Eric Conway writes:
Hello everyone,
If
you follow the Morgan State University Choir, you certainly know that
we have a big week ahead of us. We have been asked to sing with the
Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra on this coming weekend November 13-15,
2015 at the Verizon Hall of Kimmel Center for the Arts in downtown
Philadelphia, PA. We will sing a piece by Hannibal Lucumbe entitled
"One Land, One River, One People." If you attended our Spring 2015
concert, you heard the first movement of this piece - "One Land.” This
movement was well-received by most accounts. The composer only recently
completed the last two movements - One River and One People. Hannibal
Lucumbe was originally known as a jazz trumpeter prior to delving into
the compositional arena. His jazz background is heard throughout his
compositions. This project is a beautiful rekindling of our relationship
with Hannibal, as he likes to simply call himself. For you see over
twenty years ago, Morgan State University Choir performed and recorded
his African Portraits with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. His African
Portraits has gone on to be one of the most iconic African American
compositions in recent times. This project with the Philadelphia
orchestra also includes both Lincoln Univeristy and Delaware State
University. This is very historic for the Philadelphia orchestra to
invite three different HBCU’s to participate in this project - two from
their community and one from Maryland. The choir will number 134 voices
where Lincoln and Delaware will have 20 voices each, and Morgan will
provide 94 voices. Clearly most of the choir is from Morgan. If you
have the opportunity to drive up to Philadelphia to hear this work, I
believe that it will be well-worth your time. To get a sense of the
importance of this project to the orchestra, the young maestro of the
orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin will conduct this work, who is
considered one of the best conductors in the world! Yesterday, local
Philadelphia press provided an article announcing this project. Please
see link below with a PDF of article. Although there are some popular
idioms in the composition, this was still a difficult piece to learn for
all of the choirs, as all new music certain challenges. At the end of
day, I firmly believe that we will be musically richer having spent time
learning this piece centered around the theme of God’s creation of the
world. We had a very inspiring joint rehearsal last Wednesday, November
4th at Morgan State University where the composer was on site to give
his insight. See photo with all of the conductors and Hannibal posing
for a photograph. Also see link to Philadelphia website for additional
information.
Best,
Eric
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