Saturday, March 16, 2019

JacarandaMusic.org: Music of African American Composers March 23, 8 PM, Santa Monica

Althea Waites


Saturday, March 23, 2019 8:00
FLYING DREAM
Florence Price - Piano Sonata (1932)
William Grant Still - Ennanga (1958)
George Walker -  Lyric for string quartet (1946)
Duke Ellington - "Single Petal of a Rose" from The Queen’s Suite (1958)
”In a Sentimental Mood” (1935, arr. Art Tatum)
New World A-Comin' (1945; arr. Scott Dunn world premiere)

Sanctuary Series - 7:00

Lyris Quartet; Althea Waites & Cecil Lytle, piano; Allison Bjorkedal, harp; Jacaranda Chamber Ensemble; Mr. Dunn, conductor

Lyris Quartet will play the original version of Lyric, the late 96-year old George Walker’s most often performed work. This haunting music by the first Black composer to receive a Pulitzer Prize will be surrounded by composers who joined his quest for recognition and success. Florence Price (1887-1953) has received extensive favorable ink in The New Yorker and the New York Times. Pianist Althea Waites prepared a performing edition to record the Price Piano Sonata in 1993. She will join the Lyris Quartet and a harpist in William Grant Still’s Ennanga. On her championship of Still’s music, Ann Arbor News hailed her as “a pianist who is blessed with a profound musicality." Waites will perform Ellington’s exquisite tone poem “Single Petal of a Rose’ inspired by his meeting Queen Elizabeth in 1958. A new version of Ellington’s one-movement piano concerto New World A-Comin’ will close the program, conducted and arranged by Scott Dunn.

[Jacaranda Music concerts are at First Presbyterian Church/Santa Monica, 1220 2nd Street, Santa Monica, CA]

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