Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799),
a prominent composer and violinist who was also
France's best fencer and leader of a Black Legion
in the French Revolution is featured at
AfriClassical.com
a prominent composer and violinist who was also
France's best fencer and leader of a Black Legion
in the French Revolution is featured at
AfriClassical.com
Joyce Solomon Moorman
The Second Annual Colour of
Music Festival (COMF) October 22-26, 2014
showcases the breadth and influence of blacks on the classical music
world past and present. The five-day festival features
top black musicians, vocalists, and orchestra leaders from across the
globe performing piano, organ, voice recitals, and chamber works
performed in historic venues across the City of Charleston SC.
A key feature of the 2014 Festival is the performance of works by three
noted living black female composers: Nigerian-American
Nkeiru Okoye, Trinidadian Dominique Le Gendre, and New York-based, South Carolina native
Joyce Solomon Moorman. Additional works by female black composers will feature
Margaret Bond’s (1913-1972) I’ve Known Rivers and Florence Beatrice Smith Price’s (1887-1953)
Night, Dances in the Canebrakes
and Suite No. 1 for Organ.
Additional
highlights on black female composers’ influences will be front and
center on Thursday, October 23 at 8:30am with a special talk presented
by
Dr. Louise Toppin of the University of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill on black female composers’ contributions to classical music with
acclaimed violinist and COMF Concertmaster Jessica McJunkins providing
musical accompaniment.
Black Female Composers’ Contribution to Classical Music Symposium
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23 • 8:30am • Charleston Museum
Dr. Louise Toppin, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Ticket includes talk, panel discussion and vocal presentation featuring Ms. Toppin, then COMF Concertmaster
Jessica McJunkins, violin, Edward Hardy, violin, Eugene Dyson, viola and Timothy Holley, cello performing Joyce Solomon Moorman’s
Remembrances, 68 for String Quartet.
Nkeiru
Okoye
An established voice
in new music, her works have been performed by the Philadelphia
Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony,
Grand Rapids Symphony, New Jersey Symphony and others.
She has garnered numerous awards, commissions and commendations from
MEET THE COMPOSER, the Virginia Symphony, MetLife Creative Connections,
John Duffy Composer Institute, Composer’s Collaborative, Inc., the Walt
Whitman Project, Yvar Mikhashov Trust for New
Music and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers
(ASCAP). After penning her first composition at age 13 and winning first
prize at a national competition, she pursued training as a composer.
Okoye’s best known works include
Brooklyn Cinderella (2011, commissioned by American Opera Projects), Songs of Harriet Tubman (2007, on the CD Heart on a Wall),
Phillis Wheatley (2005 recorded by the Moscow Symphony), Voices Shouting Out (2002, commissioned by the Virginia Symphony);
African Sketches (2007-08, published in the Oxford University Press Anthology of Piano Music of the African Diaspora); and
The Genesis. She holds degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of
Music and Rutgers University and currently serves on the composition
faculty at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
Voices Shouting Out............................................................. Nkeiru Okoye
Charlestonia: A Folk Rhapsody
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 • 8:00pm
Masterworks
at Memminger Auditorium, Marlon Daniel, conductor | Sterling Elliott, cello
Dominique
Le Gendre
A world premiere will be showcased at the 2014 Colour of Music Festival.
Based in London,
Trinidad-born composer Dominique Le Gendre has written music extensively
for theatre, dance, film, television and radio drama for BBC Radio 3
and 4. She composed and produced music for all
38 Shakespeare plays recorded for audio, “The Complete Arkangel
Shakespeare, “directed by Clive Brill. Her musical language has been
described as luminous, glittering and distinctive, reflecting the rich
multi-culture of her Caribbean upbringing.
In 2004 she was invited to become an Associate Artist of the Royal Opera
House, (ROH2) Covent Garden, who commissioned her full-length opera
“Bird of Night," directed by Irina Brown and premiered in October 2006
at the ROH Linbury Theatre. Her chamber works
have been commissioned and performed by The ROH chamber soloists,
Philharmonia Orchestra, Manning Camerata, Lontano Orchestra, Tête-a-Tête
Opera, Ibis Ensemble and British cellist Tony Woollard among others.
She has been Associate Artist to the Manning Camerata led by ROH
concertmaster, Peter Manning with whom she collaborated on the Dramma
per Musica of Seamus Heaney’s “The Burial at Thebes,” directed by Derek
Walcott and premiered in 2008 at Liverpool8 and Shakespeare's
Globe Theatre in London.
In 2012 she
co-curated with Melanie Abrahams " London is the Place for Me” a
two-week festival to celebrate Trinidad/Tobago's 50th Anniversary. In
2013 Dominique was commissioned by New York’s Ensemble du
Monde to premiere a new string quartet "Le Génie Humain" at the
Festival of Afro Caribbean Composers in the Bahamas which will also be
performed at the Colour of Music Festival.
Le Génie Humain (For Quartet)............................................................ Dominique Legendre
Elliott Quartet
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24 • 6:00pm • Charleston Museum
Brendon Elliott, violin | Justine Elliott, violin | Dannielle Weems-Elliott, viola
Sterling Elliott, cello | Brandee Younger, harp
Le Génie Humain (World Premiere For Orchestra).................................. Dominique Le Gendre
Charlestonia: A Folk Rhapsody
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 • 8:00pm
Marlon Daniel, conductor | Sterling Elliott, cello
Joyce
Solomon Moorman
Grew up in Columbia,
South Carolina and earned B. A. degree from Vassar College, a M. A. T.
from Rutgers University, an M. F. A. from Sarah Lawrence College, and
Ed. D. degree from Columbia University.
Recipient of the
ASCAP Standards Panel Annual Award from 1990-2006. Her compositions have
been performed by Lilan Parrot, Triad Chorale, Wilson Moorman, LonGar
Ebony Ensemble, the Woodhill Chamber Ensemble,
the Brooklyn Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble, After Dinner Opera Company,
Sandra Billingslea, the Plymouth Chorus and Orchestra, the Cygnus
Chamber Ensemble, the Moravian Philharmonic and the Philadelphia
Classical Symphony. Ms. Moorman was a winner of the Vienna
Modern Masters 1998 Millennium Commission Competition.
Her opera, “Elegies
for the Fallen,” received a special commendation from the Nancy Van de
Vate International Opera Competition for women composers in 2004. In
1997 she was appointed by the Governor of New
York to the Advisory Music Panel for the New York State Council on the
Arts. Currently she is an Associate Professor in the Music and Art
Department at Borough of Manhattan Community College.
Remembrances, 68 for String Quartet.............................. Joyce Solomon Moorman
Colour of Music Festival Symposium Quartet
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23 • 10:30am • Charleston Museum (following 8:30am presentation)
Jessica McJunkins violin,
Edward Hardy, violin, Eugene Dyson, viola and Timothy Holley, cello
The full Colour of Music Festival schedule can be accessed from the
COMF Brochure.
Full schedule and tickets online: www.colourofmusic.org
or by calling (866) 811-4111.
Series packages with
discounts up to 30% off are available. For all-inclusive packages for
college professors and administrators and/or for groups of ten (10) or
more use code:
GR. $7.00 for
schools/church youth groups. Tickets available at the door (credit card,
cash or check) one hour before each performance.
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