Saturday, December 31, 2016

Errollyn Wallen: Happy New Year — album PHOTOGRAPHY in NPR's Top Ten Classical albums


Photography
NMC

Errollyn Wallen

Errollyn Wallen writes:

[1]“So fine was the morning except for a streak of wind here and there that the sea and sky looked all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up in the sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea.” 

 [2]New release PHOTOGRAPHY (NMC label)
in NPR's Top Ten Classical Albums of 2016

 

Happy New Year!

Errollyn x

John Malveaux: RollingOut.com: Chicago Sinfonietta conductor Kalena Bovell talks importance of music education

Kalena Bovell

John Malveaux of 
writes:


Rolling Out

Lauren Martinez

December 24, 2016

Renowned musician and violinist Karlena Bovell represents a small percentage African American female symphony conductors. She believes her persistence and humility along with with receiving exceptional mentoring from some of the industry’s best composers have been the keys to her success in her line of work. Bovell currently serves as the assistant conductor for the prestigious Chicago Sinfonietta, a professional orchestra dedicated to modeling and promoting diversity through symphonic music. The 29-year-old organization is gearing up for its annual MLK tribute concert billed for Jan. 14-16. Bovell spoke with rolling out to discuss her involvement with the show, her musical upbringing and the importance of music education in the school system.

When did you discover you had an interest in music?
Probably before I could even pronounce the word. I think I was like 6 or 7, which probably sounds bad because I was in the first grade. I was in the car with my mom and I liked the music that was on the radio, but for some reason, that word would not come out.

How did you train growing up?
I actually have a different story compared to most people. I honestly didn’t think I was going to be a musician or a conductor. Both of my parents are from Central America so they came to this country trying to achieve the American dream, which was an education, food on the table and clothes on our backs. Music never really fit into that equation. It was by chance in middle school that I just started playing the violin and I fell in love with it. I thought I would end up being a violin player, but had a lack of financial resources and music education awareness. I didn’t know about private lessons and I didn’t take my first lesson until I was 18. Imagine getting to college thinking you’re really good and then you hear the people around you that have had training since they were four and realize you’re actually not that good. Sophomore year of undergrad, I was removed from orchestra because the director felt I wasn’t good enough. I told him, “I am not my colleagues; I am me.” It was by chance that I started conducting. I was fortunate to attend a music conducting class and workshop and work with someone who was a really big influence. He basically pulled me aside one day and said, “You could be really good if you just believed.” At that point, I started believing and that’s when my life started to change and really started pursuing conducting.

Who are your favorite artists to listen to?
I love Brahm. He is my composer. If I could conduct Brahms 24/7 all day and every day I would be happy. I also gain inspiration from non-classical music. If you ride in my car, I listen to heavy metal and alternative which sounds so weird, but I’m a poet so words are really important to me. Listening to these other genres influence how I hear classical music.

What is your proficiency?

I would say I’m proficient in classical music. Music is constantly changing and how we as people listen to music is constantly changing.

I would also like to say that I’m open-minded and versatile enough to at least conduct or be aware that all these genres do exist. I think it’s really important to know our history like the Bach and the Beethoven, but also know the Jennifer Higdon and the composer that might live above you in your apartment complex.


How does your training and experience inform your craft to serve as a conductor?
I was a music education major in undergrad. I basically went to the conducting teacher and asked to take lessons. He thought I wanted to get another degree, but I just wanted to take conducting lessons. I went to all of the conducting classes and did more work than his actual conducting students. I sat in every rehearsal and this was during the period where I worked six different jobs to save up money to attend the different workshops. After undergrad, I went to community college so I could strengthen my skills to really prepare myself for graduate school. I studied really hard and I was able to get into The Hartt School, which led me to Connecticut. I met a great teacher who was someone I considered to be a father figure. That is really how my training started with conducting. It started with having the mindset knowing this is what I wanted to do plus I have such a persistent personality that I wasn’t going to stop until I made it happen.

How important is music and art education?
I think they are incredibly important and for someone like me who never thought that these opportunities would be possible they were because I had a music education program in middle school. It was possible because everyone had to take orchestra or choir. I began singing back in elementary school. It’s such a disadvantage because music has saved a lot of children because sometimes children are hyperactive and they don’t know what to do with all that energy. When you get them involved in music and the arts it gives them something to focus on and they realize it’s something that they’re good at.

What is a Freeman Fellow?
Chicago Sinfonietta has a program of inclusion with instrumentalists and then the Freeman Conducting Fellow is basically within that same program. You are getting a taste of the real world and are learning the things that they don’t teach you in grad school. You’re learning how to work with an organization, how to work with donors, how to work with a board, and how to compose yourself on and off the podium. If you have hopes to become a music director you’re getting that training as a conducting fellow. We also get to shadow very closely and work with the Sinfonietta team.

Please explain how significant it is to be a Sinfonietta assistant conductor for Chicago Sinfonietta’s annual MLK concert.
The best way I could describe it is to talk about how significant it was for me. Last year, was the first time I had seen the MLK concert and I remember walking out of the auditorium completely changed. It was a life-altering experience because when I thought about Martin Luther King’s dream and how far we have come as a nation. To see so many people in this space come together and celebrate life and the joy of music was beautiful.

Retweeted
By Kalena Bovell (@SilvurSmiles

Friday, December 30, 2016

Afro-Cuban Composer & Violinist José White, born Dec. 31, 1835, wrote "La Bella Cubana," played by Fernando Muñoz (5:58) on YouTube

[José Silvestre White (1835-1918), Afro-Cuban violinist and composer. Shown here after he received the 1st prize for violin at the Conservatoire de Paris in 1856. Bibliothèque Nationale de France]

Capricho Latino
Rachel Barton Pine, violin
Etude No. 6, Jose White
Cedille Records CDR 90000 124 (2011)

In its review of Capricho Latino, ClassicalCandor.blogspot.com notes:
“Jose White's Etude No. 6 is more mainstream than most of the other works on the album and strikes a Romantic note in the program.” Craig Zeichner observed in Ariama.com on June 21, 2011: “Pine is one of the great violinists and in a short time has made some of the most consistently excellent recordings available anywhere, this may be one of her very best.” CD Universe classifies the recording as “Post-Romantic.”

Rachel Barton Pine writes in the liner notes:
“Each of White's Six Etudes (1868) is dedicated to a famous violinist: his teacher Alard, Ernesto Camillo Sivori, Henri Vieuxtemps, Henryk Wieniawski, Hubert Leonard, and one Secundino Arango, whose identity has intrigued European and American scholars. Arango, Afro-Cuban, born in Havana at the end of the 18th century and deceased in the same city in the late 1840's, was a violinist, cellist, organist, and composer of both religious music and popular danzones. He was also White's first violin teacher. Fittingly, White's Etude No. 6 is a danzón with a pyrotechnic central section much in the virtuoso Parisian style of the time.”

José Silvestre White is featured at AfriClassical.com, with a Works List by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma, http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com

Fernando Muñoz plays "La Bella Cubana" by Jose White (5:58)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GGzspkZFzg


Published on Jun 13, 2012 by fernandoviolin1987
Trio Concertante
Fernando Muñoz violin
Dianelys Castillo clarinete
Leonardo Gell piano

Season's Greetings from Imani Winds: Please consider an end-of-year tax-deductible donation to make a difference in the world of chamber music

We wish all of you and yours a happy holiday season! This year has elicited so much change both in the world and within our group, and out of this change Imani Winds' path has become more defined and exciting. Please consider an end-of-year tax-deductible donation to be a part of our efforts to make a difference in the world of chamber music.*


20th Anniversary

The New Year will mark the grand accomplishment of the 20th anniversary of Imani Winds. We are celebrating in many ways including the continuation of our Legacy Commissioning Project where we will commission new works by women composers over the course of the next 5 years. 2017 will bring premieres of pieces by Reena Esmail, Nkeiru Okoye, Courtney Bryan, and Imani Winds' own Valerie Coleman as well as a new piece by 2016 Pulitzer-prize winner Henry Threadgill.

University of Chicago

We have completed the first semester of our two-year residency as the Don Michael Randel Ensemble in Residence at the University of Chicago. It has been an honor to work with the tremendously talented students of this institution. Because of the tireless work of faculty and staff members including Augusta Read Thomas and Amy Iwano, we will be offering a wide array of activities to the public - including a concert celebrating the life of poet Gwendolyn Brooks, premieres of works by U. of Chicago students, and the commissioning of several new works. Log onto our website for more information about this residency and other activities of the ensemble.

Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival

The seventh year of the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival will take place June 2nd - 11th, 2017. We are excited to encourage and help develop the hearts and minds of the next generation of chamber musicians. For more information check the IWCMF website, www.imaniwindsfestival.com.



Kelly Hall-Tompkins: Music Kitchen, Food for the Soul, NEA Grant $10,000 = Your Match

86th Performance
Featuring Emanuel Ax
With Kelly Hall-Tompkins, violin and Alexis Gerlach, cello 
November 29, 2016
Park Avenue Armory Lenox Hill Women’s Shelter
It was such a pleasure to welcome Emanuel Ax back as featured soloist for this afternoon's concert.  I have been searching for the last several years for an ideal shelter venue at which to present him after the venue which hosted his first Music Kitchen performance changed its services to no longer serve groups, but rather only one on one appointments.  Thanks to my new partner, Andrew Heinrich of Project Rousseau, I was connected with the Park Avenue Armory Women's Shelter.  The program, located on the 4th floor, has a lovely wood-floored community room that resembles performance spaces for many a little series around the country. They even have a piano already on site.  It turns out that the piano is unfortunately an upright and a technician worked on it tirelessly for over 3 hours to bring it to something remotely resembling concert readiness.  But with a shelter staff focused on the life and death issues surrounding homelessness, it puts a piano lacking in concert hall qualities into perspective.  Manny Ax, so gracious and more eager to focus on reaching the shelter clients than on the type of piano, quickly transported us all and made us forget that it wasn't a concert grand.  For the foreseeable future, due to the downsized elevator and other renovations, bringing such a piano here is an impossible dream.
After our rehearsal was concluded, a few heads poked into our room without any real commitment just yet.  So I walked down the hall lined with dormitory rooms playing the Fiddler on the Roof theme.  It was like the Pied piper, searching for those whose souls were called by music.  I saw many faces look up from mundane tasks, folding bedding, organizing, and brighten into smiles as they recognized the theme.  "Fiddler on the Roof!" Some exclaimed.  By the time I returned to the community room, it was now full with a nice crowd.
Manny started with a solo work, Schubert theme and variations.  He warmly invited their involvement and curiosity by asking if anyone has a birthday coming up.  When a few people said yes, he launched into a rendition of the birthday song. He then explained how in different scenarios you might take that same song and write it various different ways- demonstrating variations.  He then went on to play the Schubert, taking us on the inspired journey and, again, defying the limitations of the modest piano.  Only at the end of the 8 minute piece did the listeners audibly exhale, some accompanied by "wow!"  The audience was transfixed and drank in every note.  A couple of  listeners first asked about story of the music, which we discussed while setting up for the Brahms.
As I like to do, I introduced Brahms through the lens of his struggles - I spoke of how he doubted his work and burned or wall-papered many first attempts to shield them from posterity.  I said that even the work we were about to play he wrote as a 20 year old man and came back to revise a full 30 years later.  The lesson in all of it is that though we face difficulty and doubt, if we keep going we will get there.  Many heads bobbed in the room, clients and staff.
Then on a more fun note, and similarly to Manny's intro, I asked who likes comfort food.  Everyone chimed in.  Which comfort foods do you like?  I heard responses like spare ribs and cheesecake and pizza and chocolate cake.  "Well, this piece, especially the first movement," I explained, "is like comfort food for the soul.  Something about it just feels right."  They really liked that idea and listened with even more eager anticipation.  The first response came "what was he thinking there?"  An interesting question.  I offered, "a young man of 20, just beginning to write chamber music, just met Robert and Clara Schumann, feeling perhaps the awakens of a young man in love and at the beginning of his career."  Manny added that he is a bit of a tragic figure due to the lifelong unrequited love and that he remained alone for his whole life.  He even suggested that perhaps he allowed his boyish youthful handsomeness to be overtaken by a mass of facial hair as a sign of his despair.  Our audience loved the first movement of the Brahms, noticing both the soaring melody and the conflict which seemed to them to be the character of the development.  But it was the still and statuesque slow movement which truly captured the listeners.  “Wow, I went to Juilliard and I really needed this.  It makes me forget all of the problems I have to deal with right now,” said one.  After the last movement, the listeners were so exuberantly appreciative of our performance.  We quickly took a group photo.  A woman I recognized from our last performance (Stravinsky) said to me with tears in her eyes, “You always warm my heart when you come here!” 

Thursday, December 29, 2016

In 2016 MBDA reached new milestones creating along the way important initiatives and programs that supported the continued growth of minority business enterprises



As we bring 2016 to a close, the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) is particularly proud of the accomplishments achieved throughout the year. This year, MBDA reached new milestones creating along the way important initiatives and programs that supported the continued growth of minority business enterprises (MBEs) within an innovation-driven economy.

Throughout the year, MBDA played a critical role in U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker’s Open for Business agenda. As the leading federal agency dedicated to the growth and global competitiveness of MBEs, MBDA remains enthusiastic about the future role that MBEs will increasingly play in fueling the Nation’s economic health and prosperity.

American Opera Projects in 2016: A Year of Transformative Opera


Taylor Raven and Jorell Williams in Seattle Opera's new production of AS ONE, November 2016.  Photo: Rozarii Lynch


Mei-Ann Chen: Support Chicago Sinfonietta: A Different Kind of Orchestra


Uploaded on Dec 21, 2016

What makes the Sinfonietta unique? Maestro Mei-Ann Chen answers.

Chicago Sinfonietta continues to be a different kind of orchestra. What you see and hear on stage, who you see in the audience, and what you experience leaves an impact like no other arts organization in the city. 
 
Give the gift of music, be a positive influence in a young person's life, and change the landscape of classical music with a donation to Chicago Sinfonietta.
 
Please consider a contribution that will allow us to expand and enrich the Sinfonietta family by strengthening the orchestra and bolstering our community programming.
 
Thank you for your generosity. We are truly grateful.
 
To learn more, visit www.chicagosinfonietta.org/support.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra: "The Music of Prince" Live Streamed, Led by guest conductor Brent Havens, who arranged Prince’s top hits for orchestra, Dec. 31, 10 PM



THE MUSIC OF PRINCE

FREE NEW YEAR'S EVE WEBCAST
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31 @ 10:00PM EST

Put on your dancing shoes and walk the purple carpet, it’s time to party like it’s 1999 with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in partnership with Detroit Public Television as they pay tribute to the iconic legend known for his eclectic work, flamboyant stage presence, extravagant dress and perhaps, most importantly, his out-of-this-world music! 
Led by guest conductor Brent Havens, who arranged Prince’s top hits for orchestra, the DSO together with a tribute band will perform adaptations of the artist’s top hits including "Little Red Corvette," "Purple Rain," "Raspberry Beret," "When Doves Cry" and more.
Televised and live-streamed worldwide by Detroit Public Television made possible by the Stanley and Judith Frankel Family Foundation. 

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Somm Recordings Releases Complete Non-orchestral Piano Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams by Rebeca Omordia & Mark Bebbington 27 January 2017

Rebeca Omordia and Mark Bebbington
(Tweeted by @NaijaClassical)

Eni Fashani writes:

Rebeca Omordia joins renowned British pianist Mark Bebbington on a new release by SOMM Recordings of first ever recording of Vaughan Williams’ complete piano music.  The CD includes the world premiere of 'Introduction and Fugue' for two pianos and a 1947 transcription of 'Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis' written for two pianos.  

http://www.rhinegold.co.uk/international_piano/31675/

https://twitter.com/NaijaClassical/status/811533041667604481

Best regards,

Eni Fashanu 
Fourchiefs Media

Retweeted 
By Rebeca Omordia (@RebecaOmordia)

Godwin Sadoh: Chase Castle performs selections from my "Impressions from an African Moonlight" Sat. Jan. 7, 2017 at Bethel Lutheran, Biloxi, MS, 7 PM CST

Godwin Sadoh

Chase Castle

Prof. Godwin Sadoh writes:

Dear Bill,
             
Chase Castle will perform selected pieces from my Impressions from an African Moonlight, in a Gulf Coast Organ Recital, on Saturday January 7, 2017, at Bethel Lutheran Church, 2521 Pass Road, Biloxi, Mississippi, 7:00 PM CST.

Godwin Sadoh

Comment by email:

Thanks Bill. I'll share it on Facebook.  [Godwin Sadoh]

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Miriam Makeba: Mama Africa The Musical from African Music Publishers Documents The Long, Hard Struggle of An African Musical Legend Against Apartheid

Miriam Makeba: Mama Africa The Musical
African Music Publishers AMP AGCD 2609 (2016)

The liner notes for this recording are by Fred Onovwerosuoke, whose website is www.fredomusic.com.  They begin with a Synopsis.

Synopsis

MIRIAM MAKEBA - MAMA AFRICA (the musical) tells the story, life and times of Miriam Makeba.  This original musical centers on the life, struggle and legacy of South African talent and phenomenal singer, Miriam Makeba. She lived the majority of her life, exiled from South Africa for more than 30 years.  She left South Africa in the late 1950's and was forbidden to return until 1992.  During her years in exile she devoted her life and art to the South African ideal and cause, for freedom, justice and equality.  She passed away in 2008.

This musical explores her activism in helping to bring down apartheid (and impact on the global civil rights movement), her fame & international success owing to her magical voice and her endurance in overcoming betrayal, failed marriages and the death of her only daughter, Bongi, while in exile.  Set in Africa, the USA and Belgium MIRIAM MAKEBA - MAMA AFRICA (the musical) is an inspirational, universal story that will appeal to a multi-generational audience worldwide.

Sequence of Tracks

Act 1 of the Musical opens with a Zulu/Xhosa chant inviting the audience to hear the story of a remarkable legend, Miriam Makeba.  It is quickly followed by the call & response song, Emabhacheni and the dance tune, Kikirikiki. Ntutu's Song welcomes the birth of a new child, Miriam!  Hapo Zamani is a satire on the antics of Apartheid police, while Khawyleza is one of those 'code songs' to alert mothers/neighbors about police raids.  At the birth of a child, joys or strife, the seer/healer, Sangoma, always is sought for advice and divination.  Hence the traditional songs, Baxabene Oxam, Uhadi and Bamtwana Bokugula.  The Click Song which Miriam sang for US President John Kennedy.  Malaika is the endearing KiSwahili love song that Miriam Makeba made popular, used in the Musical to celebrate Zenzi's marriage to police constable James Kubay.  Then followed the dance songs, Saduva and Ibhabalazi.  Sabumoya reflects on difficult times for Miriam and family after prison.  Freedom Song is mesh of two protest songs echoing the pains of similarly oppressed peoples.  As were the protest songs, Sobashy and Abazali and Beware Verwoed, against erstwhile Apartheid prime minister, especially suring the Sharpville Massacre.  Nguma Kurila in the Musical was used in the scene of Bongi's (Makeba's daughter) arrival in the United States and of tales from her homeland of South Africa.  Thambo Uyigwe, Uwam Uyajabula and Nongqongqo are from scenes where Miriam uses her found fame to passionately appeal to world leaders to respond to untold atrocities, the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, etc., in South Africa.  The lovely track, Amabonvani, follows.  Act 2 opens with a rousing Zulu chant, a series of songs & chants not included on the CD, followed by the set of emotive reminiscences - Iyaguduza, reflecting on matrimonial pains, African Sunset and Suliram. The Musical closes with Pata Pata, Miriam Makeba's rousing signature tune!  

For a listener without knowledge of African languages and dialects, the recording can sound more festive than its subject matter truly is.  The sober message of the liner notes brought this reviewer's mind back to the anti-apartheid campaigns of Amnesty International, as a volunteer member of a local chapter of the group for several years beginning in the late Seventies.  Presentations by former prisoners of South Africa's apartheid regime provided priceless context to the stream of documents about oppression of the majority of the country's people.  Each listener will bring a unique perspective to this musical account of the life and music of Miriam Makeba, but the story is one which deserves to be widely disseminated.

Comment by email:
Blessings to you, Bill. And much gratitude for your tireless service. Have a great New Year!  Fredo  [Fred Onovwerosuoke]

Dr. William H. Chapman Nyaho, Born Dec. 28, 1958, is Pianist, Professor & Pioneer of Sheet Music and CDs of Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora

Senku: Piano Music by Composers of African Descent
William Chapman Nyaho, piano
Musicians Showcase 1091 (2003)

ASA: Piano Music by Composers of African Descent
William Chapman Nyaho, piano
MSR Classics MS1242 (2008)

William H. Chapman Nyaho (b. 1958)

Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora
Compiled and Edited by
William H. Chapman Nyaho
Volume 2
Oxford University Press

Dr. William Chapman Nyaho (b. 1958) is featured at AfriClassical.com. He is a well-traveled recitalist with a great many residencies to his credit.  He turns 58 Wednesday, Dec. 28.  He has landmark recordings and sheet music publications to his credit. His performance website is 
http://www.nyaho.com/ and he has a Facebook Page.

Nyaho.com
William Chapman Nyaho brings a unique cultural background and extraordinarily eclectic sense of music to the concert hall, propelling an evening of his music to, as one critic put it, "reach great heights."
His teaching experience and great sensitivity make the master classes, lectures and school activities highlights of his residencies that almost rival his exciting performances.

His performances with Susanna Garcia in the well-respected Nyaho/Garcia Duo have equally won criticial acclaim.

Nyaho's love of music, expressed through his insightful technique, creates an exciting musical experience for the experienced music devotee and newcomer alike.

Sergio A. Mims: TheArtsDesk.com: Kanneh-Mason, Fantasia Orchestra, Fetherstonhaugh, St Gabriel's Pimlico BBC Young Musician of the Year

Sheku Kanneh-Mason in a Fantasia Orchestra rehearsal earlier this year


Sergio A. Mims forwards this post:

The Arts Desk

By David Nice

Wednesday, 21 December 2016


Sheku Kanneh-Mason isn't just BBC Young Musician 2016 - he's the year's top player in my books, a master at any level. Despite a contract with Decca, starting with the Shostakovich First Cello Concerto he played in the competition finale, he looks likely to remain loyal to family and friends, including the Fantasia Orchestra, founded this year, in which he's already played as part of the cello section.
You have to pinch yourself to realise the ages delivering this quality. Kanneh-Mason is 17, as was Mendelssohn when he composed the work of total genius which launched last night's concert; conductor Tom Fetherstonhaugh, currently Junior Organ Scholar at Merton College, Oxford, is 18; many of the players in the Fantasia are younger still, coming as they do from junior as well as senior conservatoire orchestras (another Kanneh-Mason, brother Braimah with whom Sheku spars so charmingly in the fabulous BBC documentary, is one of the first violins). Kanneh-Mason was, of course, in the limelight, and the original reason for heading out to a high church in Pimlico, but this concert delivered so much more.
Those strings, for a start: no orchestra sets out into the woods of Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream Overture without some discipline and ability to master its flitting fairy music. These violins absolutely could, precise from the start, and there were even artistically portamento-d "hee-haw"s in the rude mechanicals' bergomask dance. The strings' buoyancy in Haydn's C major Cello Concerto was almost as much of a delight as Kanneh-Mason's playing (the cellist pictured above with the orchestra in rehearsal), and he acknowledged it by stepping back into what amounted to an obbligato role in the finale, keeping it light rather than showy.
The technical difficulty of the work can be disproportionate to its effect, but Kanneh-Mason's intonation was near-perfect, his dynamic shading kept us focused and he even managed to make the minor-key mood at the heart of the Adagio sound profound. So much of his artistry is akin to the lessons of bel canto; there were parallels with Lucy Crowe's feather-light coloratura the previous evening in the virtuoso runs, and he even emulated the singer's messa di voce, swelling a phrase to a peak and gracefully retreating, in some of the most fiendish writing.
This is an instinctive artist who seems fully-fledged already, like Bryn Terfel or Angela Gheorghiu at the start of their careers - but Kanneh-Mason is even younger. And he now has on permanent loan from Florian Leonhard Fine Violins the 1610 Amati which contributed to his success in the BBC final to gild his subtleties. Fetherstonhaugh, in a personable, confident speech, had apologised for the lack of Christmas theming in the programme, managing to justify the Mendelssohn by mentioning its use in seasonal ballets by Ashton and Balanchine. No need: we can all dream of summer nights in the dead of winter, and then up popped Holst's tune for "In the Bleak Midwinter" as theme for a nimble set of variations in Kanneh-Mason's encore, his own work (like the impressive first-movement cadenza in the Haydn).

Retweeted
By theartsdesk.com (@theartsdesk

John Malveaux: Score and Parts for Adolphus Hailstork's "Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed" Needed for Rehearsals for Jan. 14, 2017 Concert in Santa Monica

Adolphus Hailstork
(Provided by Rose Grace)

John Malveaux of 
writes:

Maestro Guido Lamell of Santa Monica Symphony scheduled Adolphus Hailstork's "Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed" January 14, 2017 but he is unable to locate the score and musicians parts. I provided an email for Hailstork but he has not responded and available time for rehearsal is running out. If anyone can help to save the performance, please contact  Glamell @aol.com or jmalveaux@gmail.com asap

Christine Gangelhoff: Marlon Daniel, Conductor, discusses his work and the influences of classical musical pioneers of color [William Grant Still, Saint-Georges] (YouTube 28:30)

Marlon Daniel

Dr. Christine Gangelhoff writes:

Dear Bill,



I thought you might be interested in this episode of Black America hosted by Carol Jenkins. In this dynamic conversation, Marlon Daniel, Orchestra Conductor and Music Director of the Colour of Music Festival and the Ensemble du Monde, discusses his work and the influences of classical musical pioneers of color.


Happy Holidays to you and yours. 


Warmest regards,
Christine


Dr. Christine Gangelhoff
Coordinator of Music Department
University of The Bahamas
Nassau, Bahamas

Comment by email:
Hello Bill,  Thanks for posting! I'll forward Marlon the link as well. Happy Holidays!  Best wishes,  Christine  [Dr. Christine Gangelhoff]