Ben Holt in Die Fledermaus
Dominique-René de Lerma:
Dean Brian Pertl of Lawrence
University's Conservatory of Music, brought many aggiornamenti to the
school's curricula, including ethnic considerations (he had previously been
Microsoft's in-house ethnomusicologist). He has now announced the revival of
the Ben Holt Memorial Concert Series, which had been dormant during a
seven-year interregnum.
Igniting
this will be Audra McDonald, on 10 March. A Juilliard student of Eileen Faull,
she has won five Tony awards (the last for her Porgy and Bess) and
appeared in Poulenc's La voix humaine with the Houston Grand Opera. In
addition to other opera repertoire, she was an Emmy nominee for her work as an
actress on television and has appeared in major films. She has also been a
guest on the television program of former presidential candidate, Stephen
Colbert.
The
series is a tribute to Ben Holt, African and Native American of the
Metropolitan Opera, whose super-star incipit was cut short by cancer, when he
had just begun his ascent at age 34, the time a male voice reaches its
maturity. It had been known ten years earlier that his cancer could have been
cured by chemotherapy, but that this would have an effect on his voice (witness
the case of José Carreras). He opted to live with it, sharing his love of the
art, not only with concert goers, but children, the infirm, and incarcerated as
well. His credo: God gave me the gift of life. What I do with that life is a
gift back to God.
The
series was initiated in 1992 when I was director of Chicago's Center for Black
Music Research, with a recital by mezzo-soprano Bonita Hyman (later principal
with the Hamburg Opera). Bass-baritone Kevin Short followed, not only in
Chicago in 1993, but at Lawrence University when I joined the Conservatory
faculty in 1994. Subsequent artists included the late William Warfield, who
grandfatherly narrated Peter and the wolf with the Conservatory's
orchestra in a benefit for the Music Academy, to an overflowing hall. In 1995,
the Met's first tenor, George Shirley was heard in recital. Then was soprano
Elizabeth Norman, who had just won the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air,
and now is on the faculty of Roosevelt University. Kishna Davis, a private
student of Leontyne Price (!), was the soprano in the orchestra's 1997
performance of the Beethoven ninth (available on CD). Melissa White,
13-year-old violinist who had not yet won first place in the Sphinx Competition
nor been accepted at the Curtis Institute of Music, was the 1997 guest artist.
In 1998, the prolific music journalist and author, Gene Lees, spoke on
literary style in popular music texts. In 1999 we brought cellist Jared
Snyder, who had just won first place in the Sphinx Competition for his cello
recital debut (his mom, bassist with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, had
worked for me during her students days at Indiana University and had studied
voice with Mari Tanaguchi at Lawrence; as for his father, he was immediately
engaged as director of the Conservatory's prep school). The tenth season
brought us Dr. Daniel Bernard Roumain, composer-violinist, whose reputation as
a hip-hop idealized innovator and minimalist had him well on his way to
international fame. In 2002 another Sphinx winner came for a recital:
violinist Gareth Johnson. In 2003, a magnificent lecture-recital by tenor Dr.
Darryl Taylor gave note to the centennial of the birth of Langston Hughes (this
recording artist, a principal figure in vocal music repertoire and research, is
now on the faculty of the University of California-Irvine). His program brought
out a large population as well from the students and faculty of the English
department. The last event before the hiatus was in 2004, when choral conductor
for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra the late Brazeal W. Dennard, conducted the
campus chorus.
It was after this concert,
health imposed itself on my activities. Now, in this resurrection, Dean Pertl
has at least two faculty members on his team for Holt concepts: George and
Marjorie Olsen Chandler Professor of Music Janet Anthony (head of the string
department) and Kenneth Bozeman (head of the vocal department, and the Frank C.
Shattuck Professor of Music).
Antonio Green's web site on Ben Holt,
including an album of historic photos, may be found at
http://www.benholtarchive.com/bio/.
------------------------------------
Dominique-René
de Lerma
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