[James DePreist]
Maestro James DePreist (b. 1936) is featured at AfriClassical.com. He conducted the Peoria Symphony Orchestra in Mahler's Third Symphony Saturday:
By Gary Panetta
Posted Sep 17, 2011
“The Peoria Symphony Orchestra's opening concert of Beethoven, Mahler and composer John Orfe was nicely conceived and boldly executed Saturday at the Civic Center Theater.” “Then there was the finale of Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony. Subtitled 'What Love Tells Me,' this is a 25-minute, slow movement of yearning that culminates in a sort of rugged nobility - not an answer to life's sufferings, but a kind of wisdom won in the midst of suffering.”
“Orchestra players, though, pretty much outdid themselves with the Mahler, led by guest conductor (and National Medal of Arts winner) James DePreist, who conducted from a wheelchair.
“Seemingly energized by DePreist - a polio survivor and one of classical music's early African American trailblazers - the orchestra played with conviction. French horns, trumpets, trombones and tuba seldom sounded richer. And those high, mystical strings in the Mahler found a sympathetic vibration in the Orfe piece that began the concert.”
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