Michael S. Wright sends this link:
Hidden Voices
with the BBC Concert Orchestra
Sunday 24 March 2013, 7.30pm
Queen Elizabeth Hall (South Bank Centre), South Bank Centre Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX
part of the The Rest Is Noise series
£15-£12
Programme includes:
Henry Gilbert The Dance in Place Congo
William Grant Still
Symphony No.1 (Afro-American)
Duke Ellington
A tone parallel to Harlem (Harlem Suite)
Plus a set from Nu Civilsation Orchestra
BBC Concert Orchestra
Nu Civilisation Orchestra
Keith Lockhart conductor
Hidden amongst the many stories of the early
twentieth century are the voices of those fighting for black
emancipation in the USA. Of these, William Grant Still is one of the
most intriguing: a student of arch-modernist emigré composer Edgard
Varèse, he worked as an orchestrator for radio shows and Broadway
musicals. In the ‘Afro-American’ the first of his five symphonies, Still
sought a subtle form of valorisation by combining orchestral tradition
with the blues – an authentic form of black expression which didn’t, as
he put it’ ‘exhibit the influence of Caucasian music’.
Later, in the radically transformed postwar era of the burgeoning Civil Rights movement, Duke Ellington’s A Tone Parallel to Harlem
takes us on a leisurely walk through the district's Sunday morning
finery, introducing us to ‘a real hip chick’ and a funeral procession
where, Ellington remarked drolly, ‘you may recognise the passage of
those who are making our Civil Rights demands’. This groundbreaking
composition ushered in a new era both politically and technologically –
it appeared on one of the first LP records pioneered by Columbia.
Nu Civilisation Orchestra plays its own tribute to the Duke of Jazz.
Free Pre-concert Talk
The blues and its influence
Sunday 24 March, 6pm
The Front Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall
From its origins as the spirituals and work songs
of the African American communities from “Deep South” United States, the
blues has provided an important foundation for modern Western music.
Jazz expert Dr Catherine Tackley from The Open
University will be joined by musicians from Dune Music and Tomorrow’s
Warriors to give an introduction to the blues and how it influenced the
music of William Grant Still and Duke Ellington.
[Duke Ellington (1899-1974) and William Grant Still (1895-1978) are featured at AfriClassical.com, w
hich
features a comprehensive Works List for William Grant Still by Prof.
Dominique-René de Lerma,
www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com]
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