Harlem Quartet’s mission is to address “the under-representation of people of color in classical music.”
Harlem Quartet — ‘a face that diversifies classical music’ — is coming to JCCC
The Detroit-based Sphinx Organization has been bringing social justice to classical music since 1997.
As part of its mission of “addressing the under-representation of people of color in classical music,” Sphinx founded the Harlem Quartet
in 2006. The ensemble is still going strong and will bring its unique
mix of European classical, jazz and Latin music to the Polsky Theatre at
the Carlsen Center on July 31.
Violinist Melissa White, one of two founding members still in the quartet, recalled how the group began.
“Sphinx had gotten grants and funding from Target, and through these
grants they were going to present music in public schools in and around
the greater New York City area,” White said. “Sphinx thought it would be
a great idea to form a group for the project, and so the quartet was
created from former first prize winners of Sphinx’s yearly national
competition. We went around to every school in Harlem playing classical
music. It was a fun project, but we had no idea that one day it would
turn out to be a full-time job.”
The New York City-area project has now become
what White calls “an adventurous career” that has taken the Harlem
Quartet around the world. But White’s personal musical journey goes back
to when she was only 4 years old and saw Itzhak Perlman on “Sesame
Street.”
“When the show was over, I
asked my mom for a violin so I could play, and she didn’t say yes, but
she didn’t say no,” White said. “She figured whatever came up on ‘Sesame
Street’ the next day I would probably ask for that, too. But it didn’t
change. For the next two years I only asked for a violin, Christmas,
Easter, birthday. Finally, when I was 6 years old, I got a violin.”
And she’s been playing
ever since. White has received performance degrees from both the Curtis
Institute of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music and has
studied with legendary violinists like Jaime Laredo and Miriam Fried.
She’s also performed as soloist with some of America’s greatest
orchestras, like the Cleveland Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
and the Boston Pops.
Luckily for local music lovers, the next stop for White and her colleagues is the Carlsen Center.
***
7 p.m. July 31. Polsky Theatre, Carlsen Center, Johnson County
Community College, 12345 College Blvd., Overland Park. $10-$25.
913-469-4445 or https://tinyurl.com/y4xwuwl2.
Comment by email:
Thanks for this, Bill! Looking forward to returning to Overland Park.
Best wishes,
HQ
No comments:
Post a Comment