Henry Panion III, PhD
University Professor of Music
Department of Music
The University of Alabama at Birmingham
Shannon Thomason, UAB Media Relations
March 1, 2016
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra will perform “Here We Are,” a composition by University of Alabama at Birmingham University Professor Henry Panion III, in a concert honoring renowned opera star Jessye Norman and the late Dr. Silas Norman Jr.
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Classical Roots Celebration
is in its 37th year and was founded to celebrate and increase the
awareness of contributions to classical music by African-American
composers and performers. The concert will take place Saturday, March 5,
at Orchestra Hall in Detroit. Also on the program are works by Dvorák,
Strauss, Gershwin and Bradford Marsalis.
“Here We Are” was commissioned by the Alabama Symphony Orchestra to
commemorate the 50th anniversary of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street
Baptist Church in 1963 and the tragic deaths of four children, often
commemorated as the “Four Little Girls.” At its Alabama Symphony
Orchestra premiere, on the annual tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.,
music critic Michael Huebner described Panion’s work as the “most
poignant in this concert’s history.”
Panion teaches music orchestration and technology in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Music,
where he is director of the UAB Music Technology Program. He is best
known for his longtime collaboration as conductor and arranger for music
superstar Stevie Wonder. Panion himself has conducted and had his music
performed by more than 50 orchestras across the globe, including
England’s Royal Philharmonic, Russia’s Bolshoi Theater Orchestra and
Japan’s Tokyo Philharmonic, as well as the Atlanta Symphony, the Houston
Symphony, the Cincinnati Pops, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philly Pops
and the National Symphony Orchestra.
For 37 years, the Classical Roots concert has celebrated
African-American contributions to classical music. In 2000, the
black-tie Celebration benefit was founded to honor select
African-American composers, musicians and educators for lifetime
achievement and raise funds to support the DSO’s African-American music
and musician development programs.
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