Professor Roosevelt Newson
DailyAdvance.com
Elizabeth City, North Carolina
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Pianist Roosevelt Newson will launch a new series of programs at
Elizabeth City State University on Sunday, Nov. 10 at 4 p.m. Free to the
public, this recital will be held in Robinson Auditorium of the Mickey
Burnim Fine Arts Complex.
Newson, who holds an endowed professorship in the School of Arts &
Humanities, recently completed a four-lecture series focused on the
contributions of African-Americans in creating America’s unique musical
language.
The new series will include four recital/lecture recitals featuring
music by African-American composers. This first program will include two
major works in the standard repertoire—the “Tempest” Sonata by Ludwig
Van Beethoven and Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118 by Johannes Brahms and
conclude with two works by two African-American composers, the
Scuppernong Suite by John Work and Sonata No. 1 by George Walker.
An interesting side-note: George Walker, who is the subject of Newson’s
doctoral dissertation and a personal friend, is also the first
African-American composer to receive a Pulitzer Prize.
Newson says his first love has always been music and performing. He
grew up in a small town in northern Louisiana during the last days of
the Jim Crow South. He attended segregated schools and music
wasn’t something that was readily available to him.
Despite a lack of formal musical education available to him, Roosevelt
Newson says he was drawn to the piano. He says he and his brother would
be given lessons on the clarinet first, but it was the piano that called
to him.
[George Walker is featured at AfriClassical.com]
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