kellams: Jonathan, you read the letter several times — then how do you begin to put the music with it?
Jonathan Stinson: Excellent question. I think it really comes down to two things for me. Texture, which is both rhythmic and accompanimental — meaning if I have a chord progression, it can be a slow block chord, but it can also be a lot of arpeggiation and a lot of quick textures. And then there's also the sonority itself, meaning I am a big proponent of beautiful moments requiring beautiful music and ugly moments requiring ugly music. And it doesn't necessarily mean ugly like atonal, but it means that there's a little bit of dissonance, or maybe the chord progression moves from one sonority to another a little quickly and supposedly kind of unrelated in music theory, to the point that it keeps you a little bit unsettled, even if every single moment is what we would call consonant or fairly pleasant in tone.
So in this particular piece, I'm bouncing back and forth. There's a love theme for the family. And then there is very energetic, just relentless gossiping texture underneath it. The song starts with a very gossiping moment — that's the piano introduction — and then it moves to the excerpt about the portraiture and just the loving family. And then when it goes back to the violent secret, that music that you heard at the beginning comes right back. Playing with these different textures allows me to find this duality within this particular letter where she has tea, but she's also expressing the joy of the portraiture that was shared.
Stinson: I don't want to spoil the ending, but Abigail doesn't have all of her wishes come to fruition. Abigail's children were the last of the family line of Jews.
Bieber: A number of her children's children are baptized. And so this desire for cultural continuity that she articulates unfortunately does not come to pass, although it does in another branch of the family. Her father, Moses Levi, who is also represented in the group of portraits at Crystal Bridges, he marries twice over the course of his life, and Abigail is one of the children that he has with his first wife. Then he has many more children with his second wife, and a number of them end up marrying other members of the Jewish community. And that's actually how the portraits get passed down most likely — they get transmitted from one generation to the next in that branch of the family.
Samantha Stinson, Emily Bieber, Jonathan Stinson and Erin Cohen were together in the Firmin Garner Performance Studio yesterday afternoon. "Dear Hearts: The Letters of Abigail Levy Franks" will be performed Thursday evening at 6 at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. May is Jewish American Heritage Month. There is no admission to Thursday night's performance. However, Crystal Bridges is asking that you register in advance for the free tickets. You can complete that registration at crystalbridges.org.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
