Scott Joplin
April 26, 2019
Ed Berlin
In 2005, I was contacted by St. Michael’s Cemetery:
they would like to have a concert to honor Joplin and wondered if I
could help to organize it. Of course I agreed and selected a few
outstanding pianists for the event: MacArthur Award winner Reginald
Robinson; conservatory-trained blues and ragtime pianist Peter Muir
(author of the book Long Lost Blues); and Juilliard jazz-studies
student and (now) famed jazz pianist Aaron Diehl, who performed Joplin
rags as they might have been played by Fats Waller. The free ragtime
concert (not exclusively Joplin) was held out-doors, with free barbecue
provided by the cemetery (with contributions from local businesses) and
excellent beer dispensed by Harlem Brewery, a firm that actively
supports jazz performances. Celeste Beatty, the brewery’s president, is a
great grand-niece of the celebrated black minstrel Dan McCabe, who had
been a friend of Joplin’s. With an audience numbering around 200, the
concert was a rousing success, and was concluded with a procession to
Joplin’s grave, a walk of about three or four minutes.
The
concert attracted so much local attention that the cemetery
administration decided to fund Scott Joplin Memorial Concerts as an
annual event and allowed me considerable freedom in programming and
selecting performers. At first I chose mostly pianists and small groups
(such as one led by Terry Waldo). In 2007, adding to a roster of
instrumentalists, we had members of the Presbyterian Church of St.
Albans, an African-American congregation, perform vocal excerpts from
Joplin’s opera Treemonisha.
***
The 2019 concert will be held at 2pm on May 18. (Inclement weather will move the concert to the chapel.) [East Elmhurst, New York]
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