Marvin Rosen Honors Black Composers Dec. 31, 2011 on ClassicalDiscoveries.org Kwanzaa Program

[William Grant Still Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3, 'Wood Notes' on Naxos 8.559676]

Marvin Rosen sends word of his annual Kwanzaa tribute to Black Classical Composers on WPRB Radio in Princeton, New Jersey, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday, Dec. 31, 2011. The website is www.ClassicalDiscoveries.org The program includes eight composers who are featured at AfriClassical.com:

Margaret A. Bonds

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Duke Ellington

Adolphus C. Hailstork

James P. Johnson

Ulysses S. Kay

William Grant Still

George Walker

Still, William Grant

Blues from Lenox Avenue Suite

Louis Kaufman, Violin, Annette Kaufman, Piano

Bay cities - BCD 1019

10:10

Still, William Grant

Bells
Denver Oldham, Piano

Koch International Classics - 3-7084

10:15

Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel

Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child from Five Negro Melodies, Op. 59, No. 1

The Coleridge Ensemble

Afka - SK-543

10:37

Walker, George

Lyric for Strings

Son Sonora String Quartet

Naxos - 8.559659

11:18

Ellington, Duke, arr. Marsalis, Wynton

A Tone Parallel in Harlem

New York Philharmonic, Kurt Masur, conductor,

Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Wynton Marsalis, Conductor

New York Philharmonic - Vol.2/Disc 1 (American Collection)

11:36

Hailstork, Adolphus

Celebration!

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Freeman, conductor

Sony Music Custom Marketing Group - DSO-1111

12:01

Bonds, Margaret

The Negro speaks of Rivers

Daryl Taylor, Tenor, Maria Corley, Piano

Naxos - 8.559136

12:12

Kay, Ulysses

Galop from Six Dances for String Orchestra

Westphalian Symphony Orchestra, Paul Freeman, conductor

Vox Box - CDX 5157

12:46

Johnson, James P.

Drums - A Symphonic Poem

The Concordia Orchestra, Marin Alsop, conductor

MusicMasters - 67140-2

12:51

Uel Wade, Joana Genova & Nathaniel Parke in Music of Composers of African Descent, Chatham, N.Y., Oct. 30, 3 PM

[Wallace McClain Cheatham]

This is an excerpt from an email from Uel Wade of www.UelWade.org:

“Dear Bill,

I am the pianist/artistic director of Bend the Knotted Oak (BKO) chamber music, and along with violinist Joana Genova and cellist Nathaniel Parke will be performing music exclusively by black composers on Oct. 30, 2011, 3 pm, at St. James Church in Chatham, New York, in commemoration of the beginning of the Civil War 150 years ago.

“Here is the program:

Battle of Manassas by Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins for solo piano

Gypsy Suite: Lament & Tambourine by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor for violin and piano

Sonata for Cello & Piano: II: Slow (Blues) by David N. Baker

Louisiana Blues Strut by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson for solo violin

Troubled Water by Margaret A. Bonds for solo piano

Sonata for Cello & Piano: II, III by George Walker

--INTERMISSION--

Suite for Violin & Piano: I, III by William Grant Still

Three Preludes by Wallace McClain Cheatham for solo piano

Blue/s Forms for Solo Violin by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson

Theme & Variations (based on Draw the Sacred Circle Closer) by Adolphus C. Hailstork for solo cello

Blues (Deliver My Soul) by David N. Baker for violin and piano

Roots II: Boogie-Woogie, Dance in Congo Square by David N. Baker for violin, cello, and piano

--END--

“As you can see, I have elected not to play any extended works, to achieve greater variety. To provide historical and cultural context, we include spoken dialogue, shared by a black actor and the musicians, which is often playful, but always informative, to avoid the formality of written program notes.

We also have paintings, drawings, and photographs projected on a screen as a backdrop that may change with each new musical piece. I hope this will generate some interest among your followers. Thanks for all your great work,

Uel Wade"
[Margaret A. Bonds, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Adolphus C. Hailstork, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, William Grant Still, George Walker and Thomas "Blind Tom" Wiggins are featured at AfriClassical.com, which displays Works Lists for Margaret A. Bonds, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, William Grant Still and Thomas "Blind Tom" Wiggins which have been compiled by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma, http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com]

Comments by email:

Dear Mr. Zick, Many thanks to you for sharing this information with me!!! Looking forward...,Wallace Cheatham

WOW to the WOW!! Baker and Hailstork cello music in performance on the same day!! BRAVO and best wishes!! TWH [Timothy W. Holley]

eBay.com: 'The Music of Francis Johnson & His Contemporaries: Early 19th-Century Black Composers'

[The Music of Francis Johnson & His Contemporaries: Early 19th-Century Black Composers; Diane Monroe, Violin; The Chestnut Brass Company and Friends; Tamara Brooks, Conductor; Music Masters 7029-2-C (1990) NOTE: Some differences in cover art will be found in comparing this CD cover to the one in the eBay.com auction offer.]

Francis B. Johnson (1792-1844) was an African American bugler, bandleader and composer who is profiled at AfriClassical.com. His life has been researched by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma, Professor of Music, Lawrence University Conservatory, Appleton, Wisconsin.

eBay.com

"Francis Johnson Chestnut Brass Co & Friends CD

Item condition: Like New

Time left: 5d 01h (Nov 20, 2010 17:52:42 PST)

Starting bid: US $3.99

"DESCRIPTION:

The Music of Francis Johnson & His Contemporaries: Early 19th-century Black Composers performed on original instruments by The Chestnut Brass Company and Friends. Diane Monroe, Violin and Tamara Brooks, conductor, Musical Heritage Society label, 1990. Original CD in original jewel case.

"CONDITION:

Like New; jewel case is nice with just a touch of wear; CD is very nice."

Classical Music of Selected Black Composers and Performers in the United Kingdom

[Althea Ifeka, Nigerian Oboist]

A reader who lives in London, England sends us comments in an email, calling AfriClassical.com a “fantastic website” and asking for information on classical music performances featuring Black composers or musicians in the United Kingdom. Our reply includes links to AfriClassical posts: “Many thanks for your kind words for my website. My contact in London is Mike S. Wright, Chair of the International Society of African to American Music. I am certain he can help you locate performances featuring music by Black composers or performers, particularly performances of the works of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Britain has a number of up-and-coming musicians of African descent.

“One is the pianist and singer from Belize, Errollyn Wallen. Another is the Nigerian oboist Althea Ifeka. Annamarie Ewing is a musician who has a website and organizes concerts of music of Black composers. Then there is the Nigerian duo pianist Glen Inanga. Ivan Kiwuwa is a Ugandan pianist.” Mike Wright adds: “This is a useful link: 

http://www.black-history-month.co.uk/articles/strikingachord.html”

“African Heritage Celebrated in Classical Music” Feb. 23 in Dallas

[Nicole Cash, Horn Player]

FineLineLive.com has published a post on “African Heritage Celebrated in Classical Music”, a Dallas concert previously announced on AfriClassical in a post on Feb. 4, 2008, “Nicole Cash, Horn Player, Solos in Dallas Concert”. The website of the event's sponsor describes the works to be performed:

“The February 23rd program includes George Walker's Lyric for Strings (George Walker is the only African-American to ever win the Pulitzer Prize in Music) and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Quintet for Clarinet and Strings and the Mozart Quintet for Horn and Strings.”

[George Walker and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor are profiled at AfriClassical.com]

Chicago Sinfonietta Will Help Commission Black & Latino Composers

On January 29, 2008 AfriClassical posted a press release entitled “Sphinx Commissioning Consortium to Highlight Composers of Color”. It announced a partnership involving the Sphinx Organization and 13 orchestras across the U.S., to commission and perform new classical works by Black and Latino composers. The Chicago Sinfonietta has since issued its own press release,

“Chicago Sinfonietta becomes part of Sphinx Commissioning Consortium”:

You might have heard already, but the Chicago Sinfonietta, the nation's most diverse orchestra, has committed to joining the newly formed Sphinx Commissioning Consortium (SCC), a new initiative, developed by the famed Sphinx Organization, aimed to bringing more music by African-American and Latino composers to concert halls across America. The Chicago Sinfonietta is pleased to be part of such a noble endeavor with such a talented group of organizations.

"As an orchestra that has devoted itself to promoting diversity and inclusiveness in the classical music field for over 21 years, the Chicago Sinfonietta is pleased to see other orchestras and organizations join us in our efforts to get this music heard," notes Sinfonietta Executive Director Jim Hirsch. "The work of the SCC is important and we are delighted to be a part of this nationwide effort to promote the works of composers of color."

Black History Quiz On Classical Music

[Afro-American Symphony; Royal Philharmonic Symphony; Karl Kruger, conductor; Bridge 9086 (1999)]

Classical Music is an important historical category which is too often missing from quizzes on Black History. AfriClassical.com, the website companion to AfriClassical, features a Black History Quiz On Composers and Musicians of African Descent The 51 questions are in three sections, and are progressively more challenging. Here are three sample questions and answers:

Instruction: Name the composer or musician for each question

Sample Questions:

1 Composer of the Afro-American Symphony

2 First African American Winner of Pulitzer Prize for Music

3 Violinist accompanied on piano by Ludwig van Beethoven

Sample Answers:

1 William Grant Still

2 George T. Walker

3 George Bridgetower

The Black History Quiz can also be used as a study aide; each question at the website is followed by a link to the web page on the composer or musician.

Zenobia Powell Perry (1908-2004), African American Composer

Judith Weingarten wrote a Comment on “Maria Corley, African American Pianist”:

This is great. Where can I buy Maria Corley's CD (on the web, as I live in Italy)?

I wrote a blog piece about Zenobia Perry in August [on Zenobia: Empress of the East] and have been dying to hear her work played. This is is my chance!

Judith November 2, 2007 6:24 AM

Judith Weingarten presents a brief biographical sketch of Zenobia Powell Perry, and notes that a website has been dedicated to her at www.ZenobiaPerry.org/ The liner notes for Soulscapes: Piano Music by African American Women; Maria Corley, piano; Troy 857 (2006) have this to say of the composer:

“Zenobia Powell Perry was born in Boley, Oklahoma, and died in Wilberforce, Ohio where she taught at Central State University from 1955 until her retirement in 1982. She was educated at the Tuskegee Institute, the University of Northern Colorado, and the University of Wyoming. Her teachers included Darius Milhaud and Robert Nathaniel Dett. She composed a mass, an opera, pieces for band and orchestra, songs, chamber works, and piano pieces. 'Homage' was written for the 90^th birthday of composer William Dawson (1899-1990) and is based on one of his favorite spirituals, 'I Been 'Buked'."

We Need To STOP: Francis B. "Frank" Johnson: Black Bugler & Composer

[The Music of Francis Johnson & His Contemporaries: Early 19th-Century Black Composers; Diane Monroe, Violin; The Chestnut Brass Company and Friends; Tamara Brooks, Conductor; Music Masters 7029-2-C (1990)]

We Need To STOP:

William J. Zick has done a fine job over at AfriClassical.com of compiling information on historical African American classical musicians. I like classical music, but I would not say you can find me in the record store aisle browsing CD covers, but this site is worth looking at. Figure skating is a sport I follow, so I can recognize a work or few. It is absolutely fabulous with its audio, photos, and important stories. It is a good visit for students and if you have children learning to play instruments. Perhaps they will appreciate lessons a bit more.

One of the musicians featured on his site is bandleader Francis Johnson (1792-1844) and he led the first African American musicians to Europe according to Zick. A research publication excerpt, from professor Dominique-René de Lerma of Lawrence University, featured on Zick's site, details some of Frank's racial discrimination trials:

"Johnson's career was never far from the ugliest forms of racial persecution. White bands often refused to participate in parades when Johnson's band was scheduled to appear; and when the band toured to St. Louis, Missouri, its members were arraigned, fined and ordered from the state under laws prohibiting the entry of free Blacks. A particularly violent incident occurred near Pittsburgh: "At the close of the concert the mob followed Mr. Johnson and his company shouting "n____" and other opprobrious epithets, and hurling brick-bats, stones and rotten eggs in great profusion upon the unfortunate performers. One poor fellow was severely, it is feared dangerously, wounded in the head, and others were more or less hurt. No thanks to the mobocrats that life was not taken, for they hurled their missiles with murderous recklessness if not with murderous intention." The Tribune [NY], May 23, 1843."

Racialicious: Classical music not all whites in wigs

Racialicious:

“Zick’s AfriClassical.com website documents the history of minorities composing and performing classical music. His work combines a love of classical music with a commitment to racial equality.”

Full Post

"Classical Music Recordings of Black Composers" by D. Richard Greene

American Virtuosa: Tribute to Maud Powell, was recorded by Rachel Barton Pine, violin, and Matthew Hagle, piano, on Cedille Records 90000 097. The CD is a June 2007 release which includes two works by Black composers: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Deep River, Op. 59, No. 10; and J. Rosamond Johnson's Nobody Knows the Trouble I See. Both works were arranged by violinist Maud Powell (1867-1920), who first recorded them.

The Rachel Barton Pine recording is one of the CDs, containing more than 800 recorded works, by 140 Black Composers, found at “Classical Music Recordings of Black Composers: A Comprehensive Reference Guide to Recorded Works Available on Compact Disc”, compiled by D. Richard Greene, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Temple University. This unique resource has been a labor of love of the author for many years. It came to my attention a decade ago, and has been prominently linked from the Composers of African Descent section of AfriClassical.com since the website's early days.

Most websites on Black Classical Music focus on a limited number of Black composers and musicians. Prof. Greene operates one of the few open-ended Internet resources on the subject. His website classifies recordings by year of release from 2001 to 2007, and classifies the remainder as pre-2001. The 2007 file includes works of 14 Black composers, from Henry Thacker Burleigh (1866-1949) to George Theophilus Walker (b. 1922). The Reference Guide is updated quite often, and should be visited frequently by anyone who wishes to know what recordings are available.

Catalog numbers and cover art help make the resource useful and interesting. A "Selected Bibliography", "Historical Recordings of Note" and "Web Links" offer a great deal of additional information. A particularly valuable research project is: “An Overview of Black Composers and U.S. Symphony Orchestra Repertoire”. The author says “...a special report analyzes their inclusion in orchestra concerts from 1842-1970 and 2001-2006.”

Gabriel Banat, Saint-Georges Biographer, on Calliope CD

Gabriel Banat, former First Violin of the New York Philharmonic, is the author of “The Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow”, published by Pendragon Press in New York in 2006. He has reviewed the cover and liner notes of the CD “Monsieur de Saint-George: 4 Concertos pour violon”, Les Archets de Paris, Calliope 9373 (2007), at the website of www.amazon.co.uk:

Crude cover upsetting admirers of first classical black composer, 29 Aug 2007

I am sorry to note that any discussion of the musical qualities of the Calliope CD containing previously recorded concertos of the Chevalier (sic) of Saint-Georges, is immaterial, given the negative reaction to the crude cartoonlike depiction of the first black classical composer, by his many admirers. As the author of the recent English biography of the composer, "The Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow" (New York, Pendragon Press, June, 2006), I am getting e-mails from musicians and musicologists, both black and white, communicating their shock at the insulting cover of the album. While I share their feelings, having spent years in the Paris and overseas archives searching out documents of Saint-Georges' life, I need to point out that the author of the Calliope CD's liner notes, either ignorant of recent findings on the subject or else misled by Alain Guédé's sadly misinformed book, repeats the errors dating back to 19th century fiction. He gives him the wrong birth year, mispells his family name, (saddling him with the wrong father) and pointedly calls him "Monsieur," thus unjustly divesting this black Gendarme of the King of France of his legitimate, amply documented right to his title of Chevalier. I reiterate that my critique concerns only the cover of the CD, not it's musical content.
Gabriel Banat

Gail Davis Barnes: African American Pianist

Gail Davis Barnes is an African American pianist and piano teacher in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is an ardent advocate of the works of composers of African descent. This has led her to make numerous lecture-recitals at schools and colleges on the piano music of Black composers. Her interest is also reflected in her CD Magnolias (53:28), containing works by the Afro-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) and the African American composer R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943). The pianist released the CD independently in 2001; it is available from Nicola's Books in the Westgate Shopping Center in Ann Arbor.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor is represented by pieces from Scenes From An Imaginary Ballet, Op. 74; Moorish Dance, Op. 55; The Angels Changed My Name, Op. 59, No. 9; Deep River, Op. 59, No. 10; Run Mary, Run, Op. 59, No. 21; and The Bamboula (African Dance), Op. 59, No. 8. R. Nathaniel Dett's share of the disc is Magnolia Suite, comprised of Magnolia, Deserted Cabin, My Lady Love, Mammy, and The Place Where The Rainbow Ends. Brief audio samples of the linked titles can be heard at www.AfriClassical.com

Excerpts from the pianist's resume explain her educational background and professional activities:

"Gail Davis Barnes is an independent private piano teacher and performer in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she maintains a studio. She attended Ohio State University (OSU) where she received a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance and a double minor in music history and organ. During her years at OSU, she played in many recitals both as a soloist and accompanist; she also was a featured soloist with the OSU Symphony Orchestra. Upon graduation, she attended the University of Michigan where she received a Master of Music degree in piano performance with a minor concentration in music history."

"Ms. Davis Barnes has participated in piano master classes with Malcolm Frager, Theodore Lettvin, Dorothy Taubman, and Ralph Votapek. She has also conducted master classes in Ohio and Michigan.

She has served as Minister of Music at Glacier Way United Methodist Church, Church of the Good Shepherd, and as a substitute organist/pianist at Calvary United Methodist Church.

The last 24 of her 34 years of piano teaching have been dominated by the Suzuki Method. Her primary Suzuki training has been at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point with Mrs. Haruko Kataoka. In addition, she has spent many hours observing other Suzuki piano and violin teachers instruct their students.

One of the high points of Ms. Davis Barnes’ teaching career was when she had the opportunity to teach general music to grades 2-8, and music appreciation to grades 10-12 to an international group of children in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia for two years, where she also did some private teaching and performing.

Ms. Davis Barnes’ lecture recitals concerning the classical music of Black Composers have been enthusiastically received at different universities around the country. Special presentations of these recitals have been warmly received by elementary and secondary students in Ann Arbor, Detroit, Pensacola, Florida, and Paradise Valley, Arizona."