[African American Trumpeter Wilmer Wise; Photo from website of The Jazz Museum in Harlem]
Trumpeter Wilmer Wise sends us an email entitled: “The Symphony of the New World.” He writes: “This is HISTORY – Ebony – Google Books. Wilmer” Wilmer Wise has lived a considerable amount of music history himself, as is evident from an article in the International Trumpet Guild Journal, October 2005, p. 39, Wilmer Wise: A Remarkable Life Of Diversity, by Laurie Frink.
EBONY Nov 1966
“Manhattan orchestra provides training for talented of all races
One afternoon last year, a group of Harlem schoolchildren were herded down to Carnegie Hall as part of an 'enrichment' program of the New York Board of Education. When the concert was over, teachers asked several of them what they had thought of it. Surprisingly, few of the comments centered on the music. Instead, the kids wanted to know why the heck only one of the musicians was a Negro.
“They would have no such fuss, certainly, with the Symphony of the New World. When the group opened its second season last spring in Manhattan's Philharmonic Hall, 41 of its 88 musicians were Negroes, with a dozen Asians also holding chairs. Its guest soloist was a Negro soprano, Gwendolyn Sims, and its program included an original work by a Negro composer, John Carter. The fulfillment of a 25-year dream, the orchestra was formed in 1964 to provide a training ground for talented young non-whites, who are conspicuously absent from the nation's major orchestras, and to bring the wonders of serious music to culturally deprived areas of the city.
“The notion first began in 1940. Benjamin Steinberg, a well-known conductor and violinist, and two Negro conductors, Dean Dixon and Everett Lee, had attempted to launch an orchestra specifically designed for Negro musicians, who were almost entirely excluded from the symphonic stage. But America was not ready for any such animal, and after serious financial difficulties, both Dixon and Lee went abroad to pursue their careers. Steinberg, however, kept the faith. In 1964, he and 13 prominent musicians, all but one of them Negroes, formed a founding committee that eventually was to lead to the orchestra itself.
“Success was immediate. The New World has impressively performed works by composers from Mozart to Stravinsky. Its roster of musicians includes graduates of such leading music schools as Juilliard, Curtis, Manhattan, New England Conservatory and Eastman, as well as former hands with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the NBC Symphony. It has been featured worldwide on both the Voice of America and the Armed Forces Radio and critics have called it, for both artistic and sociological reasons, a major development in the musical history of the United States.”
Wilmer WiseAfrican American Trumpeter
Ebony & Google Books
Dean Dixon
Benjamin Steinberg
The Symphony of the New World
No comments:
Post a Comment