[Versatile and changeable, the Ritz Chamber Players mixes 20 musicians for repertoire ranging from new music by black composers to European romantics. Five from the Jacksonville, Fla., organization perform next Sunday in Birmingham. (Photo Credit: The Birmingham News)]
by Michael Huebner
Sunday, September 26, 2010, 11:00 AM
"Recognizing the need to get more African-Americans involved with classical music, clarinetist Terrance Patterson set out in 2002 to bring together the best black musicians he could find. Patterson himself is an accomplished clarinetist whose career has led him from the Peabody Conservatory to European music capitals such as Paris, London, Belgrade and Moscow, as well as Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New York. He returned to his native Jacksonville, Fla., to start the Ritz Chamber Players, in order to accomplish his mission of exposing young and old alike to the merits of classical music -- black composers and performers in particular.
"'We wanted to address the disparity of minorities in classical music, and to bring a new face to the 1.9 percent of African-American musicians that are represented in American orchestras, by being physically on stage and bringing in new audience members,' Patterson said last week from Jacksonville. The few that are in classical music show a united front in that regard. That's why we started the organization. The ensemble took its name from Ritz Theatre & LaVilla Museum, which was built on the site of the 1929 Ritz Theatre, a movie house in Jacksonville's LaVilla neighborhood, a historically black area once known as the 'Harlem of the South.' The chamber players are patterned roughly after the flexible-personnel model of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the organization has built its roster to 20 performers. It has also hosted a composer-in-residence every year since its inception.
“The names are impressive -- pianists Stewart Goodyear, Leon Bates and Terrence Wilson; violist Amadi Azikiwe; flutist DeMarre McGill; composers Adolphus Hailstork, David Baker and George Walker. Honorary board members include conductors Fabio Mechetti and Michael Morgan. Goodyear, Wilson, Mechetti and Morgan have appeared with the Alabama Symphony. A Hailstork composition has been commissioned by ASO and will be premiered in January. Morgan will conduct. Five musicians from its ranks, including Patterson, will perform in Birmingham next Sunday on a Birmingham Chamber Music Society event.” [Adolphus C. Hailstork (b. 1941) and George Walker (b. 1922) are profiled at AfriClassical.com]
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