Playing With Wolfgang: Suites for the 4th!
I count myself very lucky that my undergrad teacher passed his love
of 20th Century American music down to me. He himself had studied with
Johana Harris at Colorado Springs and always maintained that the
summers, when premier mid-century American composers would come to work,
play, teach, and commune with each other, were the best part of his
time there. He would have been heartbroken to see the devastation there
now. I know everyone’s heart goes out to all of you affected by the
forest fires.
Under his tutelage, I discovered the Dello Joio Suite for Piano. I
had never played any purely American music before, except for musical
theater scores in high school, but I found that the sounds and emotions
were in my blood- literally of the sound of my growing up. Nearly 20
years later, I connected in the same way with Copland’s Four Piano
Blues.
So, In honor of Independence Day, I offer you some suites and small
sets of pieces by American composers (in no particular order). Over the
years, I have had judges remark that they were unfamiliar with but
intrigued by several of these works. Once, a concert artist from Eastern
Europe was so fascinated by the Dello Joio Suite that he gave my
student nearly an hour masterclass as they discovered it together. She
was thrilled when he told her, “This is going into my repertoire!”
Enjoy and Happy 4th Everyone!
[Excerpts]
Norman Dello Joio
R. Nathaniel Dett [Canadian]
In The Bottoms (contains the famous Juba Dance) [YouTube]
[Leon Bates, Piano]
[Leon Bates, Piano]
William Grant Still
7 Traceries
[Mark Boozer, Piano; Naxos]
[Mark Boozer, Piano; Naxos]
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor [British]
[Naoko Maeda, Piano]
[R.
Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943), William Grant Still (1895-1978) and
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) are profiled at
AfriClassical.com, which features a comprehensive Works List for each
by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma,
http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com]
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