Maestro Paul Freeman
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
John Malveaux of MusicUNTOLD.com writes:
Maestro Paul Freeman (January 2, 1936 – July 21, 2015) earned his doctorate in
music from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., and studied for two
years at Berlin’s Hochschule fur Musik on a Fulbright Scholarship. He later
trained with the eminent French conductor Pierre Monteux. Paul Freeman became one of a handful of
African-American conductors who broke through the glass ceiling of
American symphonic music. During his career, he conducted more than 100
orchestras in 30 countries with more than 200 recording to his credit with
unique interpretations of the classical, romantic and modern repertoire.
Maestro
Freeman received the Mahler Award from the European Union of Arts. Among his
many recordings is a landmark, nine-LP series issued on Columbia in the
mid-1970s tracing the history of black symphonic composers. He and the Chicago
Sinfonietta later produced an offshoot of that anthology with their African
Heritage Symphonic Series on Chicago’s Cedille records.
Maestro Freeman founded the Chicago
Sinfonietta, a midsized orchestra, in 1987. It became a shining emblem of
racial and cultural diversity across the classical music landscape. He remained
at its helm for 24 years until he retired in 2011. I met Maestro Freeman
following a tour date at Marsee Auditorium in Cerritos, California.
During an interview
about his life and career, Maestro Paul Freeman recalled a 2:00 a.m.
inspirational chance meeting with Dr. King at the Atlanta airport. When asked
by Dr. King why he was in Atlanta, Maestro Freeman told him that he was there
to guest conduct the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Dr. King responded, “Ah, the
last bastion of elitism. Glory, Hallelujah”.
Please see Maestro Freeman interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ADy_Rul3bs.) See Pic 1 Paul Free,am; pic 2 Dr. MLK Jr.
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