Anita Johnson, Paragon Ragtime Orchestra & Cheyney U. Concert Choir in Scott Joplin's 'Treemonisha' April 21

[Anita Johnson; Paragon Ragtime Orchestra in Treemonisha]

Cheyney University

“Scott Joplin's Treemonisha

Time: 8:00 PM – TBA

Date: Thursday, April 21

Location: Marian Anderson Music Center

Description: Metropolitan Opera soprano Anita Johnson joins members of the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra and the Cheyney University Concert Choir in a concert performance of 'Treemonisha' with a new orchestration by Rick Benjamin. General admission: $30”

BravoBroadway.com
Anita Johnson

“A native of Ypsilanti, Michigan, Anita Johnson received a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from the University of Southern California and a Master of Music in Voice Performance as well as K-12 Music Certification from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. After graduating from the University of Michigan, Ms. Johnson became a member of Opera Music Theatre International under the direction of Jerome Hines, performing extensively throughout New Jersey. An elementary school teacher in the New Jersey Public School system and a pre K-12 teacher at the Harlem School of the Arts, she has created many performance opportunities for children, including children’s operettas and a multi-media performance of international music. Under the auspices of the Virginia Opera Company, Ms. Johnson created and performed a unique one-woman show entitled 'ABC’S: American Black Composers’ Contributions to Our Musical Heritage ©.'”

NewWorldClassics.com

“Scott Joplin’s opera, TREEMONISHA featuring Rick Benjamin’s Paragon Ragtime Orchestra”

“Joplin’s masterpiece is an optimistic snapshot of an African-·American community’s emergence from slavery. Led by the young woman Treemonisha, the townspeople reject the local conjurers’ superstitions, in favor of hard work and learning. The musical style speaks directly to modern audiences - from heartfelt arias to rousing ragtime choruses, and Joplin’s score snaps to rhythmic life in Rick Benjamin’s new, historically-informed orchestration. The production, originally from Opera Memphis, is a brightly-colored feast for the eyes. It has mostly traditional feel with some modern touches, with the emphasis on the characters’ human qualities.” [Scott Joplin (1868-1917) was a Ragtime and Classical composer who is profiled at AfriClassical.com]

Livingstone College: 'Exploring The Legacy of African-American Music'; William Grant Still's 'From the Delta' & 'The Black Man Dances'

[FROM TOP: Ivory Brock, Angela Renee Simpson, Uzee Brown, Jr. and Judith Anne Still]

Salisbury Post

Salisbury, North Carolina

Livingstone offers concert series

Sunday, April 03, 2011

By Laurie D. Willis

Livingstone College News Service

Beginning Monday, a series of musical performances will be given in Varick Auditorium on the Livingstone College campus. The performances, including one by internationally known tenor Uzee Brown Jr., are part of the Livingstone College’s annual Spring Concert, which is being held at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday. The theme of this year’s concert is “Exploring The Legacy of African-American Music.”

“This year we’re really focusing on the works of William Grant Still, who is widely considered the dean of African-American composers,” said Sidney C. Sessoms Jr., director of bands and assistant professor of music at Livingstone College. “We’re focusing on two of Mr. Still’s works, and his daughter has graciously agreed to be a part of our spring concert.” Sessoms said Still’s “From The Delta,” a concert band piece, will be performed as well as “The Black Man Dances,” a piano concerto that will feature John Robertson, an Atlanta pianist, and Salisbury Symphony members.

Judith Anne Still, president of William Grant Still Music Company based in Flagstaff, Az., will attend the spring concert and also conduct a workshop on her father at noon Thursday at Soldiers Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church, Sessoms said. The concert will feature Ivory Brock, who taught Sessoms when he was a student at Delaware State University and is an international clinician. Brock has worked closely with Dr. Quincy C. Hilliard and will conduct one of his works.

“It is my hope and desire that these events will educate Livingstone College students and the community on the many accomplishments of African-American and other minority composers,” Sessoms said. “So many times people like Florence Price, Ulysses S. Kay Jr. and William Grant Still go unrecognized for the great contributions they have made to music, particularly African-American music. I feel confident that after hearing just a sampling of their works people in the audience will have a deeper appreciation for them and perhaps even go out and purchase some of their music.”

The musical activities commence on Monday with a master class/concert given by world renowned opera singer Angela Renee Simpson. Simpson has performed extensively in Europe and was once referred to as “the grandest moment” in a New York Times review about her performance as Serena in “Porgy and Bess.” On Tuesday, the college is having a read-through session of the works of Hilliard, one of the foremost composers of band literature in the world. That session begins at 6 p.m. in Varick Auditorium, and area high schools have been invited to participate in it.

On Wednesday, a dress rehearsal will take place, but at 11 a.m. during the college’s weekly Family Assembly, there will be a round-table discussion featuring some of the artists, Sessoms said. All performances are free and open to the public. Sessoms said he is anticipating a crowd to rival or surpass attendance at Livingstone College’s 2010 Christmas Extravaganza.

“Salisbury residents, Rowan County residents and people in surrounding counties who enjoy good music won’t want to miss these events,” Sessoms said. “I am excited over the extraordinary talent lineup we’ve assembled to come to our campus, and I am thankful we are able to provide such stellar performers to the community free of charge.” [Florence Beatrice Smith Price (1887-1953), Ulysses S. Kay Jr. (1917-1995) and William Grant Still (1895-1978) are profiled at AfriClassical.com, where complete Works Lists by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma are featured.]

Ritz Chamber Players Perform Tania León and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson at Ravinia 8 PM April 8

[Ritz Chamber Players]

Ravinia.org

“Ritz Chamber Players

Friday, April 08, 2011

8:00 PM

Bennett Gordon Hall

“Boasting some of the world’s preeminent musicians spanning the African diaspora, the Ritz Chamber Players are dedicated to showcasing the works of African-American composers. Its members perform with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra and the London Symphony. They group has performed at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall and the Madison and Amelia Island chamber music festivals. The Ritz Chamber Players have appeared on National Public Radio and on the televised 37th Annual NAACP Image Awards.

PROGRAM

Quilter: Three Pastoral Songs, Op.22

León: Oh Yemanja—“Mother’s Prayer” from Scourge of Hyacinths

Perkinson: String Quartet No.1 based on the spiritual “Calvary”
Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25
[Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932-2004) is profiled at AfriClassical.com which features a complete Works List by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma, as well as a biography of Tania Justina León (b. 1943), whose website is http://www.tanialeon.com/]

'Apr 1 / 12:17pm Omaha Symphony | Thomas Wilkins' by minorwhite studios, inc.

[Thomas Wilkins]

MWStudios.posterous.com

“minorwhite studios is a collective of innovative image makers who produce original image content that can inspire, suggest, and challenge.”

Thomas Wilkins Bio

“Thomas Wilkins is Music Director of the Omaha Symphony, a position he has held since 2005. Additionally he is Principal Guest Conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and holds the Germeshausen Family and Youth Concert Conductor chair with the Boston Symphony. Past positions have included Resident Conductor of the Detroit Symphony as well as the Florida Orchestra (Tampa Bay) and Associate Conductor of the Richmond Symphony (Virginia). He served on the music faculties of North Park University (Chicago), the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga and Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.”

Chris Foley: Wikio Ranks AfriClassical in Top 30 Classical Music Blogs for April 2011

Wikio Ranks Classical Music Blogs

Our friend Dr. Chris Foley of The Royal Conservatory in Toronto writes the blog Collaborative Piano. He congratulates AfriClassical on making Wikio's top 30 list of Classical Music Blogs. Blogs on Classical Music number in the hundreds. Chis Foley's own blog, Collaborative Piano, ranks No. 16 this month:

Collaborative Piano

“Friday, April 01, 2011

The Top 30 Classical Music Blogs – April 2011

Wikio's listing of the top classical music blogs for April 2011 is out, and CPB falls 4 places to #16, which is understandable in the busiest month of the year. Ironically, this has been the blog's best month ever for traffic, with 9,922 onsite viewers viewing 19,182 pages and ~1300 subscribers viewing 14,396 articles via RSS feed.

“I'm also glad to see some of my favorite blogs on the list, including Sandow, Adaptistration, Musical Assumptions, Chamber Music Today, Stark Raving Cello, and AfriClassical.”

James P. Johnson's 'Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody, orchestrated by William Grant Still' on Naxos 8.559647 (2011)

[Jazz Nocturne - American Concertos of the Jazz Age; Hot Springs Music Festival Symphony Orchestra; Richard Rosenberg, conductor; Naxos 8.559647 (2011)]

James Price Johnson (1894-1955) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which employs the research of Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma of Lawrence University Conservatory, and focuses on his classical works. William Grant Still (1895-1978) arranged Johnson's Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody, and is also profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features a complete Works List by Prof. De Lerma.

Naxos.com

“James P. Johnson, a highly influential African-American jazz pianist who also wrote popular songs and composed classical works, was the founder of the stride piano idiom, a crucial figure in the transition from ragtime to jazz. Growing up in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Johnson studied classical and ragtime piano techniques, and by his late teens he was performing in saloons, in dance halls, and at parties in a black community near Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan.”

"Johnson’s symphonic works, according to composer Gunther Schuller, use 'basic Negro musical traditions that emulated roughly Liszt’s approach in his Hungarian rhapsodies'. Clearly inspired by the success of his friend George Gershwin’s 1924 composition, A Rhapsody in Blue, Johnson created his own composition of similar format and scale in 1927 as his first large-scale semi-classical composition.” “The foreword to the first publication of Yamekraw describes the intent of the work as 'A genuine Negro treatise on spiritual, syncopated and "blue" melodies by James P. Johnson, expressing the religious fervor and happy moods of the natives of Yamekraw, a Negro settlement situated on the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia.'

"Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody was first performed at a concert produced by the 'Father of the Blues' W.C. Handy, at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1928. Unfortunately, Johnson was not released from his duties as conductor of the musical Keep Shufflin’ that evening, so his protégé Thomas 'Fats' Waller played the piano solo part at the concert. The piece was quite successful—it was used as the soundtrack of a 1930 Vitaphone motion picture short subject also entitled Yamekraw, and as the overture to Orson Welles’ production of “Macbeth” later in the 1930s, and was recorded in abbreviated versions several times. This success inspired Johnson’s further efforts in the jazz-classical fusion area, such as his Harlem Symphony (1932), a symphonic version of W.C. Handy’s St Louis Blues (1937), and his concerto Jazz A’ Mine (1934). Furthermore, William Grant Still, who arranged the orchestral parts for that concert, was evidently inspired by the piece’s success to go on to create his own compositions for full orchestra, such as his Afro- American Symphony (1931). This disc marks the première recording of the complete, final orchestral version of the work. As one of the first successful large-scale musical works by an African-American composer, Yamekraw thus played an important rôle in the development of American music in the twentieth century.”

Classical Lost and Found March 2011

Bob McQuiston

“The program begins with a selection by James P. Johnson (1894–1955), who was the father of stride piano and wrote the ever popular Charleston (1925). His Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody (1927) for piano with an orchestral accompaniment by American composer William Grant Still (1895–1978) is presented in its complete final form (WPR). Incidentally it was Johnson’s protégé pianist Fats Waller (1904–1943) who gave the premiere.

“Incorporating spirituals and blues melodies, it’s a musical picture of the Yamekraw Negro community outside Savannah, Georgia. You’ll find yourself totally captivated by this brilliantly orchestrated, thoroughly engaging piece. It’s full of toe-tapping tunes, and anticipates the boogie-woogie fad of the 1940s and 50s [track-1, beginning at 06:48].”

Michael S. Wright: 'I have not had a chance to analyse all as yet but there are some significant casualties' in UK Arts

[Ignatius Sancho: An African Man of Letters; Reyahn King et al.; National Portrait Gallery of the U.K. (1997)]

On Wednesday, March 30, 2011 AfriClassical posted: “Michael S. Wright on 'UK Arts Council Grants': 'The “axe” is likely to hit the music industry.'” The post began: “The UK Government are about to announce £100 million cuts in grants by the Arts Council at 10am today. The 'axe' is likely to hit the music industry that is already being strained by local authority cut backs.”

Today we received a second message from Michael S. Wright:

Bill, Thanks. Details are to be found on the spreadsheets included in

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/national-portfolio-funding/

I have not had a chance to analyse all as yet but there are some significant casualties.

Regards

Mike

JoAnn Falletta & Virginia Symphony to Record Naxos CD of Works of Adolphus Hailstork in May

[Adolphus Hailstork]

HamptonRoads.com

VSO conductor knows the sweet sound of success

By Teresa Annas

The Virginian-Pilot

© March 19, 2011

Fans here know her accomplishments. Since being hired in 1991, Falletta has transformed the Virginia Symphony into a respected organization that is ranked among the nation’s top orchestras.She gave the group ambition by heading to New York in 1997 for a concert at Carnegie Hall; the rave reviews brought confidence. Three years later, she took the symphony to the Kennedy Center in Washington.

Since then, she has led the symphony for 14 recordings, further spreading its reputation. In May, the symphony will record a program of works by Virginia Beach composer Adolphus Hailstork; the group’s 15th recording will be its first for Naxos, the world’s leading classical music label. Falletta has made more than 50 recordings in all and has two Grammy Awards to her credit.

She earned her 10th honor from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 2008. That last ASCAP honor cited her many abilities but especially her “career-long advocacy for American composers that has made her a leading force for the music of our time.” As a conductor, she has premiered more than 100 works, here and elsewhere.

Outside of Virginia, Falletta is building her own reputation. Besides her work in Buffalo, she is a frequent guest conductor for orchestras worldwide and at the nation’s top summer festivals, such as Tanglewood. [Adolphus C. Hailstork (b. 1941) is an Eminent Scholar at Old Dominion University and is profiled at AfriClassical.com]

ASALH Conference: 'The deadline for the submission of panel and paper proposals is 30 April 2011.'

Sylvia Cyrus of ASALH.org, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, sends this news:

The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) is soliciting papers and panels for its upcoming 96th Annual Convention. This year's conference theme is: "African Americans and the U.S. Civil War." Although the program committee welcomes papers and panels on any aspect of African and African American history and culture, special preference will be given to submissions directly related to this year's theme.

Using a wide variety of disciplines, this year's conference seeks to explore many aspects of African American involvement in the Civil War, 1861-1865. Important topics include African Americans and the abolitionist movement, African American women and life on the homefront during the war years, African American participation in the military, and African American life and politics during the Reconstruction Era, 1865-1877. In addition, recent popular and scholarly debates over causes of the Civil War will be explored.

In 1861 as the United States stood at the brink of civil war, people of African descent, both slave and free, waited with a watchful eye. They understood that a war between the Union military and the Confederacy might bring about the "day of jubilee" and the destruction of slavery. When the Confederate troops fired upon Fort Sumter on 12 April 1861 and hostilities began, President Abraham Lincoln maintained that the paramount cause was to preserve the Union, not to end the practice of slavery. Frederick Douglass, the most prominent African American leader, declared that regardless of Union intentions, the war would bring an end to the South's "peculiar institution."

Over the next four years, the four million people of African descent in the United States sought to prove Frederick Douglass right. Free and enslaved African Americans rallied around the Union flag and the cause of freedom. From the cotton and tobacco fields of the South to the small towns and big cities of the North, nearly 200,000 black men joined the Grand Army of the Republic and took up arms to destroy slavery and the Confederacy. The ASALH convention theme for 2011 honors the role of people of African descent in ending slavery and preserving the Union.

Given the recent political and academic debates about the legacy of the Civil War, papers and panels offering interdisciplinary analyses and perspectives of the continuing legacy of the Civil War in American and African American life are particularly welcome.

The deadline for the submission of panel and paper proposals is 30 April 2011.

All proposals must be submitted electronically to ASALH through the All Academic online system at http://www.asalh.org/callforpapers.html.

Proposals should include title of the paper or panel, author(s) and affiliation(s), an abstract of paper or panel of 200-250 words, and all contact information. Only panel proposal submitters will receive complimentary audio/visual equipment on a first come first serve basis.

For information on how to make electronic submissions, please visit http://www.asalh.org/96thconvention.html and visit the FAQ page at for important information regarding submissions.

Derrick P. Alridge

Academic Program Chair

dalridge@uga.edu

Texas A&M University: Pianist Dr. William Chapman Nyaho Performs at Rudder Theatre 7:30 PM Wednesday, April 6

[William Chapman Nyaho]

The Texas A&M Department of Performance Studies will present a concert of piano music by Dr. William Chapman Nyaho at Rudder Theatre on Wednesday, Apr. 6, at 7:30 p.m.

 Chapman Nyaho is a Ghanaian American and resident of Seattle that has studied piano all around the world. He has earned degrees from Oxford University in England, the Eastman School of Music in at the University of Rochester (N.Y.), and the University of Texas-Austin. 



His performances have taken him to Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, as well as his current home of North America. He has played at the Kennedy Center, with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and been featured on radio and television broadcasts from Ghana to Switzerland to National Public Radio in the U.S.



“Nyaho is a superb musician and a rare talent who specializes in the performance of Classical music from several Western and non-Western cultures,” said faculty host Dr. David Wilborn. “His piano performances are intriguing and engaging. No one should ever miss an opportunity to hear and watch him in performance.”



Chapman Nyaho, who also spent time studying in Switzerland and as a four-year visiting artist at North Carolina, is a regular guest clinician giving lectures and recitals that advocate music by composers of African heritage. He has produced a five-volume graded anthology entitled Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora, which is intended to expand the performing repertoire of students and concert pianists.

General admission for the Apr. 6 concert is $10 while the cost for students is $5. Tickets can be purchased in person, or by calling (979) 845-1234. Tickets are also available for purchase online: http://purchase.tickets.com/buy/TicketPurchase?orgid=326&pid=6946682 [William Chapman Nyaho (b. 1958) is profiled at AfriClassical.com and has a website, http://www.nyahopianostudio.com/biography.html]