Will Liverman Releases New Album,
The Dunbar/Moore Sessions Vol. II
Original Art Songs by Liverman Set to
Poems by Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson and
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Featuring Performances with Joshua Blue,
Jacqueline Echols, Lady Jess, Mykal Kilgore,
Isabel Leonard, Erin Morley, Adam Richardson,
Lindsey Sharpe, and Ann Toomey
Out Digitally June 27, 2025 on Lexicon Classics
Press-Only EPK (PW – Dunbar):
https://bit.ly/
First Single, Farewell, Out Today!
Complete Collection: Vol. I & II Out on Limited-Edition CD and Vinyl – July 25
“a voice for this historic moment” – The Washington Post
New York, NY (April 11, 2025) – On Friday, June 27, 2025, GRAMMY® Award-winning baritone Will Liverman, praised for his “shapely baritone and sound poetic instincts” (The Guardian), releases the second volume of The Dunbar/Moore Sessions on all digital platforms via Lexicon Classics. The first single, Farewell, is out today featuring soprano Erin Morley and Liverman on piano.
Set to the late 19th and early 20th-century poetry of writer/activists Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Dunbar-Moore, Liverman’s original songs draw from the full spectrum of sounds and traditions that have shaped Liverman’s musical life —classical, musical theater, gospel, jazz, and more. The album features performances by GRAMMY® winners Isabel Leonard, Erin Morley, and Liverman himself; GRAMMY® nominee and Broadway star Mykal Kilgore; international opera stars Jacqueline Echols, Joshua Blue, Adam Richardson,, and Ann Toomey; violin virtuosoLady Jess; and cellovirtuosoLindsey Sharpe.
The songs on this project showcase Liverman’s dynamic vocal talent and his unique approach to songwriting, blending harmony and melody in ways that redefine what classical art songs can be. A second single, Night,featuring vocalist Mykal Kilgore, will be released on May 23.
Volume II follows the October 27, 2023 debut issue of the project, which was nominated for a Libera Award for Best Classical Album. Lexicon Classics will release the Complete Collection: Vol. I & II on limited-edition CD and vinyl on Friday, July 25, 2025.
Liverman shares, “This album is my first full collection of original art song compositions—a personal milestone in my creative journey. In undergrad, I didn’t enjoy singing art songs, but my teacher insisted I learn them. Over time, I came to appreciate the form for its intimacy and emotional focus. Art song, to me, has become a space of creative freedom—one that can embrace multiple forms of expression.
“Though I’ve always loved writing music, I never studied composition and didn’t feel I had permission to create. That changed during the pandemic, when space and stillness invited me to explore. I began writing songs from a deep love of melody, text, and storytelling. I felt most fulfilled when combining those passions.
A special joy in this project has been collaborating from the piano—returning to my first musical love. To shape these pieces from the keyboard, as both composer and performer, has made the experience deeply personal and creatively complete.
This album features settings of poems by Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson and Paul Laurence Dunbar—two writers whose words have inspired so much of this project. Their voices helped me find mine.”
Dunbar, a renowned poet, died young, and Moore-Dunbar continued to use his name in her work for women’s rights, civil rights, and anti-lynching legislation until her passing in 1935.
The Dunbar/Moore Sessions, Volume II Track List
1. Will Liverman (b. 1988) – Night [1:37]
Will Liverman, Mykal Kilgore
2-4. Will Liverman – A Threefold Heart
I. Love and the Butterfly
Will Liverman, Joshua Blue [3:24]
II. If I Had Known [4:12]
Will Liverman, Isabel Leonard
III. A Love Song [3:28]
Will Liverman, Lindsey Sharpe
5. Will Liverman – Farewell [6:02]
Will Liverman, Erin Morley
6. Will Liverman – Emancipation [4:34]
Will Liverman,
7. Will Liverman – Hymn [4:02]
Will Liverman, Ann Toomey
8. Will Liverman – A Plaint [4:05]
Will Liverman, Jacqueline Echols
9. Will Liverman – To the Negro Farmers of the United States [2:07]
Will Liverman, Adam Richardson
10. Will Liverman – Good-night [3:29]
Will Liverman, Lady Jess
Total Time: 37:00
Will Liverman, baritone/piano/composer
Joshua Blue, tenor
Jacqueline Echols, soprano
Lady Jess, violin soloist
Mykal Kilgore, vocalist
Isabel Leonard, mezzo-soprano
Erin Morley, soprano
Adam Richardson, baritone
Lindsey Sharpe, cello soloist
Ann Toomey, soprano
LC2504
UPC: 198937988901
© ℗ 2025 Lexicon Classics, All rights reserved
Executive Producer: Gillian Riesen
Producer: Jonathan Estabrooks
Recording Engineer: Chris Benham
Mixing: Jonathan Estabrooks
Mastering: Bryan Lowe
Photography: Jaclyn Simpson
Graphic Design: Gillian Riesen, Emitha Studios
Recorded at Second Take Sound, Manhattan
About Will Liverman
Called “a voice for this historic moment” (The Washington Post), GRAMMY® Award-winning baritone Will Liverman has been described as “a gifted chameleon of a singing actor who disappears into his roles” (Opera Magazine) with a “beaming, high baritone that easily asserts” (LA Times). Liverman has been praised internationally for his versatility in dramatic and comedic operatic roles and his dedication and vision as a composer, artist, and advisor helping to drive forward the evolution of the performing arts industry. He is co-creator of the acclaimed multi-genre soul opera The Factotum – praised as “mic-drop fabulous good” (Opera News) – which premiered in a sold-out production at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2023.
Recent and upcoming highlights include an appearance with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival, Le nozze di Figaro at Washington National Opera, Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Houston Grand Opera, Messiah with the San Francisco Symphony and Music of the Baroque, Bernstein’s Mass with Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Die Zauberflöte with St. Louis Symphony, and more.
Following summer 2024 appearances at the BBC Proms, Tanglewood, and Aspen Music Festival, Liverman’s 2024-2025 season includes his house debut at San Francisco Opera portraying Marcello in Puccini’s La bohème, a reprise of his iconic role of Papageno in the Metropolitan Opera’s holiday presentation of The Magic Flute, and returns to Lyric Opera of Chicago as Marcello in La bohème and Dutch National Opera as Ned Keene in Peter Grimes. Concert engagements included Kaija Saariaho’s Sombre at Carnegie Hall with the International Contemporary Ensemble; Carmina Burana with the San Francisco Symphony; Jenufa with The Cleveland Orchestra; performances with the London Symphony Orchestra led by Sir Antonio Pappano; works by Burleigh, Vaughan Williams, and Still in a recital at The Concertgebouw; works by Schubert, Burleigh, and Larsen with the Oxford International Song Festival; Brahms’ Requiem with the Rhode Island Philharmonic; Shawn Okpebholo’s Two Black Churches and Orff’s Carmina Burana with Oakland Symphony; a song cycle of his own compositions at National Sawdust; New York Festival of Song at Kaufman Music Center; and String Theory at the Hunter.
Lyric Opera of Chicago presented the world premiere of Liverman’s soul opera, The Factotum, in 2023, which he starred in and composed with DJ King Rico. Inspired by Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, this reimagining places the story in a present-day Black barbershop on Chicago’s South Side, celebrating the strength of community and power of the human spirit in a soul opera that “offers a chameleonic pastiche of soul, funk, and classical elements that is incredibly effective” (Opera News).
In the 2023-2024 season, Liverman starred in the title role of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X at The Metropolitan Opera, inspiring The Wall Street Journal to write “[this is] the best I’ve ever heard him.” Anthony Davis’s groundbreaking and influential work marked the third opera by a Black composer in the company’s history and was conducted by Kazem Abdullah in its newly revised score. Liverman also performed in the world premiere of Rene Orth’s 10 Days in a Madhouse at Opera Philadelphia (“mellifluous baritone and grounded stage presence” – Parterre Box) and took on the role of Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette at The Metropolitan Opera (he “lit up his scenes with a richly textured, mettlesome baritone” – The New York Times). In concert, he joined the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Lexington Philharmonic, The Washington Chorus, Tanglewood, Grand Rapids Choir of Men and Boys, Nu Deco Ensemble, Experiential Orchestra, and Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, plus Dayton Opera, Caramoor, Cincinnati Song Initiative, and Ithaca College for vocal recitals. He served as Artistic Advisor for Renée Fleming’s SongStudio at Carnegie Hall.
In a “breakout performance” (The New York Times) opening The Met’s 2021-2022 season, Liverman headlined the widely celebrated Fire Shut Up In My Bones by Terence Blanchard, which won the 2023 GRAMMY® Award for Best Opera Recording. He later reprised the role at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in a “rich leading performance” (Chicago Tribune), described as a “beautifully vocalized… gripping portrayal” (Opera News).
Cedille Records released Liverman’s Show Me The Way with pianist Jonathan King in March 2024. Hailed as a “glorious” (BBC Music) and “spellbinding” (San Francisco Classical Voice) celebration of American female composers from 20th-century trailblazers Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, and Amy Cheney Beach to present-day composers commissioned for this program, it featured guest performances by Renée Fleming, J’Nai Bridges, Nicole Cabell, Lady Jess, Tahirah Whittington, and Terry Liverman and was nominated for the 2025 GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album.
Cedille Records also released Liverman’s 2021 album Dreams of a New Day: Songs by Black Composers with pianist Paul Sanchez, a collection of works by Damien Sneed, Henry Burleigh, H. Leslie Adams, Robert Owens, Margaret Bonds, and Thomas Kerr, plus a world premiere recording by Shawn Okpebholo and Liverman’s arrangement of Richard Fariña’s Birmingham Sunday. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical chart, and The New Yorker praised its “clarity, sensitivity, and barely contained heartbreak,” while NPR declared “velvet-voiced baritone Will Liverman is out to make the classical music canon more inclusive.” Dreams of a New Day was nominated for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album at the 64th Annual GRAMMY Awards®. Liverman’s 2020 album, Whither Must I Wander, recorded with pianist Jonathan King and released on Odradek Records, was named one of the Chicago Tribune’s “best classical recordings of 2020.”
In 2019, Liverman made history as the first-ever Black Papageno in The Metropolitan Opera’s production of The Magic Flute. Favorite roles from previous seasons include Horemhab (Akhnaten) and Malcolm Fleet (Nico Muhly’s Marnie) at The Met Opera; the title role of Pelléas et Mélisande at LA Opera; Figaro (Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Washington, Houston, Seattle, Virginia, Kentucky, Madison, and Utah Operas); Pantalone (The Love of Three Oranges, Opera Philadelphia); Raimbaud (Le Comte Ory, Seattle Opera); Sam (The Pirates of Penzance, Atlanta Opera); Andrew Hanley in the world premiere of Kevin Puts’ The Manchurian Candidate (Minnesota Opera); Zurga (Les pêcheurs de perles, Austin Opera); Silvio (Pagliacci, Opera Colorado); The Pilot (The Little Prince, Tulsa Opera); Foreman at the Mill (Jenůfa, Santa Fe Opera); Tarquinius (The Rape of Lucretia), Beaumarchais (The Ghosts of Versailles), and Schubert’s Die Winterreise with Wolf Trap Opera; The Reverend (Jeanine Tesori’s Blue, Dutch National Opera); the title role of Porgy and Bess (Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal); and Dizzy Gillespie (Charlie Parker’s Yardbird, Opera Philadelphia, English National Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Madison Opera, Apollo Theater).
Liverman has also been featured in performances at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Aspen Music Festival, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, Park Avenue Armory, The Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Art Song Society, Seattle Symphony, Chicago Sinfonietta, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Las Vegas Philharmonic, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, American Pops Orchestra, Art Bath, Sparks & Wiry Cries, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Chamber Music Northwest, and Friends of Chamber Music (Denver).
Accolades include the Beverly Sills Artist Award by The Metropolitan Opera (2022), a Sphinx MPower Artist Grant (2022), Marian Anderson Vocal Award (2020), Richard Tucker Career Grant (2019), Sphinx Medal of Excellence (2019), 3Arts Award (2017), George London Award (2017), Luminarts Fellow by the Luminarts Cultural Foundation (2017, classical division), Stella Maris International Vocal Competition (2015), Gerda Lissner Charitable Fund Award (2015), and Opera Index (2015, top prize).
Liverman is an alumnus of the Ryan Opera Center at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and was a Glimmerglass Festival Young Artist. He holds degrees from The Juilliard School (M.M.) and Wheaton College in Illinois (B.M.). Please visit www.willliverman.com for more information.