Ulysses Kay (1917-1995)
MassLive
By Clifton Noble Jr. | Special to The Republican
July 13, 2020
Forced
to cease normal, in-person summer operation for the first time since
World War II in response to the COVID 19 pandemic, the Tanglewood Music
Festival nevertheless refused to be silenced, instead taking music into
the digital universe and creating the 2020 Tanglewood Online Festival.
Comprised
of newly recorded and livestreamed material, archival video and audio,
and a host of peripheral discussions and presentations connected with
the new Tanglewood Learning Institute (TLI), the 2020 Online Festival
offers patrons almost daily events throughout July and August, most
ticketed, but some free of charge.
One
such series of events is entitled BSO Musicians in Recital from
Tanglewood. For $5 each, or $32 for the full series, patrons can view
Boston Symphony Musicians performing (mostly in Studio E in the new
Linde Center) 8 recital programs containing a variety of chamber music
from Bach to Berio and beyond.
***
On
July 31, another world premiere will take place – very special in that
the piece itself was written in 1939, but has (by all accounts) never
been publically performed before this year. It is a single-movement work
by the African-American composer Ulysses Kay, called Sonatine for Viola
and Piano. BSO violist Mary Ferrillo will be joined by pianist Brett
Hodgdon in the performance.
“It
had been a while since I had taken stock of solo (viola) repertoire,”
Ferrillo said in a recent interview. “With all the unexpected time on my
hands due to the COVID shutdown, I began to dig into what I had and I
asked myself how inclusive that repertoire was.”
“When
the virtual Tanglewood series came up, it was important to me to
address the discrepancies, and I researched and found lots of wonderful
music (by African-American composers) including this Ulysses Kay
Sonatine for Viola and Piano,” she said. “I also got in contact with the
wonderful organization “Castle Of Our Skins” and their co-founder, the
violist Ashleigh Gordon. Their mission is to celebrate Black Artistry
through music, and address the lack of Black voices in classical music’s
oft-performed canonical repertoire.”
Ferrillo
was very grateful for Gordon’s guidance and is excited to tackle works
like John McLaughlin Williams’ 2 Pieces for Solo Viola,
(Pulitzer-Prize-winner) George Walker’s Viola Sonata, several works by
Anthony R. Green (assoc. Artistic Director of Castle of Our Skins), and
Adolphus Hailstork’s Sanctum.
But first, Kay’s Sonatine.
“It’s
a welcome addition to the viola repertoire,” Ferrillo said. “(The
piece) explores a lot of emotional ground. It is unabashedly romantic,
but also combines virtuosic sweeps with some musical sweetness.” She
detects the probable influence of Kay’s Eastman teacher Howard Hanson,
but says, “It’s remarkably a self-assured musical voice for someone so
young – Kay would have been 22 in 1939.”
Born
in 1917 in Tucson, Arizona, Kay was the son of a singing cowboy barber
and an amateur pianist, and the nephew of jazz cornetist Joseph “King”
Oliver. Kay recalled his famous uncle’s advice to his mother - “…give
the boy piano lessons, so he can learn the rudiments – and then he’ll
find what he wants to do in music.”
Piano lessons proved fruitful, and Kay did indeed find what he wanted to
do in music, sealing the deal with a visit to composer William Grant
Still during his college years at the University of Arizona and the
Eastman School of Music. At Eastman, several of Kay’s works were
performed, including his Sinfonietta for Orchestra and Concerto for Oboe
and Orchestra.
The
summer following his graduation from Eastman, Kay won a scholarship to
Tanglewood, where he studied with Paul Hindemith, and continued on to
work with Hindemith at Yale during 1941-42.
Mary
Ferrillo shares the Tanglewood connection with Kay. She was a
Tanglewood Music Center Fellow for three summers, 2012-2014, and
received the Maurice Schwartz Prize there in 2014. She returned to
Tanglewood as a member of the New Fromm Players in 2016 and 2017,
premiering compositions by John Harbison, Joseph Phibbs, Kui Dong, and
Marc Neikrug among others.
The
kinds of things she learned while working directly with those living
composers to bring their music to premiere resonates with her work on
the Kay Sonatine.
“Though
this piece is technically 80 years old,” Ferrillo explained, “the fact
that there were no performances to listen to meant that I had no
preconceived ideas of what it should be, and it felt like a very
collaborative experience even though I could never meet Kay. You may be
physically alone in the room, but it’s a dialogue – you ask ‘Is this
what you meant? Does this choice I’m making satisfy your vision?’ It’s
as if Ulysses Kay was sitting in the room nodding or shaking his head.”
Kay would go on from the Sonatine and his student works at Arizona,
Eastman, and Tanglewood, to write in every genre of classical music,
producing symphonic works, band works, choral works, ballets, and
several operas, including The Boor, The Juggler of Our Lady, Jubilee,
and Frederick Douglass. He was the first African-American to win the
Prix de Rome (he won it twice, in 1946 and 1949). Several Guggenheim
grants, a Fulbright Scholarship, and a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship were
among subsequent honors bestowed upon Kay. He held a position at
Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) from 1953-1968, but turned down several
teaching positions (from at least nine colleges and universities) in
order to preserve his composing time.
In 1949 he married Barbara Harrison, also a musician, and Kay’s muse
throughout the remainder of his life (he died in 1995). During Kay’s
tenure at BMI, she taught music in Manhattan. During the 1960s, she was
active in the Civil Rights Movement, participating in the Mississippi
Freedom Rides, the New Jersey Englewood Movement, and the “March Against
Fear.” The couple had three daughters.
***
For information on how to access this July 31 performance and any other
part of the Tanglewood 2020 Online Festival, visit the Boston Symphony
at www.bso.org
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