[Kishna
Davis and Kevin Short]
Today we present an article on the success of the Music Department at Morgan State University. The author is Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma. AfriClassical.com is proud to have him as its principal advisor:
My
first contact with Morgan State University came in 1972 when we were
planning the first of what became a series of symposia on orchestral
music by Black composers. I have no idea why Baltimore was selected
for this event -- the decision rested with Dr. Paul Freeman, then on
the conducting staff of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, with whom I
had only recently established a long-term. Paul, a genius both on
and off the podium, had enlisted support from area funding
organizations and the three major schools: Johns Hopkins University,
Goucher College, and Morgan. The events included panel discussions
and the reading of selected orchestral works, as well as a formal
concert with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Participants included
George Walker and Ulysses Kay -- both already legends -- flutist D.
Antoinette Handy (who was later to head the music program at the
National Endowment for the Arts), and a student composer, Jalalu
Kalvert Nelson (later to secure many multi-media performances while
in residence in the Netherlands), while the unheralded auditors
included Ornette Coleman). Morgan's choir was secured for a
performance of William Grant Still's Sahdji.
Nathan Carter had just began his tenure as the school's chorus two
years earlier but was already leading the ensemble toward the
international distinction it was to earn before Nathan's death in
2004.
The
idea of my joining Morgan's faculty came up in 1974 when we were
relaxing at our hotel in Helsinki, where the choir was engaged in a
performance and Columbia Records's recording of my edition of the
Nunes-García Requiem
(at Finlandia Hall they also performed Prokoviev's Alexander
Nevsky -- in Russian! -- some of the
kids had never been outside of inner-city Baltimore and even fewer
had ever flown before). I did not hesitate to accept the offer and
began my stay the very next year, remaining until I was asked to join
the Center for Black Music Research in 1990.
The
physical facilities of the music department were then close to
miserable, but a justified belief in the school's future justified
secure loyalty. There was also the presence on the vocal faculty of
Joseph Eubanks and Betty Ridgeway, who had begun turning out the
vocal talents for the choir. Before I moved to Chicago, with my heart
remaining at Morgan, Nathan had evolved from a modest conductor into
a world figure, and the school had graduated some undeniably
embryonic vocal stars.
Shortly
before he died, Nathan invited me back. The rumors that had already
reached me were confirmed when we met: he was not well, yet he
retained a super-human schedule. Without comment, I knew my visit
was a farewell. The cancer won in 2004. But this was a chance to
let me see the new facilities. There is no music school I have ever
visited in the United States, Europe, or the Caribbean, to rival the
new Murphy Fine Arts Building (named for the publishing family of the
venerable Afro-American).
It remains in that class, but also a monument to the musician whose
dream it makes manifest and an extraordinary stimulus for future
students of this urban open-admissions campus. The season after my
visit, the larger of the three concert halls was to be the venue for
the Baltimore Opera Company.
Any
anxiety about a short-lived Golden Age was quickly eased under the
administrative guidance and baton of Dr. Conway, more than a
brilliant pianist from the prestigious studio of Leon Fleisher, who
had also enjoyed major experiences as conductor. As Eric's vision
begins to move the music program and the choir to even greater
contributions, he has now made plans for four campus performances in
March and April of Porgy and Bess,
with world-class soloists, Kishna Davis and Kevin Short, both
graduates from Betty Ridgeway's studio and former Morgan choristers,
in the title roles. This will be without question a major event in
Baltimore's history and that of P&B,
fully worthy of national notice. For
reservations, call the ticket office: 443-885-4440.
Dominique-René
de Lerma
[Conductor Paul Freeman (b. 1936), and Composers José Mauricio Nunes Garcia (1767-1830), Ulysses S. Kay (1917-1995), William Grant Still (1895-1978) and George Walker (b. 1922) are profiled at
AfriClassical.com, which features Works lists for Ulysses S. Kay,
William Grant Still and George Walker by Prof. Dominique-René de
Lerma.]
If one lives long enough positive change can return. I am happy to learn of the "ascendency" of Morgan State. I am of the generation when "Negro" colleges were institutions that honored and perpetrated "school music." It is time we remember and celebrate that heritage, again. Remember, Dr. Dett, Dr. Gatlin, Orrin Southern, and performers such as Dorothy Maynor. I do
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