Thursday, August 24, 2017

PalmBeachDailyNews.com: Palm Beach Symphony adds themed chamber music series to its season [Music of William Grant Still in February]

William Grant Still (1895-1978) is featured at AfriClassical.com


Palm Beach Daily News 

Will music go down easier with a story?

Palm Beach Symphony will try out that concept next season with its new themed chamber music series.

“As a 44-year-old organization committed to bringing classical music into every corner of the community we cannot expect to diversify our audiences without diversifying our offerings,” Executive Director David McClymont said.

The series aims to attract new audiences with 75-minute performances featuring a narrator who sprinkles background and visuals between the music. The narratives push the concerts “into the realm of the dramatic,” McClymont said.

The series will begin Jan. 10 at Palm Beach Day Academy with a concert honoring Black History Month and dedicated to the music of William Grant Still. The composer, who died in 1978, was the first black American composer to have a work performed by a major American orchestra and the first to conduct a leading American orchestra. Still scholar Rufus Jones Jr. will narrate.

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