African American Composer Initiative
Dr. Valerie Capers performs in the "Let Freedom
Ring: The Resounding Music of African American Composers" concert at
Eastside College Preparatory School in East Palo Alto, Calif., on
Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014. (Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group)
Joe Rodriguez
January 27, 2014
EAST
PALO ALTO -- If she isn't on the watch for police brutality or
investigating hate crimes, you can often find LaDoris Cordell singing
jazz or playing classical music on a grand piano. And there she was
Sunday afternoon, on a stage introducing and performing some of the
best, contemporary African-American classical music at a concert at
Eastside College Preparatory School.
"LaDoris is
phenomenal," said Michael A. Robinson, a vocalist and drummer. "She
could have been anything she wanted -- classical pianist, a composer,
anything!"
Instead, the former Santa Clara County judge and
current San Jose independent police auditor, chose a career in justice
and civil rights. But all that time she also pursued her passion for
classical music, especially the compositions of black American composers
whose contributions rarely got the attention they deserved on stage,
academia or in the recording industry.
Some years ago, Cordell
started the African American Composer Initiative and a concert series to
showcase the masterpieces of black composers from decades past and new
works by contemporary artists. Sunday's concert, the fifth in the
increasingly popular series held at the charter school's sparkling
performance hall, was a hit judging by the rousing applause after each
number.
The concert was a sellout, with Cordell promising the
audience that "every dime" would go to the school. Eastside Prep
specializes in preparing low-income black, Latino and Asian students for
four-year universities. Almost all of them, she said, would be the
first in their families to go to college.
Musically, politically
and socially, the concert appeals to composers like Valerie Capers and
John Robinson, two classical veterans who performed at the concert. The
featured work was the premiere of Capers' "Ruby," a four-part piece
inspired by the story of Ruby Bridges, one of six black children in
1960s New Orleans to pass the test that determined whether or not they
could go to all-white schools. Bridges went to one such school by
herself.
"I said, 'Oh, I have to do this,' " Capers said during an interview before Sunday's concert. "It touched my heart."
The
problem was that entire books had been written about Bridges. "Enough
for a symphony," Capers said. She shortened the story to four parts: a
touching lullaby sung by the girl's mother the night before the risky
integration; a song named "Mardi Gras" for the loud anger that greeted
her; a touching number called "Where are all the children?" for the
child's loneliness at the school; and the final "Reflections" of a
teacher who witnessed it all.
Educated mostly in the music of
Beethoven, Bach, Stravinsky and other European masters at the Juilliard
School in New York City, Capers said she was a relative latecomer to
jazz and black composers.
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