Thursday, November 28, 2019

Happy Thanksgiving from the DC Metro HBCU Alumni Alliance


Eric Conway: Morgan State U. Band performs magnificently in...Macy's...Parade!


Dr. Eric Conway writes:

What a glorious day for Morgan State University!  

This morning, the Morgan State University Magnificent Marching Machine performed at the 2019 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. They were truly magnificent!

If you missed them this morning, please see link below to footage extolling the band and its director, Melvin N. Miles, Jr.

Fair Morgan!

--
We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle
***************************
Eric Conway, D.M.A.
Fine and Performing Arts Department, Chair
Morgan State University
1700 East Cold Spring Lane
Carl Murphy Fine Arts Center, Room 329C
Baltimore, MD 21251

John Malveaux: J'Nai Bridges is Nefertiti in Met Opera HD encore of Akhnaten Dec. 4

J'Nai Bridges

John Malveaux of 
writes:

Metropolitan Opera HD Live will encore Philip Glass AKHNATEN Wednesday Dec. 4, 2019. J'Nai Bridges sings the role of Nefertiti. See J'Nai interview 

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Cynthia Erivo To Receive the 'Rising Star Award' at the 2020 ABFF Honors

Cynthia Erivo


CYNTHIA ERIVO TO RECEIVE THE ‘RISING STAR’ AWARD AT THE  2020 AMERICAN BLACK FILM FESTIVAL HONORS

Show Returns to Los Angeles Sunday, February 23, 2020  

#ABFFHonors

November 26, 2019, Los Angeles, CA – Today, ABFF Ventures announced Cynthia Erivo will receive the “Rising Star Award” at the 2020 ABFF Honors. The fourth annual ceremony, hosted by actor and comedian Deon Cole, will take place on Sunday, February 23, 2020 at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. 
ABFF Honors is the American Black Film Festival’s awards season gala dedicated to saluting excellence in the motion picture and television industry. The event celebrates Black culture by paying tribute to individuals who have made significant contributions to American entertainment through their work, as well as those who champion diversity and inclusion in Hollywood. In addition to the acclamations, the show presents a competitive award for “Movie of the Year” and a “Classic Television Award” in recognition of a time-honored series that has made an indelible impact on audiences. 
Each year, ABFF Honors presents a “Rising Star Award” in recognition of an individual’s recent success and future promise in the film and television industry. Previous recipients have included Tiffany Haddish (Kids Say the Darndest Things), Issa Rae (Insecure) and Ryan Coogler (Black Panther).
Cynthia Erivo is a Tony®, Emmy®, and Grammy® award-winning actress who burst onto West End and Broadway stages in The Color Purple and has taken the big screen by storm. Erivo’s film debut was in 2018 in Drew Goddard’s Bad Times at the El Royale. She then went on to star as “Belle” in Steve McQueen’s drama Widows, opposite Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki. Erivo made her Broadway debut reprising her starring role as “Celie”, which she first played in 2013 at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory, in the critically acclaimed revival of The Color Purple.
Erivo currently stars in Kasi Lemmons’ Harriet, bringing the legacy of Harriet Tubman to the big screen. She will soon start production starring as Aretha Franklin in the next installment of the Emmy-winning global anthology series Genius: Aretha. Erivo can next be seen in the HBO series The Outsider, which will premiere on January 12, 2020. Upcoming, Erivo will star alongside Daisy Ridley and David Oyelowo in the highly anticipated sci-fi thriller, Chaos Walking. She will also star in John Ridley’s Needle in a Timestack, alongside Orlando Bloom, Freida Pinto and Leslie Odom Jr. In addition, Erivo is set to executive produce and star in Warner Brothers’ musical take on the American folk tale “Rip Van Winkle.”
“When an artist as talented as Cynthia Erivo shares their gifts with the world, we have to recognize their brilliance.  We are delighted to present Ms. Erivo with the 2020 ABFF Honors ‘Rising Star Award.’ Her versatility and ability to push boundaries is undeniable and deserves to be celebrated,” says Nicole Friday, Executive Producer.
The 2020 ABFF Honors is executive produced by ABFF Ventures founder Jeff Friday, Nicole Friday, Suzanne de Passe and Rikki Hughes.
The confirmed sponsors to date include American Airlines, Cadillac, and Hilton (Red Carpet Sponsors); Prudential Financial and Sony Pictures Entertainment (Supporting Sponsors). 

To learn more about ABFF Honors, including the awards categories and past awards ceremonies and honorees, visit www.ABFFHonors.com.   

MonroeCoPost.com: Garth Fagan Dance to present ‘Home for the Holidays’

(Photo Provided/Rosalie O'Connor)











Happy Thanksgiving from NOBLE


The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) would like to wish everyone a safe and Happy Thanksgiving. We encourage families to enjoy a peaceful holiday season filled with gratitude and joy.
  
"Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on the things we have to be thankful for: family, friends, and everyone in our community that keeps us safe," said NOBLE National President Cerelyn J. Davis. 

The American Automobile Association (AAA) predicts 49.3 million holiday travelers will hit the roads starting today through Sunday.   "For those that are traveling by car, we ask that you abide by the rules of the road to ensure you and others are able to have a safe journey to your final destination. We encourage all travelers to have extra patience during the busy travel season."


Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

John Malveaux: Kristin Lewis will be featured soloist at Disney Concert Hall Dec. 2020

Soprano Kristin Lewis

John Malveaux of 
writes:

Soprano Kristin Lewis is from Arkansas but lives in Vienna, Austria. She will be featured soloist with mezzo soprano Mihoko Fujimura Dec. 3, 4, & 5, 2020 at Disney Concert Hall under the baton of Maestro Zubin Mehta conducting the LA Phil and LA Master Chorale performances of Mahler's gigantic RESURRECTION. Meet Kristin Lewis in 2014 interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u99RGeCKK0A

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

LACO.org: Sheku + Isata Kanneh-Mason in Recital Tuesday, Dec. 3, 8 PM


Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra

Sheku Kanneh-Mason — who rose to worldwide fame after performing at the royal wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry — has quickly become one of the most eloquent and charismatic presences on the classical music scene. 

Accompanying the BBC Young Musician winner is sibling Isata Kanneh-Mason, whose stunning debut album was just released on Decca Classics. Poignant sonatas by Lutosławski and Barber are at the heart of this once-in-a-lifetime recital.

StockDailyDish.com: Paul Freeman enlightened us with 'Black Composers Series'

 
Paul Freeman Conducting the Chicago Sinfonietta


November 25, 2019

Everyone in musical Chicago — and beyond — knows how hard Paul Freeman worked to bring sorely needed diversity to classical music.

The most famous facet of the late conductor’s campaign was the Chicago Sinfonietta, which Freeman established in 1987 to open up minority staffing and repertoire in American orchestral music.
But Freeman made an equally important – though far less celebrated – contribution in the mid-1970s, when he recorded the landmark “Black Composers Series” for CBS Masterworks. On its nine LPs, Freeman documented signal compositions by William Grant Still, George Walker, Hale Smith, Olly Woodrow Wilson, T.J. Anderson and other black composers who had been mostly excluded from concert and recorded life in America.

Thanks to Freeman’s efforts, listeners finally were able to savor and study contemporary recordings of Still’s “Afro-American Symphony” (1930), Smith’s “Ritual and Incantations” (1974) and earlier works, such as Jose Maurico Nunes-Garcia’s Requiem Mass (1816).

The “Black Composer Series” was reissued in the mid-1980s by the nonprofit College Music Society, and now – at last – it’s out again, for the first time in a Sony Classical boxed set of separately jacketed CDs remastered from the originals. In addition, the new package includes a disc titled “Symphonic Spirituals,” featuring music for voice and orchestra recorded by Freeman and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1979.

Though the repertoire gathered here barely scratches the surface of black creativity in classical music, it makes a powerful statement about scores long ignored or worse.

Predictably, not everyone saw the virtue of Freeman’s labor of love.

“Some people criticized me when we released the ‘Black Composers Series,’” he told me in 1990.

“Some people said: ‘Why do we have to ghetto-ize music?’

“The reason is that some issues must be ghetto-ized to get noticed, before they become part of the mainstream. When I recorded the ‘Black Composers Series … most people hadn’t even heard of the music on the set. Today many of those pieces have become part of the standard repertoire.”

Certainly works by Still, Anderson, Smith, Wilson, David Baker, Ulysses Kay and Walker (the first African-American composer to win a Pulitzer Prize in music) are heard in concert more now than when Freeman first released his series of recordings. Next season, for instance, Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director will conduct Still’s “Mother and Child” and the Symphony No. 3 of Florence Price (who faced double discrimination as a black woman in classical music).

Freeman’s dedication to this cause arose, in part, from the racism he experienced first-hand.

“When anyone used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always would say: ‘a musician,’” Freeman told me.

“And they would always say: ‘Ah yes, like Louis Armstrong.’

“Now, at that point in my life, I didn’t know how important Louis Armstrong and jazz music were. But I did know that I had no desire to be the next Louis Armstrong or anything like it.

“At the time, I couldn’t understand why nobody said to me: ‘Ah yes, like Arturo Toscanini.’ The implied message was that my role was to be Armstrong, not Toscanini, and that hurt.”

The “Black Composers Series” and Chicago Sinfonietta represented Freeman’s response to such slights, which eminent choral conductor Robert Shaw illuminated for me in 1988.

“I think we have to admit that one of the reasons so few works by black composers turn up in the concert hall is that, in generations past, most gifted black musicians didn’t even bother to pursue classical music; they went straight into the popular fields, where they were treated more humanly and welcomed,” said Shaw, one of the earliest American conductors to advocate for concert music by black composers.

“We also have to admit that white society is generally indifferent to black culture, and this is an indifference shared not only by the unenlightened but also by the intellectual elite.”


Freeman made musical history with the “Black Composers Series,” but he knew that would not be enough – that listeners needed to encounter this work in concert, particularly played by an ensemble that encouraged diversity.

Announcing the 23rd Annual Sphinx Competition Semi-Finalists


The 23rd Annual Sphinx Competition, presented by DTE Energy Foundation, takes place February 5-8, 2020. Eighteen of the nation's top young string musicians will compete in the Junior Division (ages 17 and under) and Senior Division (ages 18-30).

Congratulations to the 2020 Semi-Finalists! 


The Junior and Senior Divisions culminate in concerts at the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fischer Music Center in Detroit.

Honors Concert: Friday, Feb. 7 at 12pm. Free to the public.
Junior Division finalists compete for the top $10,000 prize and perform with the Sphinx Honors Orchestra.

Finals Concert: Saturday, Feb. 8 at 7:30pm. Optional $5 donation.
Senior Division finalists compete for the $50,000 Robert Frederick Smith Prize and solo appearances with major orchestras. This must-see event also includes:

  • Real-time voting for $5,000 Audience Choice Award winner, sponsored by Mercedes-Benz Financial Services
  • Guest Conductor Roderick Cox with the all-Black and Latinx Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, presented by Mercedes-Benz Financial Services
  • The Detroit premiere of Sphinx founder Aaron Dworkin’s The American Rhapsody, a new spoken word multimedia work
The Sphinx Organization

Monday, November 25, 2019

DallasNews.com: Voices of Change celebrates varied music by black composers

Paul Garner (clarinet), Jolyon Pegis (cello) and Ebonee Thomas (flute) perform in a Voices of Change concert at Southern Methodist University's Caruth Auditorium on Nov. 24, 2019. (Scott Cantrell)

With works ranging from dreamy to jazzy, Dallas’ modern-music group presents “My Soul Dances"

John Malveaux: Sun. Dec. 8, 2019 Dr. Dee & Cantor Don Gurney Holiday Concert


John Malveaux of 
writes:

Sun. Dec. 8, 2019 Dr. Dee & Cantor Don Gurney Holiday Concert, Wilshire Blvd. Temple, Los Angeles. See
https://bythax.org/who-is-dr-dee/?fbclid=IwAR11AgnhXsc7JcKWvY76a3fAbMzVLcVvSQhHvEagTjtGyzTBusAS9R4kqKg  

Sunday, November 24, 2019

ToledoBlade.com: Toledo Symphony in Florence Price's "Mississippi Suite"

Florence B. Price (1887-1953)


Wayne F. Anthony

November 22, 2019

Conductor Feddeck, cellist Schwarz deliver ‘Masterworks’

Toledo Symphony’s Masterworks Concert proved an excellent evening of riparian reflection on Friday as guest conductor James Feddeck was joined by cellist Julian Schwarz. Two canons of the literature were programmed, joined by a third, rarely heard work, as equally charming in scope.

Feddeck was, quite simply, brilliant, eliciting one of the most musically exciting evenings from the Toledo Symphony this season. His sensitivity is astounding; his musical understanding sublime; the synergy between he and Schwarz was musical perfection.

Smetana’s perennial favorite, “The Moldau,” opened. One of six tone poems he wrote in tribute to his Czech homeland, the work holds infinite audience appeal, tracing the river’s route from hill springs through the countryside, and eventually on to the sea.  

***

Florence Price was the first African American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer in her own right. Little known, she recently plunged into the limelight when a number of her scores, thought lost, were uncovered in an abandoned home in Illinois.

Her “Mississippi Suite” is the American counterpart to the Smetana. Quotations of familiar spirituals and folk melodies waft through the sonic landscape in an almost perfume-like parade of nostalgic remembrances.

Again, Feddeck imbued the work with verve and direction, showcasing the composer’s skill both as an orchestrator and a master of the compositional craft. His rendering gave the listener every reason to seek a second or third hearing of this rediscovered symphonic landmark. 

Red Clay Dance Presents Winter Sharecase And Holiday Party Dec. 14 at Fuller Park



Red Clay Dance Company (RCDC) engages its community by hosting a Winter Sharecase and Holiday Party Saturday, December 14 at 2 p.m. at Fuller Park Auditorium, 331 W. 45th Place, Chicago.
 
The performance features students of Red Clay Dance Academy, the official school of Red Clay Dance Company, and Red Clay Dance’s Youth Ensemble. The Academy is committed to offering world-class dance training for youth, teens, and adults. Classes are open to students aged one and older from beginners to advanced dancers.
 
The gathering is also the culmination of an online series of commentaries this fall, entitled Words to Live By. Each post has focused on a different word that has importance and meaning for the RCDC community: Artivism, Glocal, and Community Engagement. The commentaries are available at redclaydance.wordpress.com. There will be a brief discussion on the series after the performance, followed by a holiday celebration with music, refreshments, games, and prizes.



Red Clay Dance Academy presents its Winter Sharecase
and Holiday Celebration
Saturday, December 14 at 2 p.m.
at Fuller Park Auditorium, 331 W. 45th Pl., Chicago.

Admission is free; RSVPs are required at redclaydance.com/performances.
All programming is subject to change.

For more information about RCDC, visit redclaydance.com.

 
Red Clay Dance Company
Red Clay Dance Company lives to awaken “glocal” change through creating, performing, and teaching dances of the African Diaspora—change that transforms cultural and socioeconomic inequities in our local and global community. Founder Vershawn Sanders-Ward conceived the idea of RCDC while on her first trip to Senegal, West Africa, when she became fascinated by the interconnectedness of dance and everyday life. The name Red Clay comes from her childhood memories of playing in red earth during her summers in Mobile, Alabama.
 
RCDC is supported by the Chicago Community Trust, the Alphawood Foundation, the MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at the Richard H Driehaus Foundation, the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation, the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, the Springboard Foundation, the Polk Bros. Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

Photos by Raymond Jerome.
Top: Red Clay Dance Company Youth Ensemble performing during the summer 2019 Bud Billiken Parade.
Bottom: Red Clay Dance Academy students performing during the Juneteenth celebration at Sweetwater Foundation in summer 2019.

Clipper Erickson: All-Dett concert broadcast on WWFM can be heard on the Web

R. Nathaniel Dett

Clipper Erickson writes:

The all-Dett concert I participated in at Westminster was broadcast on WWFM.  It's available to listen to on the web on demand:

StockDailyDish.com: Elevating Music By Black Composers Is A 20-Year Mission

Rachel Barton Pine


November 23, 2019

For One Violinist, Elevating Music By Black Composers Is A 20-Year Mission

Growing up in Chicago, took it for granted that there was a great body of classical music by black composers. She heard it on the radio. She played it in local orchestras as a student. The Center for Black Music Research is in Chicago. So, when the violinist recorded her first concerto album in 1997, she naturally included music by Afro-Caribbean and Afro-European composers.

“I wasn‘t thinking about any of the social justice aspect or anything like that,” Pine says. “But after the record came out, I started getting a huge number of requests from students and parents and teachers about, you know, ‘Where can I find repertoire like this for kids of different levels?‘ “

So she began a nearly 20-year quest to catalog as much of this music as she could find. She had some time on her hands: Two years earlier, she was caught in a closing Chicago train door and dragged 200 feet. She lost one leg and severely damaged the other, and had more than 40 surgeries. But during the long recovery process, she devoted some of her spare time to searching for music.

“You know, going to the Library of Congress and digging up the one copy of this and that, and going to the Haiti music archives in Montreal. Going to the attic of the composer‘s grandniece to sort through unsorted boxes of papers and manuscripts. I mean, there have been some amazing archaeological adventures,” she says.

One of the pieces she found was a 1927 work called “Levee Dance,” by the Tennessee-born composer Clarence Cameron White. It‘s one of the pieces that Pine has recorded for a new album called Blues Dialogues, for violin and piano.

YouTube
“My parents would put on Chicago blues records when they weren‘t playing the classical station when I was growing up, and it‘s just sort of been in the air,” she says. “I mean, I really consider it to be my indigenous music — of, you know, of where I live.”

Saturday, November 23, 2019

AACI Concert tickets now on sale




Tickets are now on sale for our "Hold Fast to Dreams" AACI Concerts on January 25 and 26, 2020. Be sure to reserve your seat.

Thanks to those of you who have already donated to help us produce these concerts. Thus far, we have raised $2,000 to match our $6,000 challenge grant. We need to raise another $4,000 to get us over the finish line.  Please donate today. We can do this!

To donate online, please click here:

To donate by check - make check to InterMusic SF, with AACI at the bottom of the check and mail to: 
AACI
c/o LaDoris Cordell
4124 Wilkie Way
Palo Alto, CA 94306

With best wishes and appreciation for your partnership in our musical journey,
LaDoris Cordell, Jodi Gandolfi, Deanne Tucker, co-founders, AACI


For more information on the African American Composer Initiative, please visit:
www.aacinitiative.org.

WOSU.org: MACCO Season Commits to Works from Diverse Voices




Antoine Clark, artistic and music director of the McConnell Arts Center Chamber Orchestra


Nov 20, 2019

Columbus conductor and clarinetist Antoine Clark wants women musicians and musicians of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds to be heard.

Clark, who serves as artistic and music director of the McConnell Arts Center Chamber Orchestra in Worthington, conducts around the state of Ohio and serves on the faculties of Kenyon College and Ohio Wesleyan University, is a fellow of the Chicago Sinfonietta’s Project Inclusion Conducting Freeman Fellowship Program, which seeks to eliminate institutional bias along the lines of race, ethnicity and socioeconomic background from classical music ensembles.

Part of that work involves programming music by women composers, composers of color and composers of diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

“Being a part of that program helped me to understand that, if no one else is doing this, then it really should fall on me, a person of color, to really promote these voices,” Clark said in a recent phone interview. “I felt, as an African American, that I should be one who could really help support those voices that are not being heard in the classical community.”

MACCO will present Voices Past and Present on Nov. 24, featuring music by present-day composer Jennifer Jolley alongside works by three well-known composers of the Classical era.

The idea is to show that, even in the past, we’ve had voices that we need to know more about, and in the present we need to be aware of the voices that are now…and how these generations intermingle and influence each other,” Clark said.

The concert will begin with a symphony by Joseph Boulogne, an influential black composer, conductor and violinist working in Paris during the time of Mozart and Haydn, then end with one of Haydn’s Paris symphonies.

“Boulogne was actually instrumental in helping to commission the Paris symphonies of Haydn, and he was the person to premiere those works,” Clark said.

CSO African American Network - Winter 2019 Newsletter


Festive greetings!
Despite the chilling temperatures across Chicago, the CSO African American Network is heating up with the exciting adventures opening the 2019/20 season.
We are thrilled about our new AAN Create Your Own Subscription offer. You can now design your own AAN subscription series by selecting your preferred dates and seating options from our newly-announced list of 19 AAN-hosted events and Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts.
With this offering, you can curate your very own subscription to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and AAN events with a discount. The savings kick in at three or more events! Create your own subscription now.
We are happy to announce a few feature that will debut in the next installment of the AAN Newsletter called “Appreciatively Yours,” bringing recognition to AAN members and friends who have made special contributions to enhance and encourage the growth of the CSO’s community stewardship of the African American Network. Stay tuned.

Highlights from the AAN's Fall 2019


  • September 23, 2019: As highlighted in our first AAN Newsletter, the community open rehearsal with Maestro Muti and the Chicago West Community Music Center (CWCMC) inspired a diverse audience at the Columbus Park Refectory in Chicago. Under the leadership of Founders and Directors Darlene and Howard Sandifer, the CWCMC featured Entr’acte no. 3 from Schubert’s Rosamunde and Puccini’s famous aria “Vissi d’arte” from Tosca. Maestro Muti and the young musicians shared an exhilarating musical dialogue and a post-rehearsal meet-and-greet reception. Maestro Muti said he is looking forward to working with these wonderful students next year.
  • October 13–20, 2019: Congratulations to the CWCMC on being selected to participate in an international conference at the University of Chicago in Paris. Celebrating the First Pan-African Conference in 1919, sponsored by W.E.B. Dubois, the event featured intellectuals from all over the world. Sixteen instrumentalists and vocalists of the CWCMC accompanied a keynote address given by Howard Sandifer, on the life of James Reese Europe, an African American bandleader and member of the 369th Brigade in World War I. While in Paris, these young American students and their Parisian counterparts shared cultural exchanges of ideas and music, representing true ambassadorship.
  • October 25, 2019: Cynthia Clarey, vocals, Beckie Menzie piano and vocals, and Irwin Berkowitz, percussion, gave us a powerfully moving experience through storytelling, music, and humor in “Bridge Over Muddied Waters.” This courageous presentation, inspired by Ms. Clarey to address “the waters in our country muddied with hate, fear, and division,” traced where we have been and how we got here, while finding truth, compassion, and humor. Cynthia Clarey’s story is one of heartening inspiration and courage.

Upcoming AAN Events


  • November 23: Preconcert Meet the Composer Q&A with James Lee III
  • December 21: An Evening of Holiday Cabaret Magic with Anne and Mark Burnell
  • January 24: Tribute to the Role of Music in the Battle for Civil Rights
  • February 29: 4th Annual Celebration of National Black History Month
In closing this newsletter, we have included the special note from Maestro Muti in memory of the great Ms. Jessye Norman who passed away on September 30, 2019 in New York. Ms. Norman made her CSO debut in March 1974 in Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, and her final performance with the Orchestra was as narrator in Copland’s Lincoln Portrait at the Ravinia Festival in July 2009 under James Conlon. She recorded Bruckner’s Te Deum conducted by Daniel Barenboim along with two Grammy Award winning albums: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony led by Sir Georg Solti and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle conducted by Pierre Boulez.
"Jessye Norman was a remarkable singer and a great musician. I had the good fortune to collaborate with her many times in opera, concerts, and recordings. She first performed with me in 1970 in Florence in Handel’s oratorio Deborah, and the following year in Meyerbeer’s opera L’Africaine. Her voice was unique for the depth and beauty of its timbre—her soul immense!"—Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Feel free to contact me directly at aan@cso.org or by phone at 312-294-3045. I continue to look forward to your participation and feedback. Thank you for your support of the CSO African American Network. 
Joyfully yours,
Sheila A. Jones
Sheila A. Jones
Director of Community Stewardship
African American Network 


Friday, November 22, 2019

Composers.com: Nightsongs by H. Leslie Adams selected for vocal competition

H. Leslie Adams

American Composers Alliance

Nightsongs by H. Leslie Adams selected for vocal competition winner's concert at UNC, Dec. 3

The award-winning UNC Symphony Orchestra will perform alongside the winners of the UNC Annual Concerto Competition Winners, on December 3rd at 7:30pm in the James and Susan Moeser Auditorium at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Singer Bradley Barefoot has won the vocal competition and will present, among other works, three pieces by H. Leslie Adams from "Nightsongs" in their chamber orchestra versions, conducted by Tonu Kalam.

In addition to the winning concerto selections, the orchestra will present the premiere performance of Durham composer Maxwell Ramage’s atmospheric tone poem, Taiga. Tickets are $10 general admission, $5 students/UNC faculty and staff.

Sphinx Organization: Announcing the second cohort of Sphinx LEADers!

Sphinx LEAD (Leaders in Excellence, Arts & Diversity) is entering its second year and we are thrilled to announce the incoming cohort of LEADers.

Congratulations to the nine outstanding administrators, entrepreneurs, and musicians selected to participate in this 2-year professional development program!


Sphinx LEAD exists to empower arts leaders of color and to evolve the landscape of administrative leadership in the country. Sphinx is thrilled to collaborate with Carnegie Hall, Interlochen Center for the ArtsMinnesota Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony OrchestraThe Juilliard SchoolNew World Symphony, Cleveland Institute of Music, and Curtis Institute of Music to host Leadership Retreats where LEADers will learn from experts in the field and maximize valuable networking opportunities.

Sphinx LEAD is made possible with underwriting support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Fund II Foundation, with additional support provided by Victoria Robey.