[John
McDonald, T. J. Anderson and Mark DeVoto in 2003 (BMInt staff photo)]
Thomas
Jefferson Anderson, Jr., http://www.tjandersonmusic.com,
is an African American Composer born August 17, 1928 and far better
known as
T.J. Anderson. Aja Burrell Wood forwards this article:
Reviews
March
14, 2012
By Mark DeVoto
“T. J. Anderson was for years a
beloved professor at Tufts University, where he brought the Music
Department into the modern era. Now 83 and retired from Tufts since
1990, he returned to Medford for a symposium, a reception, and a
concert for himself and his friends. His successor on the Tufts
composition faculty, John McDonald, led off an assembly of T. J.’s
music and that of his friends in Distler Performance Hall at the
Granoff Music Center at Tufts on Monday evening. T. J.’s
Boogie-Woogie
Fantasy,
composed in 1997, is a sectional piano solo with explosive gestures
alternating with classical boogie-woogie patterns — dotted rhythms,
arpeggiated bass octaves in eight-bar segments. This was a long
piece, but one that connects its episodes well, and McDonald played
it with great skill and expression. After
T. J. retired from Tufts he moved to Chapel Hill in North Carolina,
soon becoming connected with nearby Duke University in Durham.”
“T.
J. himself was honored with the premiere performance of his
Cornerstones,
composed last year on five poems by the Vermont poet Elye Alexander.
These ranged over a variety of moods, with the first poem/song,
'Cedar,' repeating a two-bar melodic figure; the second, 'Spider-Silk
Riddle,' a three-note motive; the third, 'The Flying Squirrel' with
chattering repeated notes and a piano cadenza in between; and the
last poem/song, 'Dancing With Her,' with a slow and sad waltz. Even
more ineffably sad were the simple chords accompanying the fourth and
shortest poem, “Dovey Junction.” Louise Toppin sang, and John
McDonald accompanied, with rich expression and loving care. (For
those who are traveling south next week, Toppin will host a
20th-anniversary festival in Chapel Hill, honoring two decades of
VIDEMUS, a new-music group founded at Tufts by Vivian Taylor and
loyally supported by T. J.)”
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