[John McLaughlin Williams with 2007 Grammy Award]
John McLaughlin Williams received the 1999 Geraldine Ford Award for American Conductors. In 2007 Maestro Williams won a Grammy Award for "Best Instrumental Solo with Orchestra," becoming the first African American conductor to win a Grammy, according to his biography at GKWCreative.com. He was nominated for a 2009 Grammy Award as well.
Two interviews in 2009 allowed us to explore his performances and recordings on violin, piano and harpsichord, as well as his role as conductor. The interviews resulted in two posts, “Maestro John McLaughlin Williams: 4 Roles on Dorian CD 'Quincy Porter: Complete Viola Works'” on Sept. 22, 2009; and “John McLaughlin Williams Conducts Deon Nielsen Price's 'Dancing on the Brink of the World'” on Oct. 1, 2009. From those interviews we learned “JMW,” as his friends call him, was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, but was primarily raised in Washington, D.C. Both of his parents were pianists. He studied Violin in the public schools of Washington, D.C. At both Boston University and the New England Conservatory, he studied Violin Performance.
Williams eventually decided to switch to Conducting, which he studied as a graduate student at the Cleveland Institute of Music. During each of his three years at CIM, JMW programmed and conducted the annual “Black Heritage Concert.” In the interview posted Sept. 22, 2009, AfriClassical asked how many recordings he had made, either as a performer, a conductor or both. JMW replied: "Including the Quincy Porter that's coming out in a week or so, there are 11 out all together."
Not only is 11 a large number of recordings, but many of JMW's CDs have been released or distributed by Naxos, which gives them global distribution. Several are also in the Naxos American Classics Series, which is rapidly expanding the recorded repertoire of American music. AfriClassical interviewed John McLaughlin Williams by phone on June 15, 2010 on the subject of the “DSO River Days Festival.” Maestro Williams lives in Ann Arbor. He will conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a free concert at 7:00 PM, Sunday, June 20, 2010:
This concert of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is part of a larger Festival, isn't it?
Yes, the River Days Festival has been going on for a while, and this is the fourth time that the Orchestra has participated in it. It's really quite a good thing and is becoming quite an inclusive thing now that the DSO is taking part in it. The Festival has popular acts and all sorts of other cultural things going on during that week.
I understand there is another show on that very day!
Oh, I didn't know that, but I'm not surprised.
Is this the first time that you've conducted one of these River Days Festivals?
Yes, this is the first time I've conducted River Days and the first time that I have appeared with the Detroit Symphony!
It is!
Yes, the very first time! It's quite a remarkable day for me, I would say. I am very much looking forward to it!
Is this a selection by Leonard Slatkin?
Yes, Leonard is familiar with my work, and familiar with some of my recordings too. This, I would say, is a way of introducing me to the Orchestra.
Well, I am very happy to hear that this is taking place! I understand this is a 7:00 PM concert, and it's a free one?
That's correct, it's always free.
Would you like to tell us what works you have programmed?
I put together a program that I hope will demonstrate something of the great mosaic that is the greater metropolitan Detroit area, all of the various peoples involved that live here in our wonderful environs! So there's some Americana, there's music of more ethnic origin. The program actually begins with the Shostakovich Festive Overture. That's a great way to get a program off to a start with a big bang! And I'm doing one of the great pieces of Americana from the Forties actually, the Morton Gould American Symphonette No. 2, which has a famous pavane movement that everyone seemed to play as a solo for piano for many, many years. I remember my Mom playing it on the piano when I was a little kid. It was one of the first pieces I tried to play too, when I tried to play piano. The piece has a real jazzy feel to it, but it also incorporates stylistic elements of Bach and Ravel.
Oh!
It's a very interesting amalgam, put together with great wit and cleverness by one of our great American masters.
About how long does it run?
It is 3 movements in 9 minutes. Then I am doing some music of George Frederick McKay. I know that you are familiar with his name through recordings I have done for Naxos of some of his music.
Yes, the American Classics Series.
Right. We're doing excerpts from the suite From a Moonlit Ceremony, which was recorded on one of the CDs. This music is based upon religious folksongs of the Muckleshoot Tribe, which is based in the Pacific Northwest, where also the composer is based. The tunes are very interesting because this particular tribe, over the years has become Christianized. They have elements of Christianity and their original Native American religion commingling in a very mystical ceremony which happens at dusk and at moonlight, and the composer spent time out there with the tribe, and he notated the tunes that they used in the ceremony and he set them faithfully without changing them, into this incredibly gorgeous and ideomatic orchestral fabric. And he gave the suite its title, From a Moonlit Ceremony.
About how long is that piece?
We're doing 2 movements of the 4. I think that's going to come in at around 8 1/2 minutes. Next we are going to be doing something very close to home, which is a Duke Ellington Medley. Then we're going to be doing one of my favorite little pieces for orchestra, Arthur Benjamin's Jamaican Rhumba. This is a piece that was famous in its day; it was inspired by a trip that the composer took to Jamaica. He heard this particular tune being sung on the streets. He turned it into an orchestra piece. It got to be so famous, the Government of Jamaica thought it was a wonderful representation of their country and did their country good stead in the eyes of the world. As a reward for his composing of it, they awarded him a barrel of rum every year for the rest of his life!
Good compensation!
Yes! Then we're going to take a little side trip to the Middle East, and we're doing the bachanal from Saint-Saëns' opera, Samson and Delilah, which is of course an extremely exotic representation of moral degradation, 19th century French style of course! From there we are taking a trip up to Spain, where we will be doing the last movement from Manuel de Falla's ballet, The Three Cornered Hat. This is the dance called the Jota. Lastly, something everybody knows, everybody's always looking forward to, and that's the John Williams, the other John Williams, ET: Adventures on Earth.
So that's the finale?
That's the finale. It should send everyone home with a smile!
Do you have any particular soloist that you have selected?
No soloists on this concert, outside of the soloists within the orchestra.
Do you have an intermission?
There is not going to be an intermission.
What comments would you like to make, if any?
Well, this is a concert really that can be enjoyed by anyone, whether they are highly familiar with classical music or not familiar at all. There is something here that is going to make everybody smile!
Though it's accessible.
It's extremely accessible! Once again, I tried to put some different and unusual things on there, to make it even more interesting. That is why I came up with the Benjamin, the Gould and the McKay.
That should introduce some listeners to works they may not have even heard!
Exactly! We try to reach out and pique interest in anyway possible!
All of those would be available on recordings if anyone wanted to experiment with them!
That's right! Everything here is available on recording.
I think that's a real asset for a program to be available.
Yes, it absolutely is!
Are their other items that you'd like to point out?
I just wanted to encourage anyone local who feels like having a great time downtown, to comeon out and check it out! Because this is really one of the world's greatest orchestras! The DSO is really, really something else! It's an honor to be able to appear with them.
I know their history is illustrious, and I am happy to hear that their present performance rates that from you too!
It certainly does, and not just me. They are celebrated all over! In fact their recent recording of the Rachmaninoff Second Symphony has been getting rave reviews, and rightly so!
Well, I want to thank you very much, John!
Thank you, as always! I really appreciate everything you do at AfriClassical! That is an absolutely invaluable site! No one would know what to do without it; it's great!
I appreciate that!
Thanks a lot!
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