John Malveaux: Judith Anne Still, daughter of composer William Grant Still, graduated 'magna cum laude' from the University of Southern California 50 years ago

Judith Anne Still and William Grant Still

John Malveaux of www.MusicUNTOLD.com sends this link:

Judith Still, daughter of composer William Grant Still, graduted magna cum laude from USC 50 years ago. See http://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/1259/still-life/

Thanks
John

Still Life

Judith Anne Still '64 has devoted herself to rescuing the forgotten legacy of her composer father, William Grant Still.

By Susan Bell
January 4, 2013
[Excerpt]   

[Judith Anne] Still won a full scholarship offered by USC to academically gifted students of color and majored in English in USC Dornsife.

“USC was thinking out of the box in offering these wonderful opportunities,” she said, referring to some of the nation’s first minority programs.

The Still family already had close connections with USC. Still had given talks at the university, where he had many friends. Students and faculty were familiar with his music from the concerts he gave at nearby Exposition Park.

While attending USC Dornsife, Judith Anne was active in honor societies Phi Kappa Phi and Phi Beta Kappa. She also fondly remembers evenings spent playing the card game bid whist and reciting poetry with friends at the Trojan Grill, then a popular eatery in the basement of the student union.

Judith Anne met her future husband, Larry Allyn Headlee ’65 at USC, while he was studying for his master’s in marine geology in USC Dornsife. The couple married in 1962 and had four children, the second of whom, Lisa, was born seven days after Judith Anne graduated magna cum laude.

Kelly Hall-Tompkins 'Imagination' Official DVD Disc Release Event Monday, March 17, 2014, 7 PM at Pranna Bar and Lounge, New York City

You Are Invited to   ~ The Imagination Official DVD Disc Release Event ~ _____________________________ Imagination Music Video Album Over 18,000 Total Views on You Tube in the First Week! Come to the Official DVD Disc Release Event Monday Evening March 17 7pm at Pranna Bar and Lounge Madison Avenue at 28th Street New York City Tickets $20 Buy an Early Bird Ticket for $18 Click HERE To Buy Tickets

James Lee III: 'Alas! Babylon's Final Sunset' Hopkins Symphony Orchestra Commission and World-Premiere, Saturday, March 1, 2014 at 8 pm

James Lee III
www.jameslee3.com

Johns Hopkins University

Hopkins Symphony Orchestra

Saturday, March 1, 2014 at 8 pm

Symphonic Concert · Jed Gaylin, conductor
Shriver Hall
Free pre-concert talk at 7 pm

James Lee III: Alas! Babylon's Final Sunset
HSO Commission and world-premiere

Ferde Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite


Modest Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition

Cedille Records Free Download of the Week Features Sanford Allen on Violin in I. Plain Blue/s from 'Blue/s Forms for Solo Violin'

Cedille Records CDR 90000 087 (2005)

We celebrate Black History Month on this week’s Cedille Chicago Presents (heard on 98.7 FM in Chicago and wfmt.com everywhere, Wednesday nights, 10 pm Central time) with selections from many of the Cedille recordings that feature or include music by composers of African descent, including our 3-volume African Heritage Symphonic Series. Our Free Download of the Week comes from a disc that was an outgrowth of that series: Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson: A Celebration (our CD of the Week: 25% OFF the regular price). The disc is a retrospective of 50 years of composition by this fascinating figure who lived from 1932 to 2004. The free download track is the first movement of Perkinson’s distillation of the blues for solo violin titled Blue/s Forms. It’s played by its dedicatee, Sanford Allen, who premiered the piece in Carnegie Hall and who was, in 1962, the first African-American to become a regular member of the New York Philharmonic (making this a particularly appropriate track for Black History Month).

This week's CD OF THE WEEK:
(25% OFF the regular price)
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson: A Celebration
Various Artists
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...Please remember that the download code is FREEDWNLD
(It's the same every week!)

[Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932-2004) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features a comprehensive Works List and a Bibliography by Dr. Dominique-René de Lerma, www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com.]

 

Sphinx Competition: Double Bassist Xavier Foley wins 1st Place in Senior Division and Cellist Sterling Elliott wins 1st Place in Junior Division

Xavier Foley (Glenn Triest)

Sterling Elliott (Glenn Triest)

First Place Junior Division Laureate, cellist Sterling Elliott and First Place Senior Division Laureate, double-bassist Xavier Foley featured above, during the 17th Annual Sphinx Competition.

The Finals Concert for the 17th Annual Sphinx Competition presented by the DTE Energy Foundation took place on February 23^rd, 2014, hosted by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at the Max. M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit, Michigan.

19-year-old double-bassist Xavier Foley (Curtis Institute) gave a stunning performance and was awarded First Place in the Senior Division by the internationally acclaimed Jury panel, comprising Paul Katz, Ida Kavafian, Charles Letourneau, Donald McInnes, Melissa White, Kathleen Winkler and Sonia Vega. Foley made history by becoming the Sphinx Competition’s first double-bassist to be named First Place Laureate.  He will receive a $50,000 scholarship award, a prize from Tempo Cases, and have the opportunity to be featured with Sphinx Soloist Program partners.  Foley was also the recipient of Sphinx’s Audience Choice Award sponsored by Mercedes Benz Financial Services. Second Place in the Senior Division of the Sphinx Competition went to violinist Clayton Penrose-Whitmore who will receive a $20,000 scholarship award, while cellist Nicholas Mariscal won Third Place and will receive a $10,000 scholarship award.

14 year-old cellist Sterling Elliott, from Newport News, VA, won First Place in the Junior Division and made history by becoming the first alumnus from the Sphinx Performance Academy (Sphinx’s intensive summer solo and chamber music program), to win the Sphinx Competition.  Sterling will also receive a $10,000 scholarship award, a prize from Tempo Cases, and have the opportunity to be featured with Sphinx Soloist Program partners.  

The Laureates performed with the professional all Black and Latino Sphinx Symphony Orchestra. Featured Guest Artist Simon Shaheen dazzled the audiences with his virtuosic account of the Finale of his Oud Concerto in C Minor.  

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Complete Concert Broadcast
Monday, March 24th at 10:00PM

Sunday, March 30th at 2:00PM
on Detroit Public Television, Channel 56.1

Broadcast will be available on demand at www.dptv.org

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Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Max M. Fisher Music Center: 

Key artistic partner and exclusive home of the 2014 Sphinx Competition 

Detroit, Michigan

Sergio Mims: Detroit Free Press: 'Leonard Slatkin: How African Americans changed classical music'

Awadagin Pratt (V. Richard Haro)

Sergio Mims sends this link:

The Detroit Free Press

Leonard Slatkin
Guest Writer

February 22, 2014

I have been working on a new chapter of a book about the challenges faced by the classical music industry. 

...

In their time, Beethoven and Haydn were both described as Moors. The former wrote some of his most significant music for the black violinist George Bridgetower. Before that, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges was France’s most prominent black composer. And in England, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor had considerable success with a work he wrote entitled “Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.”

As classical music began to establish roots in America, more and more black musicians began to explore alternative styles and genres in which to express their individuality. Scott Joplin, William L. Dawson and Ulysses Kay were among the pioneers in the compositional world. Performers such as Dean Dixon, Leo Brouwer and Paul Freeman became role models for the young black musicians who would follow in their path-breaking mold.

Today, we can find more and more African-American musicians working in the classical music arena. Denyce Graves, James Lee III, Awadagin Pratt and Eric Owens are among those whose names grace the stages of the most prestigious musical institutions throughout the world. American conservatories continue to be beacons of inclusiveness, and one can see diversity in action at the Juilliard School in New York, Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia or Colburn School in Los Angeles.

For 35 years, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra has paid tribute to the contributions of African Americans in what might be termed non-ephemeral music. Classical Roots celebrates a variety of styles and genres that are a shared musical experience.  It has been my honor to lead several of these concerts. The DSO will welcome that most distinguished of artists, Kathleen Battle, who will be the featured soloist in selections of songs and spirituals. 

Leonard Slatkin is the conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Lyric Soprano Jennifer Lindsay Sings 'Come Scoglio' from 'The Magic Flute' and 'Ah, je veux vivre' from 'Romeo & Juliet' at Bellflower Symphony Orchestra Concert

John Malveaux and Jennifer Lindsay

John Malveaux of www.MusicUNTOLD.com writes:

Jennifer Lindsay is lyric soprano and concert master of Bellflower Symphony Orchestra. On February 1, 2014, the Bellflower Symphony Orchestra offered a NIGHT AT THE OPERA. Jennifer contributed Come Scoglio from "The Magic Flute" and Ah, je veux vivre from "Romeo & Juliet". 

Thanks

John Malveaux

John Malveaux: William Chapman Nyaho Performs Piano Music of Composers of African Descent at Magnet Middle School in Raleigh, North Carolina

Dr. William Chapman Nyaho (b. 1958) is featured at AfriClassical.com.

John Malveaux of www.MusicUNTOLD.com writes:

Pianist William Chapman Nyaho posted this picture on Facebook of a fun school assembly performance of music by composers of African descent.

John W. Ligon GT Magnet Middle School is a public magnet middle school in the Wake County Public School System located in the Chavis Heights neighborhood of Raleigh, North Carolina. Ligon was founded in 1954, right after the US Supreme Court's ruling on the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education as an all African-American high school though it has since been integrated. After the racial integration period, Ligon heavily promoted diversity, which is still part of its goal

Sergio A. Mims: Slipped Disc: 'A flaming tendon prompts surprise replacement' of Vadim Repin by Tai Murray

Tai Murray
taimurray.com

Sergio A. Mims sends this link from Slipped Disc of Norman Lebrecht:

Slipped Disc

February 25, 2014 by Norman Lebrecht 

The star violinist Vadim Repin has pulled out of a Liverpool concert with an excruciating tendonitis of the shoulder.

The concerto he was due to play this Thursday was Andrzej Panufnik’s. Not many soloists, outside Poland, know it off pat.

Amazingly, the US violinist Tai Murray does. She flies in for a Merseyside debut amid cheers of relief.

Theatre Morgan's production of Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing' Fri., Feb. 28, 7:30 PM; Sat, Mar. 1, 2 PM & 7:30 PM; and Sun., Mar. 2, 3 PM

Eric Conway, D.M.A., Fine and Performing Arts Department Chairperson

of Morgan State University:

Hello everyone,

Last evening, I attended Theatre Morgan's production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. It was excellent.  I especially appreciated the delivery of dialogue by our Morgan thespians which sounded much more contemporary and uniquely intelligible in presentation than any other Shakespearean production that I could remember.  With the 1920's theme to the costumes and the very colorful set with an almost psychedelic painted stage, there was a visual feast for the eyes.  I especially liked the period jazz music diced into the production to give a reprise from the Old English prose.  To see our students spewing out Shakespeare is something to behold.  Shirley Basfield-Dunlap has done a masterful job in directing our students in this production.  If you get a chance, please stop by to see the remaining performances next weekend on Friday, February 28, at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, March 1, 2:00 & & 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, March 2, at 3:00 pm. See photos attached from the production. Hope to see you there.

Eric Conway