By Scott Cantrell
Nov 25, 2019
Delightfully varied music by black
American composers was presented Sunday night by Dallas’ modern-music
group Voices of Change in a program called My Soul Dances.
The earliest of the works, George Walker’s String Quartet No. 1, dated from 1946. The newest, Brian Raphael Nabors’ Seven Dances, got its Southwest premiere, five days after its first performance in Atlanta.
Influences from non-classical styles were evident here and there, mostly quite transformed, but one piece, T.J. Anderson’s Echoes, explored avant-garde gestures. The concert was presented at Southern Methodist University’s Caruth Auditorium.
David Baker’s 1993 Deliver My Soul,
expertly played by violinist (and Voices artistic director) Maria
Schleuning and pianist Liudmila Georgievskaya, began as a flashy,
unaccompanied violin solo before mingling blues and gospel echoes.
Movements
of the witty Nabors suite were titled with more or less established
musical genres, but they were quite freely interpreted. The “Waltz” was
definitely an irreverent one; the “March” was in march rhythm, but
surprisingly mournful.
Other movements — “Hyper-Tango,”
“Foxtrot," “Hip-Hop Jam," “Salsa” and “Hoedown” — were only
intermittently identifiable with their titles, although clapping and
stomping certainly fit the last. There was a good deal of syncopation,
along with extended techniques including flute whooshes, cello pitch
slides, nasal on-the-bridge bowings and percussive thumps. The piece was
played with panache by Ebonee Thomas (flute), Paul Garner (clarinet)
and Jolyon Pegis (cello).
Composer Valerie Coleman’s notes for her 2018 Fanmi Imen
claimed multi-cultural influences. I mainly heard French impressionism
in the dreamy, rhapsodic first section, jazzy gestures in the more
animated, even earthy, music that followed. Performed by Thomas and
Georgievskaya, this was appealing on first hearing.
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