Ulysses Kay Project at Columbia University: Panel Discussion Mon. Oct. 21 at 5 PM; Harlem Chamber Players Concert Tues. Oct. 22, 2013 at 6 PM

Ulysses Kay (1917-1995)

Ulysses Kay (1917-1995) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features a comprehensive Works List by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma, http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com.  He writes that Ulysses S. Kay, Jr. received a scholarship, fellowship and awards which allowed him to take up residence in Rome in 1949 to undertake studies at the American Academy in Rome. Kay married Barbara Harrison in the same year, according to Prof. De Lerma. Their daughter Virginia Kay, their first child, was born in Rome in 1951.   She tells her parents traveled to Rome together. Virginia Kay forwards this press release from Columbia University:

ULYSSES KAY PROJECT @ Columbia University

Columbia University Chaplain's Office Concert Series at St. Paul's Chapel

On Monday, October 21, 2013 at 5pm in Room 754 of Schermerhorn Extension prior to the concert the Columbia's Rare Books & Manuscript Library, Music Department and Office of Government & Community Affairs will sponsor a talk focusing on Ulysses Kay and the African American composer. The panel will be led by George Lewis, Stephen Case Professor of Music and include Jennifer Lee, Curator, Performing Arts, Rare Books & Manuscript Library, Courtney Bryan, composer and DMA candidate in composition at Columbia and Director of the Institute of Sacred Music at Bethany Baptist Church of Newark, NJ and Liz Player, co-founder and Artistic Director for Harlem Chamber Players. They will discuss Ulysses Kay’s role as a mid-20^th Century American composer and his impact on other composers and African American composers in particular.

On Tuesday, October 22, 2013, at 6:00 pm Columbia University Office of the Chaplain’s Concert Series will feature the Harlem Chamber Players at St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia University 117th Street and Amsterdam. This concert is part of what the Harlem Chamber Players have titled “The Ulysses Kay Project”. The concert will feature performers: Tia Roper- Flute Ashley Horne-Violin; Orlando Wells- Violin; Audrey Mitchell-Viola and Lawrence Zoernig-Cello. They will perform Kay’s: Prelude for Unaccompanied Flute, Flute Quintet and Selected String Quartets

It is a salute to the completion of Columbia University Libraries, Rare Books & Manuscript Library’s work archiving, as Jennifer Lee, Curator for Performing Arts noted, “a treasure trove of material relating to all aspects of the composer's work, from manuscript sketches to finished scores, including correspondence, photographs, programs, and his professional files.”

Michael Ryan, Head of Columbia's Rare Books & Manuscript Library, at the time the Columbia received these works, commented, that Kay was “[a] prolific and important composer of contemporary symphonic, chamber, and choral music, Kay also wrote five operas, the most substantial and last of which, Jubilee (1976) and Frederick Douglass (1991), were based on themes from African-American history.” Ryan also noted that, “Kay was a formidable and versatile composer.”

It is amazing that we are approaching the 70th Anniversary of the New York Philharmonic premiere of Ulysses Kay’s first major work Of New Horizons: Overture at what was then West Harlem’s stunning Lewisohn Stadium which is now the cite of City College of New York’s North Academic building.

Kay’s connection with Columbia goes back to 1946 when he was awarded the Alice M. Ditson Fellowship in Composition and studied with Otto Leunig. He also was the winner of the BMI Prize for his work Suite for Orchestra, which Dean Dixon and the American Youth Orchestra premiered in 1945 and A Short Overture, which received the George Gershwin Memorial Award in 1946.

This Ulysses Kay Concert is sponsored by the University Chaplain's Office, Columbia University Rare Books & Manuscript Libraries, Columbia University's Music Department and the Office of Government & Community Affairs.