Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Sergio A. Mims: Conductor Brandon Keith Brown interviewed on my radio show Wednesday, July 1, 2015, 12-3 PM US Central Time, 88.5 FM & www.whpk.org
Brandon Keith Brown
Sergio A. Mims writes:
I wanted to let you and all your readers know that conductor Brandon
Keith Brown will be interviewed on my radio show this Wednesday July 1st on
WHPK-FM Chicago (88.5 FM and live streamed on www.whpk.org 12-3PM U.S. Central Time)
Also on my show I will broadcast Felix Weingartner's
Symphony No. 2 and Franz Schubert's opera Die Fruende
von Salamanka.
Sergio
John Malveaux: May 24 Freedom Concert footage includes Soprano Sheila Yvette Judson, with Pianist Polli Chambers-Salazar, singing 'I Am Moses, the Liberator'
Soprano Sheila Yvette Judson, with Pianist Polli Chambers-Salazar
writes:
MusicUntold.com presented the Freedom Concert -150th
Anniversary of the End of the Civil War - 13th Amendment Abolish
Slavery. The concert included Soprano Sheila Yvette Judson, with Pianist
Polli Chambers-Salazar, singing 'I Am Moses, the Liberator' from the
opera 'Harriett Tubman: When I Crossed That Line To Freedom by composer
and lyricist Nkeiru Okoye
Please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c0-sqevGBs
John Malveaux
Comment by email:
1) [Forwarded by John Malveaux] Thank you for sending. She did a great job with the aria. Nkeiru [Nkeiru Okoye]
2) Wow! Thank you so much. I thoroughly enjoyed performing the aria. Best,
Comment by email:
1) [Forwarded by John Malveaux] Thank you for sending. She did a great job with the aria. Nkeiru [Nkeiru Okoye]
2) Wow! Thank you so much. I thoroughly enjoyed performing the aria. Best,
Sheila [Sheila Yvette Judson]
Monday, June 29, 2015
John Malveaux: Documentary 'What Happened, Miss Simone?' is available on Netflix and the current time is most appropriate to attend
writes:
On Thursday, June 25, 2015, John Malveaux attended screening of WHAT
HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE? at Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The
documentary is available on Netflix and the current time is most
appropriate to see WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE?
Thanks
John Malveaux
Dominique-René de Lerma: A New Publisher Series
Dominique-René de Lerma:
A NEW PUBLISHER SERIES
William
Grant Still Music, the prime source and more often only source for the
music of this major composer (1895-1978), has initiated a new series, Done found my lost sheep,
which, it might be guessed, is directed to the publication of music
from the past -- either in reissue or in first edition. Such a project
has not been previously contemplated.
The
Arizona-based firm has long made available not only printed music, but
audio and video recordings in various format, books, well as
specialty products and materials directed for the young, providing
extensive documentation on its namesake, but has recently become the
source for works by others from Black music history -- the Chevalier de
Saint-Georges, as an example.
Now
comes the new series, which promises to provide new repertoire of older
music for the student, teacher, scholar, and professional. A directory
of currently available materials is located at
http://www.williamgrantstill.com/
The new series is initiated with the ballad for soprano and piano, Henry,
previously available only in the first edition of 1812. With a vocal
range well within the treble clef and piano accompaniment readily within
the ability of most keyboardists, the song lends itself readily for
student or professional recital.
Now
in production is the second title within the series, a version of the
same song which was featured in the City of London's festivities for the
200th anniversary of the abolishment of slavery. The future of the
series is projected to include works of France's Saint-Georges, Cuba's
Joseph White y Lafitte, and England's Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, along
with works by Black Americans such as Will Marion Cook, Frank Johnson,
and Frederick Jerome Work.
Mail to William Grant Still Music may be directed to 809 W. Riordan Road, Suite 100, Box 109, Flagstaff AZ 86001-0810, Phone: (928) 526-9355 ,Fax: (928) 526-0321, or Email: discovermusic@williamgrantstill.com.
---------------------------------
Dominique-René de Lerma
Sunday, June 28, 2015
University of Arkansas Little Rock: Hear Florence Price’s heroic, virtuoso 'Piano Sonata in E Minor' now on 'A Celebration of American Music' by Linda Holzer, piano
Dr. Linda Holzer
Coordinator of Classical Piano Studies
Music Department
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Music Department
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Florence B. Price was the
first African-American woman composer to have her music performed by a
major symphony. She was also a Little Rock native. (Credit University of Arkansas Libraries Special Collections)
Florence B. Price is the second of three American Women Composers heard on A Celebration of American Music, a special program of piano
and piano chamber music. It will air on KLRE Classical 90.5 Sunday, June
28, 2015 at 7 p.m. and again Friday, July 3, 2015 at 7 p.m. Audio of
the program will be accessible on this page following the first
broadcast.
Florence B. Price (1887-1953) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features a comprehensive Works List by Dr. Dominique-René de Lerma, http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com.
Florence Price
(1887-1953), a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, was a pioneer in the
field of American classical music in the early twentieth century. She
became the first black woman composer to earn an international
reputation for her work, and was among the first American composers to
integrate her Negro heritage with Western art music. Price's father, Dr.
James H. Smith, was a dentist, and her mother, Florence Gulliver, was a
school teacher with some musical training who was her daughter’s first
piano teacher. Young Florence Smith was an excellent student, and
graduated from Capitol High School in Little Rock in 1903 as the
valedictorian of her class. She traveled to Boston and enrolled at the
New England Conservatory of Music, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1906.
This institution was among the few professional music schools in the
country that accepted students regardless of race. She taught on the
music faculties of historically black colleges in Georgia and Arkansas
for several years.
In 1912 Florence Smith married attorney Thomas
J. Price and the couple settled in Little Rock, where Thomas Price was
partner in a law firm. His law firm was involved in several contentious
civil rights cases, including the Elaine Race Riot Case in 1919. The
Prices decided to move north to Chicago in 1926. Having lived in Boston
during her student days at the New England Conservatory, Florence Price
quickly found ways to take advantage of Chicago's cultural riches and
the thriving artistic contingent of the urban black community. Among the
pieces she composed in Chicago was the formidable Piano Sonata in E
Minor (1932). Shortly after that, she won the Wanamaker Award for her
1st symphony, which was performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in
1933 as part of the World’s Fair, known as “A Century of Progress.” The
performance was attended by First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote
about it in her column, “My Day.” Price’s heroic, virtuoso Piano Sonata
in E Minor is featured on A Celebration of American Music program. Performer is Linda Holzer, piano, in concert at UALR.
Comment by email:
Thank you, Bill. If you’d like to add this link to the blog, it includes the MP3 of the broadcast.
http://ualrpublicradio.org/post/celebration-american-music
Even if someone wasn’t able to tune in for the 7 PM broadcast today, KLRE is making the full hour program available on their web site via MP3. Thanks very much, Linda Holzer
Tweet Favorited
By Eunice Mullins (@elm57)
Comment by email:
Thank you, Bill. If you’d like to add this link to the blog, it includes the MP3 of the broadcast.
http://ualrpublicradio.org/post/celebration-american-music
Even if someone wasn’t able to tune in for the 7 PM broadcast today, KLRE is making the full hour program available on their web site via MP3. Thanks very much, Linda Holzer
Tweet Favorited
By Eunice Mullins (@elm57)
OvergrownPath.com: Music as a bridge between form and the formless
Hamza El Din (1929-2006)
Bob Shingleton of On An Overgrown Path writes:
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Music as a bridge between form and the formless
It was only when I stood on the Aswan High Dam and looked south across Lake Nasser that I really understood the tragedy of the Nubian people.
Beneath more than 2000 square miles of water lie the Nubian homelands
that were flooded when the dam was built in the 1960s, and between the
dam and Aswan are the soulless villages
that the Nubians were resettled in. Hamza El Din (1929-2006) - seen
above - made it his mission to preserve the Nubian culture that was
being extinguished by the waters of Lake Nasser. He was born in the
Nubian village of Toshka which was flooded when the High Dam was built.
After training as an electrical engineer he went on to study Arabic
music in Cairo and Western music at the Academy of Santa Celia in Rome
before moving to the West Coast of the States. He played at the 1964
Newport Folk Festival, recorded two albums for Vanguard, jammed with the
Grateful Dead and taught at the the legendary Mills College
in Oakland, California. A collaboration with the Kronos Quartet
followed an introduction by Terry Riley, and Hamza El Din's sparse and
repetitive oud lines are though to have influenced the development of
the minimalist style. His two classic albums are Escalay (The Water Wheel) - seen above - recorded for Nonesuch in 1971, and Eclipse, produced by Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart in 1988.
The Nubians practise a syncretic mix of Islam and ancient animism, and Hamza El Din was influenced by Sufi mysticism. Dr H.J. Witteveen
has written that: "Of all the arts music has a particular spiritual
value and meaning, because it helps [us] to concentrate or meditate
independently of thought: and therefore music seems to be the bridge
between form and the formless. This is why music has always played an
important role in Sufism." The Nubian Dhul-Nun al-Misri
(830 CE) was an Egyptian hermetic and Sufi who, according to the
authoritative British Orientalist R A Nicholson, "above all others gave
to the Sufi doctrine its permanent shape". Animistic and shamanistic
elements mix with Islam in the Nubian religion, and the anthropologists
Marlene Dobkin de Rios and Fred Katz have described
how in shamanistic rituals, music provides "pathways and bannisters"
between the familiar form of everyday waking consciousness and the
formless mystery of higher levels of consciousness. That line of
transmission from Hamza El Din to the Minimalists continues through to John Luther Adams. The shamanist rituals of indigenous Alaskans influence John Luther Adams' post-minimalist music - notably in Strange and Sacred Noise - and his best known work Become Ocean has a coincidental but poignant link to the tragedy of the Nubians.
Also on Facebook and Twitter. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Renowned American Composer and Pianist George Walker, born in 1922, has large number of recordings to his credit as he turns 93 on June 27, 2015
George Walker (b. 1922)
has a website at http://georgetwalker.com/
and is featured at
AfriClassical.com
On June 8, 2015 AfriClassical posted:
Among the significant events of George Walker's 92nd year was the Mannes Beethoven Institute of 2015. We linked to a New York Times article of June 5, 2015 by VIVIEN SCHWEITZER:
The unimaginatively named Mannes Beethoven Institute
has in recent years reached far beyond Beethoven, pairing his works
with those by contemporary composers. Stephen Hartke and Peter Lieberson
were recently featured; for this year’s lineup, music by the New
Jersey-based composer George Walker is in the spotlight.
In 1996, Mr. Walker, now 92, became the first black composer to win a Pulitzer Prize, for “Lilacs,” a short piece for soprano and orchestra based on a poem by Walt Whitman.
Mr.
Walker trained as a pianist at the Curtis Institute with Rudolf Serkin,
and his compositional mentors included Rosario Scalero and Nadia
Boulanger. His large catalog features several concertos, numerous
chamber pieces and five piano sonatas; he has received commissions from
the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra
and the New York Philharmonic.
Despite
those accolades, his works are infrequently performed, and the program
on Wednesday at Mannes offered a welcome chance to hear two pieces of
contrasting character. Indeed, it seemed unlikely that the same composer
had written the spiky Violin Sonata No. 2 (1979) and the luxuriant
“Lyric for Strings.” The violinist Miranda Cuckson was the fiery soloist
in the violin sonata, deftly paired with the pianist Thomas Sauer, the
director of the Mannes Beethoven Institute.
Comment by email:
Hello Bill, It's very kind of you to remember my birthday. I am most
appreciative of your thoughtfulness. Best regards. George [George Walker]
Retweeted
By BookChick (@bookchick1327)
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Richard C. Alston: Alston, Lee, & Artisson perform Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Arrangement of 'Deep River' Arranged for Piano Trio (4:32) (YouTube)
is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which
features a comprehensive Works List and a
Bibliography by Dr. Dominique-René de
Lerma,
Lerma,
Uploaded on Aug 28, 2006
Richard
Alston, pianist Christopher Lee, violinist Ellison Arttison, cellist
perform the Negro Spiritual "Deep River" based on the arrangement by
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor included in his 24 Negro Melodies. Arranged as a
trio by Karl Rissland.
Please visit my web sitewww.richardcalston.com
Richard C. Alston writes:
Hello and Good Morning Bill,
In memory of
State Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the pastor
of Emanuel
African Methodist Church , Cynthia Hurd, Tywanza Sanders, Sharonda Singletonn, Myra Thompson, Ethel Lance, Susie Jackson, the Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr. and DePayne
Doctor.
Condolences to their families,
Richard Alston
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Sandra Bailey is New Principal Bassoon of Chicago Sinfonietta; Project Inclusion Fellow Takes On A Leadership Role With The Nation’s Most Diverse Orchestra
Sandra Bailey
Chicago, IL (June 24, 2015) - Chicago Sinfonietta,
a professional orchestra focused on promoting diversity, inclusion, and
innovative programming in the field of classical music, is pleased to
announce the appointment of Sandra Bailey as Principal Bassoon for the
coming 2015-16 season. Bailey won the appointment through blind
auditions that took place on Wednesday June 10, 2015. She recently
graduated from the Sinfonietta’s industry-leading professional
development program, Project Inclusion.
"Chicago Sinfonietta’s Project Inclusion,” explains Maestro
Mei-Ann Chen, “is a special two-year program that works to prepare and
mentor musicians of diverse backgrounds as they pursue careers as
professional classical musicians. A serious, intense, and inspiring
program, Project Inclusion provides musicians with professional
experience and guidance they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.“
Chen recommended Bailey apply for the Project Inclusion Fellowship while
a freshman at Northwestern University. Previously she worked with
Bailey as part of the prestigious Boston University Tanglewood Institute
program in Massachusetts. Chen speaks about her time with Bailey,
“…During her time as a Fellow, my colleagues and I were pleased to
witness Sandra's growth and maturing musical personality on and off the
stage. Sandra's accomplishments on bassoon to date makes her an ideal
example of Project Inclusion's impact on the professional orchestral
scene. The Chicago Sinfonietta is proud to have played an important role
in helping Sandra find her true voice as an extremely gifted
performer.”
"I am honored that such experienced players have invited me in their
music making,” Bailey commented. “I'm looking forward to giving my all.
There's nothing that can replace professional experience and I'm honored
to have the opportunity. The Project inclusion program has allowed me
the space to grow professionally, giving me the confidence to strive for
my highest musical goals."
Bailey will begin performing as principal bassoon in October as part of the 2015-16 season
of the Chicago Sinfonietta. “All of us in the Chicago Sinfonietta are
thrilled and excited to continue working with Sandra in her new role as
our new Principal Bassoon,” Chen states. “It is with great pleasure that
I congratulate her.”
Sandra Bailey Sandra Bailey, 21, studies with David
McGill at Northwestern University. In 2011 she won the Jack Kent Cooke
Artist Scholarship, which gave her the opportunity to appear and perform
on From The Top, a nationally syndicated radio show. With the guidance
of From the Top staff, she has done musical outreach projects and
fundraising performances with Christopher O’Riley, under hosts such as
Joshua Bell and the WGBH Studios in Boston, Massachusetts. In the summer
of 2012 she attended the Castleton Music Festival under conductor Lorin
Maazel. She became a Chicago Sinfonietta member in 2013. In the summer
of 2013 Sandra attended the Brevard Music Festival where she won the Jan
and Beattie Wood Concerto Competition. She attended the ‘Musik Akademie
Westfalen 2013′ under conductor Krzysztof Penderecki and recently the
Orchestra De La Francophone 2014 under Jean Philippe. She was one of
three winners of the Evanston Music competition and was a finalist
Northwestern University Concerto Competition, Skokie Valley Concerto
Competition and Hellam Concerto Competition. She won second place in the
national 2014 Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition and was a first place
winner in the American Protégé International Concerto Competition 2014,
where she performed Hummel Bassoon Concerto in F Major in December at
Carnegie Hall.
More about the Chicago Sinfonietta The Chicago Sinfonietta
is a professional orchestra that forms unique cultural connections
through the universal language of symphonic music. For over 27 years,
the Sinfonietta has pushed artistic and social boundaries to provide an
alternative way of hearing, seeing and thinking about a symphony
orchestra. Each concert experience fuses inventive new works with
classical masterworks from a diverse array of voices to entertain,
transform and inspire. The Chicago Sinfonietta performs five
subscription concerts in both downtown Chicago at Symphony Center and in
Naperville at Wentz Concert Hall. The Sinfonietta has a proud history
of having enriched the cultural, educational and social quality of life
in Chicago under the guidance of Founding Music Director Paul Freeman.
Mei-Ann Chen succeeded Paul Freeman as the Chicago Sinfonietta’s Music
Director beginning with the 2011-12 season. In 2012 the Sinfonietta was
honored with two national awards for excellence from the League of
American Orchestras, one for adventurous programming and one recognizing
Maestro Chen with the Helen M. Thompson Award for an Emerging Music
Director.
For more information on the Project Inclusion Conducting Fellowship program, visit http://www.chicagosinfonietta.org/education/project-inclusion/.
NPR.org: Unearthed In A Library, 'Voodoo' Opera Rises Again
Harry Lawrence Freeman, the Harlem Renaissance composer of the opera Voodoo.
H. Lawrence Freeman Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University
Harry Lawrence Freeman, the Harlem Renaissance composer of the opera Voodoo.
National Public Radio
Unearthed In A Library, 'Voodoo' Opera Rises Again
About eight years ago, as a grad student, Annie Holt was working
in Columbia University's Rare Books and Manuscripts Library when she was
assigned to catalogue the work of Harry Lawrence Freeman, a largely
forgotten Harlem-based composer from the early 20th century.
"It
was fabulous!" she says. "I had the honor of going through all the
cardboard boxes that came right from his family's house and unearthing
everything, and I, for myself, discovered how amazing his story was and
how amazing his music is."
Voodoo in rehearsal.
Jeff Lunden for NPR
Since that experience, Holt has been trying to get one of
Freeman's operas produced. Now, as the artistic director of Morningside
Opera, she has collaborated with Harlem Opera Theater and the Harlem
Chamber Players to present two concert performances of Freeman's 1928
opera, Voodoo.
Holt says Freeman wrote both the music and libretto for Voodoo.
He set the opera on a Louisiana plantation in the Reconstruction
period, a choice Holt says attracted her to the work from a historical
perspective.
"For me, that was a really interesting topic," she
says, "especially looking at Freeman's historical moment during the
Harlem Renaissance and the idea of African-Americans reflecting upon
racial identity in the 75 years after the Civil War."
Freeman
was born in Cleveland, Ohio shortly after the Civil War. He began to
write operas when, at the age of 18, he heard German composer Richard Wagner's Tannhauser.
Freeman moved to Harlem in 1908, established both a music school and
the Negro Grand Opera Company, and was a friend and colleague of Scott Joplin. Freeman wrote more than 20 operas in his lifetime
.
Voodoo in rehearsal.
Jeff Lunden for NPR
Harlem Opera Theater's artistic director, Gregory Hopkins, says
while he hears Wagner's influence in Freeman's music, he hears a lot of
other influences, too.
"Certainly you hear the colloquial music
of the time — there's a cakewalk, there's a buck dance, there's even a
voodoo dance," Hopkins says. "And you hear the interpolation of
spirituals, which were so important to development of the entire
artistic tapestry of the Renaissance."
The use of spirituals in the context of Voodoo
is very much plot-driven. The story, which is a classic love triangle
between two women and one man, hinges on a spurned lover's turning her
back on her faith to use the magical powers of voodoo. She conjures a
giant python and a magic tree and even kills her rival — who is then
revived, miraculously, by holy water, says stage director Melissa
Crespo.
TheStar.co.uk: Romanian-Nigerian pianist Rebeca Omordia will share the stage with...Amy Dickson. [Omordia will play 4 piano studies of Fred Onovwerosuoke]
Rebeca Omordia and Fred Onovwerosuoke
Saxophonist Amy Dickson
(TheStar.co.uk)
(TheStar.co.uk)
On May 19, 2015 AfriClassical posted:
Fred Onovwerosuoke forwards correspondence he has exchanged with Rebeca Omordia:
Dear Fred,
Please see below more publicity in the Sheffield Telegraph for 24 June Bradfield Festival.
Please see below more publicity in the Sheffield Telegraph for 24 June Bradfield Festival.
Here's the link to the publication :
Very best,
Rebeca
Brava, Rebeca, a big BRAVA to you! Amy
Dickson is a multi-Grammy nominee. Thanks for sharing. In our prayers
that within our lifetime we'll see more performers and composers of
color sharing many more arenas of classic music, both large and small.
Be well, my friend.
F.
Sergio A. Mims: BBC.com: Joseph Emidy: From slave fiddler to classical violinist [The remarkable life of a former slave who became a pioneer of classical music]
Joseph Emidy led the Truro Philharmonic Orchestra
(Royal Cornwall Museum)
The 'boss' dedicated to Joseph Emidy will remain in Truro Cathedral
A plaque to mark the life of Joseph Emidy was installed in Falmouth in 2005
Sergio A. Mims:
By Miles Davis
BBC News Online
- 21 June 2015
The remarkable life of a former slave who became a pioneer of classical music has been commemorated.
The "genius" violinist Joseph Emidy, from West Africa, was enslaved for two long periods of his eventful life.
But having finally gained his freedom in 1799, Emidy became "Britain's first composer of the African diaspora".
His
achievements were marked at Truro Cathedral on Sunday with the erection
of a 'boss' - a painted wooden carving featuring a violin and a map of
Africa.
On his death in 1835, The West Briton newspaper reported
in Emidy's obituary: "As an orchestral composer, his sinfonias may be
mentioned as evincing not only deep musical research, but also those
flights of genius."
Emidy is thought to have been born in 1775 and was sold into slavery at the age of 12.
What
is known of Emidy's life comes largely from the autobiography of one of
his students, the anti-slavery politician James Silk Buckingham.
Emidy was first taken to work on plantations in Brazil before he was brought to Lisbon in Portugal by his "owner or master".
Silk Buckingham wrote: "Here he
manifested such a love for music, that he was supplied with a violin
and a teacher; and in the course of three or four years he became
sufficiently proficient to be admitted as one of the second violins in
the orchestra of the opera at Lisbon."
But Emidy's freedom to perform the music he loved was curtailed by the English naval commander, Sir Edward Pellew.
Sir Edward and his crew frequented the Lisbon Opera House while their ship, the Indefatigable, was undergoing repairs in 1795.
They were so impressed by Emidy's talents a press gang was sent to kidnap him to "furnish music for the sailors' dancing".
The
Indefatigable set sail the next day and Emidy spent the next four years
entertaining his shipmates with "hornpipes, jigs, and reels".
Emidy was finally discharged four years later in the port of Falmouth on 28 February 1799.
Retweeted
By Nathaniel Dett Chorale (@ndettchorale)
Retweeted
By Nathaniel Dett Chorale (@ndettchorale)
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Dominique-René de Lerma: Satan In The Conservatory
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
SATAN IN THE CONSERVATORY
Dominique-René de Lerma
My years at Morgan State University (1975-1990) had been a salvation; I
was rescued from an intolerable racist and political environment and
brought into one where the same musical potentials were present, where
being African American could be a source of great pride (Leontyne Price
called it "the luxury of being Black"), but only achieved often with
victories over sociological disadvantage and philosophical
misdirection. This was in Morgan's first really golden age, before
Eric Conway fell heir to the firm foundation established by Nathan
Carter, carrying the school to even greater international importance.
It has just been raised to university status when I arrived. While the
college's history included Shirley Graham DuBois, Eva Jessye, Lonnie
Liston Smith, and Anne Brown, it was the Choir, starting in the 1970s,
that shot the school's musical reputation from performances at
Baltimore's churches to concerts and recording sessions in London,
Copenhagen, Helsinski, and (almost) Leningrad -- why the Soviets
cancelled the concerts when we were all ready to be bussed to the event
was never explained.
Quite
soon I became sensitive to the perestroika between the singers and the
instrumentalists -- a division that has not been exceptional at other
music schools, where the jazzers are absent from the song recital and
the singer has no temptation to give notice to the other world. This
was brought home to be particularly when a bandsman made contrasting
reference to the "musicians and singers." My comment, as kindly as I
could express it, was that this instrumentalist would spend all of his
life trying to perform as a singer, but might never make it.
Instrumentalists,
very much a part of the written tradition, observe that singers usually
perform without music (but for choral performances, where the notation
has become irrelevant) and often need to be coached in their rhythms as
undergraduates, that they learn even more from the oral tradition than
their counterparts.
When
I studied with Marcel Tabuteau at the Curtis Institute, I was not alone
in being introduced to his concept of phrasing, rationally represented
by numbers. Had Tabuteau been more alert to singers, he would have been
aware of the natural phrasing that results from the text's rhetoric.
He insisted that all music had an upbeat which, in a text, would be an
article, perhaps with an adjective. When the theory teacher assigns s
strong beat to the start of a measure, he might notice this is where the
previous harmonic motion has reached a pause, however temporary, with a
consonance, but neglect to alert his class to the performance
implications; one always moves from dissonance to a resolution, just as
articles and adjectives must be followed by a noun. This can be
observed by looking at Beethoven's dynamics.
There
is more behind the instrumentalist-singer dichotomy, especially in a
Black school. The singer is found in church on Sunday mornings, while
the instrumentalist spends the previous night in the jazz club. There's
the rub.
Morgan
was loaded with vocal talent, certainly in equal proportion to that
found in the nation's most celebrated schools. It was from this
foundation that Morgan produced such stars from Betty Ridgeway's studio
as Kevin Short, Maysa Leak, Kishna Davis... These were among those
whose careers became possible, not only from talent, but from a
willingness to study all that the profession demanded -- requisites not
even imagined by the naively gifted. As I told Kishna after she
astonished the faculty at her freshman audition with a Puccini aria, her
talent was her cross. There were many others with an extraordinary
gift, but who lacked the courage to go the rest of the way, who felt
they were ready immediately, right then and there.
Most
painful during my stay was an exceptional and true contralto, one whose
voice was wonderfully rich, with a thrilling texture. When she sang
Schubert's Der Tod und das Mädchen, so she needed more work with
her diction, but the final low bass-clef D was as glorious as anything I
had ever heard. We met in my office, and she expressed a curiosity
about Marian Anderson, someone she had only heard about briefly. I told
her Mahler and Brahms were impatient for her, even if she never heard
of them. All this was totally new to her, and there is nothing more
exciting than a young person just finding out what a superb career in
the arts talent would make possible, if they met the demands.
I
left Morgan as she was to enter her second year, urgently called by
Samuel Floyd to become director of the Center for Black Music Research
in Chicago. I had little difficulty following the evolution of the
careers of Kevin, Maysa, Kishna (check the internet!), and the others
who had won my devotion and support, but what of the contralto? Alas,
her church convinced her that Schubert, Mahler, and Brahms wrote the
devil's music and, like Mahalia Jackson, she left the poorly identified
secular world behind. She could certainly have continued singing in
church, but her ill-informed advisors won with no compromise. How I
would have wished they knew music well enough to realize the godliness
of that music which also was so beneficial to the soul!.
------------------------------------
Dominique-René de Lerma
John Malveaux: NPR.org: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Musician Gunther Schuller Dies At 89
writes:
Gunther Schuller bridged classical music and jazz http://www.npr.org/2015/06/22/416390008/pulitzer-prize-winning-musician-gunther-schuller-dies-at-89
Thanks
John
National Public Radio
Gunther Schuller bridged classical music and jazz http://www.npr.org/2015/06/22/416390008/pulitzer-prize-winning-musician-gunther-schuller-dies-at-89
Thanks
John
National Public Radio
Gunther Schuller, who bridged classical music and jazz, has died at age
89. The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, conductor and educator ranged
widely in his musicianship.
Monday, June 22, 2015
In Memoriam, Gunther Alexander Schuller, 1925-2015: Dominique-René de Lerma
Gunther Alexander Schuller (1925-2015)
IN MEMORIAM, GUNTHER ALEXANDER SCHULLER, 1925-2015:
Dominique-René de Lerma
He
was born in New York, the son of a violinist with the New York
Philharmonic (1923-1965): German-born Arthur Schuller. His formal
education began at a private school in Germany (1932-1936) then in New
York at the St. Thomas Choir School, with pre-college study at the
Manhattan School of Music. He never was a university student, although a
high-school dropout who never earned a college diploma, he held ten
honorary doctorates. While in high school, he was introduced to the
music of Duke Ellington on a radio broadcast, remaining an Ellington
enthusiast for life. He was only 15 when he joined the orchestra of
the American Ballet Theatre as hornist in 1943, the same year he was
appointed principal horn with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra to 1945,
then occupying the same position with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
until 1959.
He
had already become active in jazz, working with John Lewis by 1955. In
later years he worked, mainly as arranger, with the Modern Jazz
Quartet, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charles Mingus, but he was a sideman in
recordings with Frank Sinatra (1950), Mitch Miller (1951), Gigi Gryce
(1955), Johnny Mathis (1956), and Miles Davis (1949, with Birth of the cool).
In 1957 at Brandeis University, he introduced the term "third stream,"
indicating an ecumenical alliance of jazz with concert music. With
David Baker, he was conductor of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks
Orchestra.
He
visited T. J. Anderson after T.J.'s move to Tufts University where,
following supper, T. J. played a tape recording of his 1972 Atlanta
performance of Scott Joplin's Treemonisha. Gunther subsequently
made his own arrangement of the opera, commercially videotaped and
recorded in Houston, followed by tours. A second version secured a 2012
performance in London.
Early jazz (1968) and The sing era (1991) are significant histories, which he published with Oxford University Press.
As
administrator, he was director of the Tanglewood Music Center
(1965-1984), meanwhile serving as president of the New England
Conservatory. From 1993, he directed the Northwest Bach Festival in
Spokane.
He died in a Boston hospital, to the sound of Beethoven's final symphony.
On a personal note: I invited Gunther to participate in the 1969 conference held at Indiana University (reference: Black music in our culture,
Kent: Kent State University Press, 1970). Although he replied with
regrets, he nonetheless attended on his own, observing the lack of
ethnic identity taking place in the globalization of music. I next
encountered him at Lawrence University where he greeted me, surprised I
had left Indiana. He was then on his way to a university convocation
where he spoke on the importance of a liberal-arts education, not having
realized this was the prime mission of the University. He returned to
Lawrence two more times, a guest of Professor Robert Levy. At the first
of these, we sat together at a luncheon, discussing Leopold Stokowski.
A musical polymath -- prodigy horn player, Pulitzer-prize composer,
advocate of the Third Stream, jazz historian and performer, publisher,
administrator -- he secured popular notice with his recordings of Scott
Joplin while at the New England Conservatory (167-1977). I was ever
tempted, but never followed through, to call his attention to Paul
Laurence Dunbar's text for Will Marion Cook's 1903 In Dahomey: "When they hear our ragtime tunes, White folks try to pass for coons."
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Dominique-René de Lerma
Sergio A. Mims: New York Times: ‘Voodoo,’ Opera by the African-American Composer H. Lawrence Freeman, Is Revived
Musicians rehearse at the Convent Avenue
Baptist Church for “Voodoo,”
a long-
unheard opera by the pioneering
African-American composer and
Harlem
Renaissance figure H. Lawrence Freeman.
James Estrin/The New York Times
Sergio A. Mims:
No doubt this is a major story of vast importance.
Michael Cooper
June 21, 2015
He
was described as a black Wagner in the late 19th century, went on to
write more than 20 operas and formed the Negro Grand Opera Company,
which he once conducted at Carnegie Hall. But after the pioneering
African-American composer H. Lawrence Freeman died in 1954, he fell into obscurity, with his works unpublished, unrecorded and, for decades, unperformed.
Until
now. Mr. Freeman’s opera “Voodoo,” about a love triangle on a
plantation in post-Civil War Louisiana, will be given its first
performances since 1928 on Friday and Saturday
at the Miller Theater at Columbia University. The revival offers a
glimpse of a nearly forgotten chapter of African-American operatic
achievement, and another chance for Mr. Freeman to claim the place in
musical history he had always sought against long odds, lengthened by
discrimination.
“Voodoo” might have remained an unheard and unperformed historical footnote had Mr. Freeman’s family not placed his papers and scores
in Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library in 2007. The
collection interested scholars, who were drawn to his accounts of the
Harlem Renaissance, and also came to fascinate Annie Holt, a graduate
student who cataloged it. A year later she helped start a small opera
company of her own, Morningside Opera, with the vague idea of someday
mounting one of Mr. Freeman’s forgotten operas.
That
is how the strains of “Voodoo,” in which passages of Wagnerian grandeur
alternate with spirituals and a cakewalk, came to be heard again for
the first time in decades last week in practice rooms at the Convent
Avenue Baptist Church in Harlem, where Morningside Opera and its partners in the production, Harlem Opera Theater and the Harlem Chamber Players, ran through the work.
The
rehearsal drew Alberta Grannum Zuber, 88, who joined the Freeman family
when one of her sisters married the composer’s son, Valdo. Ms. Zuber
sang a small role in Mr. Freeman’s Egyptian-theme opera “The Martyr”
when he conducted it at Carnegie in 1947. As she listened to the young
singers bring the long-dormant “Voodoo” back to life, Ms. Zuber said
that she did not think that Mr. Freeman ever doubted that he would be
remembered for posterity.
“I think he felt it in his bones,” she said.
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