Derrick Johnson, NAACP: Until their hopes are fully realized…

Generations of Black people have given their lives while wearing one of America’s uniforms, many in hopes that their service would cause others to see their humanity and that their commitment would lead to real freedom and equality for them and their loved ones.

Their hope has not yet been fully realized, and it’s on those of us who want a more just and equal nation to keep pushing until it is.

Today, as we remember the heroes we’ve lost, let us all be inspired by their extraordinary courage, and pledge to do what we can in our time to ensure that America lives up to the values they fought to defend.

Fighting Forward,

Derrick Johnson

@DerrickNAACP

President and CEO

NAACP                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

DC Metro HBCU Alumni Alliance, Inc.: Today, let's count our blessings as we remember and honor our heroes

On Memorial Day, we cannot forget the fallen men and women in the Armed Forces who have made the celebration of this day possible.  As we remember and commemorate them, we are reminded that they are not just names without faces.  They are our mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends who have sacrificed themselves for our country. They have given their lives to allow us to enjoy the rights, liberties and freedoms that are the bedrock of America.  Today, let's count our blessings as we remember and honor our heroes. All the absolute best on this Memorial Day 2021.

John Malveaux: Cooperm55.wixsite.com: Margaret Bonds's Montgomery Variations (1964) will be performed by Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Phil July 15

Margaret Bonds (1913-1972)

John Malveaux of MusicUNTOLD.com writes:

Margaret Bonds's Montgomery Variations (1964) will be performed by Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic July 15, 2021

https://cooperm55.wixsite.com/jmc3/post/meanwhile-in-l-a?fbclid=IwAR1kMXIg9XcU5mLj4-ieOE0bJAZMSzY79JTSYw9hWMnEy_h6fRMbobj-O6g

STLToday.com: 'Highway 1, U.S.A.' is momentous tribute by OTSL to long-neglected composer

Nicole Cabell (left) and Rehanna Thelwell

(By Eric Woolsey)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Eric Meyer Special to the Post-Dispatch 

May 30, 2021

For Opera Theatre of St. Louis, a silver lining in the pandemic cloud includes “Highway 1, U.S.A.” by William Grant Still, the “dean” of African American composers.

Originally, singers were under contract to perform George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” this season, which turned out to be far too long for the abbreviated performance times of the socially distanced outdoor festival.

“By June 2020, however, that consideration felt insignificant as we considered urgently renewed calls for social justice and racial equity following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others,” OTSL general director Andrew Jorgensen told the Post-Dispatch by email. “We owed it to our community to be more authentically inclusive of Black voices.” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB7HNeRUJuM&t=8

And this created a perfect storm for the success “Highway 1” turned out to be on Saturday’s opening performance.

Still was an American composer of more than 200 works including eight operas, five symphonies, and many choral works and chamber pieces. He was the first African American composer to have an opera, “Troubled Island,” produced by the New York City Opera. His “Afro-American Symphony” (1930) was, until the mid-20th century, widely performed.

Still composed classical music with an American signature and an African American voice.

“My musical training emphasized European musical culture,” Still said in a historic radio interview, “but this failed to satisfy me completely as a basis for an idiom of expressing myself. Therefore, I sought to create an idiom unmistakably American.”

With a libretto by Verna Arvey, Still’s second wife, “Highway 1, U.S.A.” tells the distinctly American story of a married couple, Bob and Mary, who help Bob’s younger brother, Nate, through college. Tensions build as Bob tells Mary that Nate needs more time to “establish himself.” The score blends elements of Romanticism, blues and musical theater.

Stage director Ron Himes (Black Rep founder and producing director) set the production in the early 1960s, on the brink of the civil rights movement. He coordinated a cast that includes a chorus of church members on the smaller outdoor stage.

Soprano Nicole Cabell sang a fabulous Mary and handled the emotional volatility of the part with finesse — in her double-entendres toward Nate, for example. The confessional ending of the first act (“How I hate him!”) showed off the emotional depth of Cabell’s vocal abilities.

Mary’s husband, Bob, was portrayed by baritone Will Liverman with a fine balance between the power of his heartfelt duty to his late mother’s dreams for Nate and the unexamined vulnerability of his own dreams deferred. His exchanges with Mary at the end were rich and full of pathos.

As Nate, tenor Christian Mark Gibbs was brilliantly bratty. The music for his part is lush and beautiful, full of all the potential and faith his mother had for him. Gibbs’ double-edged performance of “What does he know of dreams?” was remarkable as the text contradicts his charming boyishness and lyrical voice.

Mezzo-soprano Rehanna Thelwell was great as Aunt Lou, delivering a particularly striking aria in conversation with Mary (“The first day I saw you”). And baritone Andrew René sang a commanding yet sensitive sheriff.

Bill Doggett: CNN.com: CNN Adolphus Hailstork Interview/TULSA 1921 Preview

Bill Doggett writes:

Congratulations Adolphus Hailstork

CNN honors your Tulsa 1921 composition commissioned by The Harlem Chamber Players which world premieres on #JUNETEENTH

A powerful and important Interview.

The featured Mezzo Soprano, J'nai Bridges offers a haunting preview of the work.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/30/us/tulsa-race-massacre-hailstork-opera-harlem-players-trnd/index.html

NYTimes.com: A Black Composer’s Intense Opera Gets a Rare Staging: William Grant Still’s one-act “Highway 1, U.S.A.” runs in St. Louis through June 17

 From left, Rehanna Thelwell, Nicole Cabell, Will Liverman and Christian Mark Gibbs rehearse for a rare production of William Grant Still’s “Highway 1, U.S.A.” at Opera Theater of St. Louis.

Credit...Eric Woolsey

The New York Times

By Seth Colter Walls

Published May 28, 2021 Updated May 29, 2021, 10:15 a.m. ET

The composer William Grant Still was a student of the renowned experimentalist Edgard Varèse, an arranger for the blues icon W.C. Handy and the creator of the enduringly winning “Afro-American Symphony.” Thanks to his rich catalog of symphonic and chamber music, Still, who died in 1978 at 83, was widely known as the pathbreaking “dean” of Black American composers.

But his operas have struggled to gain a foothold in the repertoire. “Troubled Island,” about the Haitian revolution and its aftermath, boasted a libretto by Langston Hughes and additional lyrics by Verna Arvey, a writer who was married to Still. It premiered at New York City Opera in 1949, but continues to wait for a second production. (A fascinating, if scratchy, recording of the premiere can be purchased from the Still estate.)

Credit...Carl Van Vechten Collection/Getty Images

Still’s one-act stunner “Highway 1, U.S.A.,” premiered in 1963, has also been a rarity. But it will enter the limelight this weekend with the opening of a new staging, directed by Ron Himes, at Opera Theater of St. Louis. (It runs there through June 17.)

In its two scenes — which together last under an hour — the filling-station owner Bob and his wife, Mary, deal with the ingratitude and arrogance of Bob’s younger brother, Nate, a spendthrift academic whose studies were underwritten by the couple. The plot — its lurid flights counterbalanced by the wholesome devotion of Bob and Mary — swiftly deals with complex, compelling ideas about familial expectation and duty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-zOdeSWTys

Conducted by Leonard Slatkin, a veteran advocate for American music, and featuring a cast of rising stars, the St. Louis production is an early highlight of opera’s fledgling return to live performance as the pandemic eases.

Bill Doggett: Adolphus Hailstork Premieres: "Wounded Children" May 30, 2021 NYC; "Tulsa 1921" June 19, 2021 (Virtual); "A Knee On The Neck" Mar. 26, 2022 DC

 http://www.bargemusic.org/

https://thegreenespace.org/event/pity-these-ashes-tulsa-100th-anniversary/

https://nationalphilharmonic.org/2122season/

Bill Doggett writes:

With pleasure, I announce three Adolphus Hailstork World Premieres

1. Wounded Children for Solo Piano  May 30, 2021  New York City {In Person}
2. Tulsa 1921  June 19, 2021 New York City{Virtual}
3. A Knee On The Neck, A Requiem For George Floyd  March 26, 2022  Washington DC {In Person}

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 27, 2021

National Philharmonic Contact: Heidi Kibirsky,  heidi@nationalphilharmonic.org

Adolphus Hailstork Contact: Bill Doggett, bdoggett55@gmail.com 

A World Premiere: “A Knee on The Neck,” A Requiem for George Floyd

National Philharmonic is excited to announce the world premiere of the highly anticipated Requiem Cantata in memory of George Floyd, “A Knee on The Neck” by Adolphus Hailstork with text by Herbert Martin. The world premiere will be March 26, 2022 at the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda, MD. The performance will feature the National Philharmonic Chorale with special guest artists Aundi Marie Moore, Norman Shankle, and Kenneth Overton.

This work of immense power written by Adolphus Hailstork, one of the nation’s eminent composers, was created due to an inspired response to the tragedy of Mr. Floyd’s death through the text of historian and Professor Emeritus of The University of Dayton Ohio, Herbert Martin.

Scored for an orchestra, large chorus, and three soloists, “A Knee on The Neck” speaks to the challenges which Black Americans have endured and engages the audience to share that journey in powerful ways.

Tickets for the performance will go on sale this summer at nationalphilharmonic.org and the Strathmore Box Office.

The National Philharmonic, conducted by Piotr Gajewski, serves the residents of the Washington, DC metro area. The primary goal of the organization is to provide audiences with high quality, professional performances at a convenient location and affordable prices. The National Philharmonic also aims to appeal to the diverse cultural backgrounds of the community through its musical performances and educational programs.

POV.org: THE NEUTRAL GROUND makes its broadcast debut on POV on PBS Monday, July 5, 2021 at 10 PM ET and at pov.org

A darkly humorous and soberingly serious film about Confederate statues and what we choose to remember from director CJ Hunt, debuting Monday, July 5th, 2021 on PBS

New York, N.Y. – May 27, 2021 – American Documentary | POV is proud to announce The Neutral Ground as the national broadcast premiere of its 34th season. Director CJ Hunt’s debut feature documentary, executive produced by Roy Wood Jr. and produced by Darcy McKinnon, will premiere Monday July 5, 2021 on PBS at 10 p.m. ET (check local listings) and at pov.org. The film will also be available to stream for free at pov.org until August 4, 2021.

An official selection of the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival, The Neutral Ground begins in 2015 as Hunt documents a raucous New Orleans City Council meeting about the removal of four Confederate monuments. It quickly becomes apparent just how divided white and Black residents are on the meaning of the city's statues. This tension between what to Hunt seems obvious – that the statues should be removed – and the fervor with which so many people oppose this view opens an opportunity for him to try and understand the mythology of the Confederacy and why Americans are willing to put so much on the line to guard its stone remnants.

When death threats halt the removals in New Orleans, Hunt hits the road, travelling across the South to try and understand why a losing army from 1865 still holds so much political and imaginative power in contemporary America. Through a mixture of investigative journalism and disarming humor, Hunt unravels America’s troubled romance with the "Lost Cause," a romanticized and distorted interpretation of the war that ex-Confederates inserted into textbooks, films and the popular imagination.

“In any public debate about Confederate monuments, it’s only a matter of time before someone utters the tired claim: ‘the Civil War wasn’t about slavery.’ Those six words epitomize the daily gaslighting that Black people experience in America. We are told the racism we see with our own eyes is imaginary; that, historically speaking, it never really existed," notes director CJ Hunt. "I made this film to help viewers fight against that gaslighting. Whatever textbooks you grew up reading, The Neutral Ground is an invitation to take a second look at the stories we were handed. We need to speak honestly about white supremacy - not as the rogue actions of bad men marching in the dark - but as the force that shapes every story we tell about America’s past.”

As the national monument controversy expands, Hunt's journey includes visits with historians, activists and his own father. It brings him to Richmond's Monument Avenue, the front lines of a Civil War reenactment, and finally into the ranks of Black reenactors bringing to life an 1811 slave rebellion to redefine what a "Southern rebel" looks like. At times darkly hilarious and at others soberingly serious, The Neutral Ground is a poignant exploration of the legacy of slavery which much of America has yet to face.

Executive producer Roy Wood Jr. notes, “This film tells the story of people courageously dragging this nation into a promising and progressive conversation about racial reckoning. It’s also the story of those who refuse to admit that this reckoning has arrived." Raised in Birmingham, Alabama, a correspondent on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and known as one of the country's most incisive comedians on issues of race, Wood continues, "CJ’s approach to this topic ties into a much larger question facing America: How do we heal this nation’s deepest wounds when there are still so many people who won’t acknowledge those wounds exist?”

"Historically literate and intensely personal, The Neutral Ground is a critical contribution to the contemporary discussions around monuments, cultural preservation and racism that have intensified in the months during the worldwide protests for racial justice," said Erika Dilday Executive Producer of POV | Executive Director, American Documentary. "We knew this would be the right film to start the season."

 

* * * *

Credits:          

 

Director: CJ Hunt

Screenwriter: CJ Hunt, Jane Geisler, James Hamilton

Producer: Darcy McKinnon

Executive Producer: Roy Wood Jr., Sally Jo Fifer

Editor: Jane Geisler

Cinematographer: Paavo Hanninen

Co-Producer: Jeremy Blum

Associate Producer: Katie Pham, Rachel Witwer, Jennifer Samani

Sound: Derek Rocque

Composer: Sultana Isham

Consulting Producer: Angela Tucker

US Distribution: ITVS/POV 

Sergio A. Mims: SlippedDisc.com: The National Symphony Orchestra to perform the works of George Walker and William Grant Still

William Grant Still (1895-1978)

George Walker (1922-2018)

The National Symphony Orchestra

Sergio A. Mims writes:

W,

The National Symphony Orchestra of Washington D.C. revealed yesterday in their announcement of their 2021/22 season that in January 2022 its music director Gianandrea Noseda will conduct a three week music festival of music by African-American composers George Walker and William Grant Still which will be paired with Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 1, 4, 5, and 9.

The programs will also be recorded for release on the NSO's new recording label.

https://slippedisc.com/2021/05/beethoven-pairs-up-with-black-composers-in-washington-dc/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+slippedisc%2FnICW+%28Slipped+Disc%29

Support The Harlem Chamber Players this Spring

As we head toward the end of our 2020 – 21 Season, I thank you again for all the support you have given us, especially during these challenging times for everyone.

Because of your support, we were not only able to survive during this pandemic, but also build up our online presence. We revamped our website, making it more accessible, allowing us to share numerous online programs with you and across the world. We hope you will continue to support us this spring.

Please consider making a tax-deductible gift to The Harlem Chamber Players so that we may continue to bring you programs like this. No gift is too small. Every dollar you contribute is a vote of confidence and empowers us to do more.

 

Join us in bringing healing music to the community and to the world at large. In the meantime, we hope you continue to stay safe and well, and we look forward to seeing you in person soon!

Sincerely,

Liz Player

Founder, Executive and Artistic Director

We hope you will join us for our headliner event of this season, a free online program presented in partnership with The Greene Space at WQXR/WNYC, Harlem Stage, and the Harlem School of the Arts. This concert, given in commemoration of the 100^th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, will feature the world premiere by Dr. Adolphus Hailstork of TULSA 1921 (Pity These Ashes, Pity This Dust), featuring Met Opera mezzo-soprano 

J’Nai Bridges with a chamber orchestra. This concert, which will air on Juneteenth (June 19, 2021), will also feature works by other Black composers—Jessie Montgomery, Alice Coltrane, and Trevor Weston—and dancers from the Harlem School of the Arts. Visit our website to learn more and to RSVP.

Mezzo soprano J’Nai Bridges. Photo by Todd  Rosenberg Photography 2016. Students from Harlem School of the Arts  dancing to Trevor Weston’s The People  Could Fly for our concert to be  broadcast on Juneteenth from HSA’s  newly renovated Dorothy Maynor Hall.

IMI: A Recital: Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora Thursday, May 27

Rodolfo Morales writes:

Hello FredO et al,

Please mark your calendar for TOMORROW May 27, and watch the incredibly talented students at Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA): A Recital of Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora, https://youtu.be/ZGEsLwICu6g

Presenting works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912), George Walker (1922-2018), Florence Price (1887-1953), Margaret Bonds (1913-1972), Gamal Abdel-Rahim (1924-1988), Joshua Uzoigwe (1946-2005), Fred Onovwerosuoke (1960-), Christian Onyeji (1967-), and more!

Rodolfo Morales

Instrumental Music Department Chair

Classical Piano Director

Patrick D. McCoy: THE MAESTRO SERIES: Wayne Marshall, Friday, May 28, 2021 11:00 AM EDT (5:00 PM GMT+1)

Patrick D. McCoy writes:

On Friday, I will interview conductor, organist and pianist Wayne Marshall.

Attached is the announcement and link to view:

https://youtu.be/f-2uiBnwt54

Thank you,

Patrick D. McCoy

Bill Doggett: HONORED:**NEWS** -In Memoriam George Floyd/Tulsa 1921

Dear Friends,

I am humbled and honored to share a landmark coup Interview for American Composers Forum. I CARE IF YOU LISTEN in advance of tonights' world premiere

Opera Philadelphia's film of Daniel Bernard Roumain's "They Still Want To Kill Us".

They Still Want To Kill Us is an Art Song dedicated to the memory and 100th year anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre, May 31-June 1st 1921

The Art Song is performed by J'nai Bridges with the composer on the piano and violin.

Tonight's world premiere is supported by over 25+ Performing Arts organizations across the United States.

The trailer Preview   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFn3KS2PDjA

The YouTube URL for tonight's world premiere https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sij2TQ4G4I  

I am proud of this Interview.     I hope that you will find it enlightening.

https://www.icareifyoulisten.com/2021/05/5-questions-to-daniel-bernard-roumain-about-they-still-want-to-kill-us/

Cordially,

Bill Doggett

On June 19, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), is hosting a day of outdoor programs to celebrate Juneteenth, screening "Summer of Soul" outdoors

 Typeface by Tré Seals of Vocal Type Co., who was inspired by the historic imagery of protest signs from the 1963 March on Washington to create the letterforms. Seals named the typeface “Bayard,” after civil rights leader Bayard Rustin.

On June 19, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), is hosting a day of outdoor programs to celebrate Juneteenth—the oldest nationally recognized commemoration of the ending of slavery in the U.S.—and honor the contributions of Black artists, scholars and creative voices to the City of Boston. Drop-in activities will include art making, Spotlight Talks focused on artwork by the MFA’s artist-in-residence Rob Stull and musical performances curated by BAMS Fest, hosted by D.Ruff and featuring The Mike Christmas Collective, Jordan Carter Band, SeeFour and DJ Baby Indiglo. In the evening, the MFA will host a free outdoor screening of Summer of Soul, presented in partnership with the Roxbury International Film Festival, before the film’s wide release in theaters and on Hulu on July 2.

“Our first in-person celebration in over a year will offer an incredible opportunity for Bostonians to gather together as a community," said Makeeba McCreary, Patti and Jonathan Kraft Chief of Learning and Community Engagement. "We’re grateful to be able to mark Juneteenth with BAMS Fest and the Roxbury International Film Festival, and look forward to working toward a brighter future for our city.”

Additionally, on June 16 at 6 pm, the MFA will host a virtual panel discussion titled "Disruption by Design: A New Path to Liberation."

The free outdoor screening of Summer of Soul—a stunning documentary from director Questlove featuring unearthed footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival—is part of the 23rd annual Roxbury International Film Festival (June 17–26) which takes place virtually on mfa.org and in person this year. RIFF is the largest festival in New England dedicated to celebrating films by, for and about people of color. 

On June 19, the Museum will also provide transportation between the MFA, the National Center for Afro-American Artists and the Slave Narrative of Willie Mae live show at the Blair Lot in Nubian Square.

Bill Doggett: Zenobia Powell Perry's TAWAWA HOUSE completed by Perry authority Jeannie Pool is now available on Amazon in the Piano Vocal Score

Bill Doggett writes:

Dear Friends,

I am pleased to announce some wonderful News.

Zenobia Powell Perry's TAWAWA HOUSE completed by Perry authority,

Jeannie Pool is NOW AVAILABLE ON AMAZON in the PIANO-VOCAL Score with Libretto This is a wonderful Celebration of Black history transformed into Black Opera by one of the 20th century's important Black women composers.

https://www.amazon.com/Tawawa-House-Musical-Piano-Vocal-Libretto/dp/B094PDC1MC/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=zenobia+powell+perry+tawawa+house&qid=1621626316&sr=8-1

ClassicFM.com: Margaret Bonds studied with Florence Price, and was the first Black soloist to perform with Chicago Symphony

 Meet Margaret Bonds [1913-1972], a student of Florence Price and the first Black musician to perform with the Chicago Symphony. 

Picture: Getty

Classic FM

21 May 2021

By Maddy Shaw Roberts

The story of a barrier-breaking African American composer and musician who had a deep friendship – and for a while shared a roof – with the pioneering classical great, Florence Price.

Margaret Bonds was one of 20th-century America’s great music-makers, who forged a path as a Black woman composer in 1930s Chicago. 

Born Margaret Jeanette Allison Majors, Bonds came into the world on 3 March 1913 in Chicago, Illinois.

Her mother, Estella Bonds, was a musician, piano teacher and the local church’s choral director and organist. She taught piano to young Margaret from a very early age.

Her father, Monroe Majors, was a physician and lecturer. But her parents had an unhappy marriage, and when they split, Margaret’s last name was changed to Bonds. 

Aged eight, this young prodigy had won a scholarship to the Coleridge-Taylor Music School...

During high school, Margaret Bonds studied composition and piano with Florence Price – the first African American woman to be recognised as a symphonic composer and to have her work performed by major orchestras.

Price’s writing, as Bonds’ later would, married the European classical tradition with melodies from African American spirituals and folk tunes she grew up with.

By the age of 16, Bonds was studying at Northwestern University for a Bachelor of Music and later, a Masters in piano and composition. But she was in a minority of Black students, and the environment was racist, intimidating and almost intolerable.

Bonds recalls in an interview with James Hatch: “I was in this prejudiced university, this terribly prejudiced place – I was looking in the basement of the Evanston Public Library where they had the poetry. I came in contact with this wonderful poem, ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’, and I’m sure it helped my feelings of security.

“Because in that poem he [Langston Hughes] tells how great the Black man is: And if I had any misgivings, which I would have to have – here you are in a setup where the restaurants won’t serve you and you’re going to college, you’re sacrificing, trying to get through school – and I know that poem helped save me.”

Bonds’ collaboration with poet Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes was a leading poet and figure of the Harlem Renaissance, in whom Bonds found a life-long friend and collaborator.

Soon after they first met, Bonds set one of his best-known poems, ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’, to music.

During the Civil Rights Movement, Bonds and Hughes worked on music celebrating African American culture and values. Bonds would compose two important works dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr, one of them the Ballad of the Brown King, which was one of the duo’s most frequently performed pieces.

When Langston Hughes died in 1967, Bonds retreated. She left her husband and daughter in New York, and moved to Los Angeles where she remained until her death in 1972.

Sergio A. Mims: NYTimes.com: Stewart Goodyear performs three Beethoven Sonatas at 92nd Street Y Wednesday, livestreamed & online for a week

Stewart Goodyear

(Wheeling West Virginia Intelligencer)

Sergio A. Mims writes on May 21, 2021:,

W,

The New York Times today had a profile article by its chief classical music critic Anthony Tommansini about the brilliant pianist Stewart Goodyear in anticipation for his upcoming Beethoven sonata recital at the 92Y in New York on Weds May 26  which will be available for a limited live audience but also on streaming 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/arts/music/stewart-goodyear-piano-beethoven.html

Sergio

The New York Times

By Anthony Tommasini

May 21, 2021

The Canadian pianist Stewart Goodyear never knew his father, who died of cancer a month before he was born.

But Stewart Sr., an aspiring writer, left his only child a rich musical legacy in the form of a large, eclectic collection of LP recordings. Even when he was just 3 or 4, Goodyear was enthralled by Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Ravi Shankar, Joe Cocker and Carlos Santana. But it was two boxes containing the complete symphonies of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky that made him want to become a musician.

“Somehow I sensed that there was never a limit to the emotions expressed in this music,” Goodyear, 43, said in a recent interview. “This was the world I wanted to be a part of.”

Beethoven wound up occupying a central place in his diverse career. Goodyear has recorded the “Diabelli” Variations; the five piano concertos, with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales; and the 32 solo sonatas, released as a 10-disc set in 2012. The sonata set, in particular, is an outstanding achievement. Goodyear plays these seminal scores with pristine technique, abundant vitality, fascinating attention to detail and a composer’s grasp of overall structure.

He will play three of the sonatas on Wednesday at the 92nd Street Y: No. 15 in D, No. 25 in G and the stormy, mystical final one, No. 32 in C minor. Open to a small live audience, the recital will also be streamed and will remain online for a week.

Goodyear has been a soloist with major orchestras around the world, and has won high praise from critics. Yet he has not attained that extra level of awareness and appreciation from the public.

***

Asked about this, he said that it has perhaps been difficult for the classical music industry — which often likes its artists easy to package — to square his focus on canonical Beethoven with his adventurous streak. After all, this is a musician who has composed a calypso-inspired suite for piano and orchestra, and, recently, a rock-single spinoff recording called “Congotay” for piano quintet. (His mother, a schoolteacher, is from Trinidad, and he savored the calypso he heard on their summer trips there to visit her family.)

Five years ago, in a bold move, he decided to leave his management company and manage himself. “To concentrate on projects I was passionate about,” he said.

***

“I began self-financing my own recordings,” he added. “When I was under management, I kept being asked: ‘What are you? A pianist? A composer?’ And I never wanted to be in a box.”

One exhilarating manifestation of his intrepid artistry was his 2015 recording, on the Steinway & Sons label, of his own intricately detailed, splendidly played arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker”— not just the well-known orchestral suite, but the entire 82-minute ballet score.

***

This project risked seeming like a novelty. But there’s a long, still-misunderstood heritage of piano arrangements of orchestral and operatic works, pioneered by Liszt and championed a century later by Vladimir Horowitz. Goodyear’s “Nutcracker” was a rich contribution to that legacy.

This exceptional album was my reintroduction to Goodyear’s work. I had reviewed his 2005 debut with the New York Philharmonic, on one of the orchestra’s Summertime Classics programs, when he played Ernst von Dohnanyi’s 1914 “Variations on a Nursery Tune,” a lighthearted showpiece that showed up often in concerts until the mid-20th century. Goodyear was tapped to play this appealing curiosity for his Philharmonic debut, his only appearance to date, even though his concerto repertory is large.

The Goodyear project that stirred up the most pushback, at least initially, was his Beethoven sonata marathon in 2012, as part of the Luminato Festival in Toronto. Other pianists, including him, have played all 32 of these works over a stretch of days or weeks. But on this occasion Goodyear played them in order of composition — some 10 hours of music — in a single day.

Sergio A. Mims: Shirley Verrett in Verdi Requiem on WHPK-FM Tuesday June 1

Verdi Requiem

Shirley Verrett

Shirley Verrett

Sergio A. Mims writes:

W,

On my classical music program on WHPK-FM I will be broadcasting on Tuesday,  June 1 the acclaimed 1979 DGG recording of Verdi's Requiem conducted by Claudio Abbado with the legendary Shirley Verrett, Katia Ricciarelli, Nicolai Ghiaurov and Placido Domingo and the Chorus and Orchestra of the La Scala Opera Milan. 

As always my show can be heard every Tuesday on WHPK-FM Chicago from 12 Noon to 3PM (CDT) locally on 88.5 FM and worldwide livestream on the station's website on whpk.org

Later this summer I will also be broadcasting Claudio Abbado's DGG recording of Verdi's opera Macbeth also with Shirley Verrett in what has been considered one of her greatest recorded performances.