Four Seasons Arts: Founder's Concert - 7 PM PT, Saturday, May 15, 2021: Music of Florence B. Price (1887-1953) and William Grant Still (1895-1978)

 

Dr. W. Hazaiah Williams (May 14, 1930 – April 24, 1999)

Four Seasons Arts writes:

The W. Hazaiah Williams Founder’s Concert sponsored annually by Four Seasons Arts will be presented online on May 15^th at 7:00 PM PST.  Violinist Randall Goosby and pianist Zhu Wang will perform works by Johannes Brahms, Florence Price, and William Grant Still.

Anyone that would like to view this concert online may submit name and email address to fsa.info@fsarts.org.  You will be sent announcements about the concert and the actual link will be emailed to you on May 15^th.  The concert can be viewed starting at 7:00 PM PST on May 15^th and will be available to view for 2 weeks using the same email link.

Dr. Williams was dedicated to the racial and cultural integration and expansion of classical music audiences and the concert stage.  He began presenting concerts by co-sponsoring a recital by Marian Anderson at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House in 1958.  He founded and directed Today’s Artists Concerts, bringing to the Bay Area hundreds of artists from around the world. For twenty-two years, he presented a series of concerts in New York’s Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall.  In 1981, he established the annual Yachats (Oregon) Music Festival, and in 1993, created Four Seasons Arts, serving as President and Artistic Director.  Four Seasons Arts perpetuates Dr. Williams’ legacy by presenting an annual series in Oakland, California, providing artists’ seminars and master classes for the Oakland public schools, and organizing concerts in the local county jail.

In the May 15^th Founder’s Concert, Mr. Goosby will speak about the importance of recognizing Dr. Williams’ legacy and perform Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108 by Brahms, Elfentanz and Adoration by Price, and Suite for Violin and Piano by William Grant Still.

This concert reaffirms Dr. Williams’ belief that Art creates images of beauty that enrich and ennoble as they inspire people to achieve the highest and best in the human experience.  Music is a vehicle through which he pursued his vision that race, class, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and language are artificial barriers preventing the human family from recognizing their enduring commonality.