Updates on FESAAM 2009, An African Chorus and ICMAD Artists Collaboration Feb. 12-15, 2009

Today we received an update from Dr. Fred Onovwerosuoke on the 2009 Festival of African and African American Music (FESAAM 2009): Following are a few FESAAM 2009 updates. As usual you may look up other useful information of the FESAAM 2009 official website at http://fesaam.org Please share and forward widely. See you in Louie!

Orchestra Repertoire:

1. “Anxiety” for Symphony Orchestra by Lettie Beckon Alston

2. “Exodus” for String Orchestra by Jean Rudy Perrault

3. “Song of Harriet Tubman” for Soprano & Orchestra by Nkeiru Okoye

4. “Suite No. 3 for Orchestra” by Fred Onovwerosuoke

5. “Voices Shouting Out” for Symphony Orchestra by Nkeiru Okoye

6. “Tribute to Great African Composers” for Orchestra, Soprano, SATB Choir and Dancers.
   
   Fred Onovwerosuoke orchestration of J.H. Kwabena Nketia, Ephraim Amu, Ikoli Harcourt-Whyte, Dafuri Lamentations, South Africa Protest Chants, Fon Prayer Chants, and Mandinka Griot Praise Chants!
   

200-Voice FESAAM 2009 Mass Choir: The FESAAM 2009 Mass Choir is comprised of the Kirkwood Community College Concert Choir (Cedar Rapids, IA), Jazz Transit (Cedar Rapids, IA), St. Louis Children’s Choir (St. Louis, MO), University City High Concert Choir (St Louis, MO), Winneba Youth Choir of Ghana

Special Guest Roster:

Oboist Althea Ifeka (UK)

Pianist Silvia Belfiore (Italy) 

Pianist William Chapman-Nyaho (Renton, WA)

Pianist Susanne Garcia (Lafayette, LA)

Pianist Darryl Hollister (Boston, MA)

Pianist Laura Garritson (Elsah, IL)

Nyaho-Garcia Piano Duo (Seattle, WA) 

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine, (Chicago, IL)

Flutist Wendy Hymes (New Orleans, LA)

Flutist/Pianist Marie Jureit, (Stewart, FL)

Harpist Rashida Black (Chicago, IL)

Soprano Marie Hadley Robinson (Newark, DE)

Soprano Dawn Padmore (New York, NY)

Equinox Chamber Players (St. Louis, MO)  

Musicians of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra

Conductor Marlon Daniel (New York)

National Troupe of Nigeria, 

Winneba Youth Choir (Ghana)

Jazz Transit A Cappella (Cedar Rapids, IA)

Festival of African and African-American Music, February 12-15, 2009, St. Louis, Missouri

Special Guests: 

Nyaho-Garcia Piano Duo, Seattle, WA

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine, Chicago, IL

Pianist Silvia Belfiore (Italy)

Oboist Althea Ifeka (UK)

Flutist Wendy Hymes (New Orleans, LA)

Harpist Rashida Black (Chicago, IL)

Equinox Chamber Players, St. Louis

Musicians of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra

Conductor Marlon Daniel (New York)

National Troupe of Nigeria, Winneba Youth Choir

St. Louis Children's Choirs, University City High School Choir

McCluer North High School Orchestra, Mehlville High School Band, Mehlville

Kirkwood Community College Concert Choir, Cedar Rapids, IA, and more!

Call Dr. Wendy Hymes or Ms. Ablawa Reine at 314-652-6800 for registration and general logistics questions. Or send email to icmad@africanchorus.org

“ICMAD festivals have become a marketplace for performers and composers...”

Visit ICMAD-supported eventspage at http://africanchorus.org/ICMAD/Pastfest.htm

We also recommend the William Grant Still conference at Natchez, MS. Entitled, “Music and the Arts: Still Our Only Future” the Conference is scheduled for November 19-22, 2009! For more please visit William Grant Still website at 

http://williamgrantstill.com/nss-folder/conferenceinformation/

Mayor of St. Louis Welcomes Festival of African and African American Music, Feb. 12-15, 2009

[Althea Ifeka, Nigerian Oboist Now Living in the U.K., is a Special Guest of the Festival of African and African American Music]

Mayor Francis G. Slay welcomes the Festival of African and African American Music, Feb. 12-15, 2009, to the City of St. Louis, Missouri:

Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Via: Dr. Fred Onovwerosuoke, Director of the St. Louis African Chorus.

Please mark your calendar for February 12-15, 2009. Our acclaimed music festival, the Festival of African & African American Music, returns to St. Louis, Missouri. The festival is co-hosted by the St. Louis African Chorus, in partnership with Webster University, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and participating St. Louis schools.

For further information, call Dr. Wendy Hymes (paper presentation and lecture-recitals) or Ms. Ablawa Reine (registration and general logistics) at 314-652-6800.

"Landscapes of Africa: Music for Orchestra" by Fred Onovwerosuoke

Landscapes of Africa: Music for Orchestra by Fred Onovwerosuoke (52:18), AGCD 2071 (2007) is a vibrant new CD of musical compositions largely salvaged from the rubble left by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The composer was born in Ghana to Nigerian parents and is Founder and Director of the St. Louis African Chorus. For me, the African tone was set before I opened the disc, by the well-traveled composer's back cover photo of the exotic lavender-tinted Temple des Pythons at Ouidah, Benin Republic. Two of the ten instrumental works were commissioned, including Rhapsody on Nketia's Republic Suite (5:04), commissioned by Prof. Emeritus J. H. Kwabena Nketia of Ghana for last month's Ghana Jubilee Celebrations. The recording has received a very favorable review by James Manheim at AllMusic.com It is excerpted here:

Music written by Africans for Western symphonic ensembles is not common on recordings or Euro-American concert programs, but several African countries have conservatories with music-making that would seem worthy of further investigation. Fred Onovwerosuoke was born Fred Okorefe Kwaku Onovwerosuoke in Ghana in 1960. His family was Nigerian, and his education in African idioms encompassed the music of many different ethnic groups. At the University of Ife in Nigeria he conducted a choral group, and he studied with Ghana's most famous musical scholar, J.H. Kwabena Nketia. Onovwerosuoke now lives in New Orleans, where many of his manuscripts were nearly destroyed by Hurricane Katrina; admirers recopied them off the soaked pages. The orchestral works heard here are strongly recommended to anyone interested in fusions between the European and African musical languages, for Onovwerosuoke's thinking is subtle and original. His music strikes the listener as characteristically West African, but at first it's hard to tell why this should be -- the traditions out of which his music grew are all heavily dependent upon percussion instruments, but he uses them only sparingly.