Come dine and celebrate in support of the largest Black History Web Site on the Internet. Saturday, March 11, 2017, 6:00 p.m. at Washington Hall, Seattle, WA.

Come dine and celebrate in support of the largest Black History web site on the Internet.

Saturday, March 11, 2017, 6:00 p.m. at Washington Hall, Seattle, WA.

A limited amount of tickets are available right now at Brown Paper Tickets.

AaronAsk: Weekly mentoring for a creative life: "Stand Up!" (YouTube: 3:28)

http://www.aaronask.com/stand-up/

Aaron P. Dworkin writes:

Greetings and welcome to this week's episode of AaronAsk, your weekly mentoring session to live a fulfilling creative life!  This week's episode is titled, Stand Up!  Enjoy, we wish you a creative day and see you for next week's session! Comment by email: Thanks so much Bill... hope all is well!  Aaron  [Aaron P. Dworkin]

John Malveaux: Attended January 28, 2017 Bellflower Symphony Orchestra concert, NIGHT AT THE OPERA, conducted by Maestro Joseph Taylor

John Malveaux of 

www.MusicUNTOLD.com 

writes:                                                                                                                          

Attended January 28, 2017 Bellflower Symphony Orchestra concert, NIGHT AT THE OPERA. Unyielding to chemotherapy, Maestro Joseph Taylor continues  to conduct the Bellflower Symphony Orchestra since 1991. Joseph Taylor's commitment to education and classical music has earned him respect in multiple communities. A retired teacher of music, mathematics and English from the Los Angeles and Compton Unified School Districts, Joseph Taylor continues to teach private music students. He coaches students at Centennial High School in Compton, the Watts-Willowbrook Boys & Girls Club Music Conservatory, the Compton Conservatory of Music, and Wildwood Music Camps. 

Joseph Taylor has held the titles of principal violist for the Peninsula Symphony, concertmaster of Holman United Methodist Church Chamber Orchestra, principal violist of Vineyard Opera, cellist in the Southeast Symphony Orchestra, and conductor of MusicUNTOLD Orchestra. The National Association of Negro Musicians awarded Joseph Taylor the 2014 National Achievement Award in Music Education. His nurturing of youngsters has impacted many who have become successful musicians while some simply appreciated music but became doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers and other professionals. See photo following NIGHT AT THE OPERA concert from left: Angela Taylor (sister), John Malveaux, Soprano Jennifer Lindsay, and Joseph Taylor.

Seattle Times: Concert brings to light forgotten works by 18th-century black composer [Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799), 7:30 PM Friday, Feb. 3, 2017]

Seattle Baroque Orchestra music director Alexander Weimann says Saint-Georges was “an absolute master.” (Ben VanHouten/Ben VanHouten)       

Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799)

Arion 68093

http://chevalierdesaintgeorges.homestead.com/Page1.html

Prof. Quinton Morris

Seattle University

The Seattle Times

January 29, 2017

By

Tom Keogh

Special to The Seattle Times

Chevalier de Saint-Georges, whose extraordinary life and works have been overlooked for centuries, will be in the spotlight during Seattle Baroque Orchestra’s concert honoring the black musician/composer/athlete.

He was born to an enslaved woman and a planter in Guadaloupe in the mid-18th century. Barely more than a quarter-century later, he became concertmaster (and eventually music director) of the celebrated Paris orchestra Concert des Amateurs, dazzling audiences with his vigorous violin solos on his own compositions.
Between these incongruent landmarks, he was renowned in France as a superior teenage athlete, a champion fencer of tremendous dexterity and speed. In time, he would also be known for anti-slavery activism, as well as playing duets with Marie Antoinette and a tendency to sleep with married women.

Yet despite his accomplishments as a composer, musician, conductor and romantic hero of an improbable life, Joseph Bologne, also known as Chevalier de Saint-Georges, is largely forgotten today.

***

Also on the bill is Jean-Marie Leclair’s Concerto for Violin and Strings in B-flat major, an acknowledgement of unproven claims that Leclair, founder of the French violin school, taught Saint-Georges. Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 85 in B-flat major (“La Reine”), one of the Austrian composer’s so-called Paris symphonies and a work commissioned and first conducted by Saint-Georges for the orchestra Concert de la Olympique, will be performed as well.

“All these pieces circle around Saint-Georges,” says Seattle Baroque Orchestra music director Alexander Weimann, who selected his subject’s Concerto for Two Violins and Strings in G major, plus the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in C major, as representative of Saint-Georges’ technically demanding yet rewarding work.
“Le Mozart Noir” will be performed throughout the Northwest. Violinist Monica Huggett, artistic director of the Portland ensemble, will be the soloist.
The players at all these concerts, says Weimann — who learned of Saint-Georges only a few years ago — have their work cut out for them.


***
A pre-concert talk by Quinton Morris, associate professor and director of chamber and instrumental music at Seattle University, will shed light on Saint-Georges’ story and music. Morris, a violinist, toured the world last year lecturing about Saint-Georges, performing his music and screening a short film on the subject, “The Breakthrough” (which won a top prize from the European Independent Film Award festival)
“On my tour, wherever I went, I heard people say, ‘I didn’t know there was a black violinist in classical music history,’” says Morris. “So many people don’t know the impact he had.”

Comment by email:

Hi Bill,  Thanks so much for posting.  Wonderful!  I hope you are well. Best wishes, Quinton Quinton Morris

John Malveaux: Charley Pride, the first African-American to play the Grand Ole Opry, will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys, Feb. 12, 2017

Charley Pride

John Malveaux of 

www.MusicUNTOLD.com 

writes:

Charley Pride, the first African-American to play the Grand Ole Opry in 1967, known for hits like "Kiss an Angel Good Morning," will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys, February 12, 2017. 

Sergio A. Mims: Chicago Maroon: Imani Winds Champions Diversity of Repertoire and Race

From left to right: Monica Ellis, Jeff Scott, Toyin Spellman-Diaz, Mark Dover, and Valerie Coleman.

Courtesy of Imami Winds

Sergio A. Mims forwards this article:

The Chicago Maroon

By Rebecca Julie

Jan. 24, 2017

When Valerie Coleman was studying flute performance at Mannes School of Music in 1997, she came up with the idea for the name of her wind quintet: Imani Winds. With that in mind, she asked friends for names of quality New York musicians of color in the freelancing scene and came across bassoonist Monica Ellis, French horn player Jeff Scott, oboist Toyin Spellman-Diaz, and clarinetist Mariam Adam. Swahili for “faith,” imani became the new quintet’s namesake.

Today, nearly two decades later and with four of the five original members still in the ensemble, Imani Winds has gone on to receive a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Crossover Album (2016). Last year, Mark Dover came on board as Imani’s clarinetist. Throughout its career, the group has been devoted to promoting diversity in classical music, and it works hard to reach as diverse an audience as possible through various outreach efforts and collaborations with other performers and composers. At the end of last academic year, UChicago named Imani Winds the new Don Michael Randel ensemble in residence on campus, succeeding the Pacifica Quartet.

On Friday, the Imanis teamed up with the University of Chicago Chamber Music Organization (CMO) to partake in the third of a series of CMO-hosted panel discussions on race, class, and privilege in classical music in the Logan Penthouse. The discussion was moderated by fourth-year Shirley Zhang.

The discussion quickly turned to the Imanis’ dedication to performing diverse music by composers of varying backgrounds. As Scott explained, wind quintets “don’t have the Mozarts, the Brahms, the Strausses, and so on. So we don’t have great literature, the great composers of the 18th and 19th centuries.”

Scott—who, along with Coleman, is a composer himself—discussed that this distinct lack of repertoire is what placed Imani Winds and other wind quintets in a unique position to influence the birth of an entirely new canon of repertoire.

“You just can’t survive without repertoire,” he continued. “So you celebrate the idea that you’re starting with a blank palette.”

From this blank palette, Imani Winds created its Legacy Commissioning Project. Through Legacy, Imani commissioned 10 composers of color for a variety of concerts, as well as recordings.

“We knew right away that it was important to commission music from underrepresented folk,” Scott said. “It’s hard enough to get your music premiered no matter who you are, but definitely if you’re African-American, or Latino, or Asian; if you’re not from the standard European canon, it’s hard to get music performed. We have a platform that we stand on, and we decided to put our money where our mouths were.”

Ultimately the musicians stressed that performing diverse genres is integral to promoting inclusivity in classical music, and integral to Imani on the whole.

“As artists, it’s our responsibility to be true to ourselves,” Coleman said.

Schomburg Center: The Harlem Chamber Players bring Jeff Scott's piece, A Hug for Harlem, to the Schomburg Center for its Harlem premiere 6:30 PM April 27, 2017

Jeff Scott plays French Horn for the Imani Winds,

but is also a composer.  One of his compositions 

is A Hug for Harlem.

http://www.musicbyjeffscott.com/

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library

A Hug for Harlem Thursday, April 27, 6:30 PM Langston Hughes Auditorium The Harlem Chamber Players bring Jeff Scott's momentous piece, A Hug for Harlem, to the Schomburg Center for its Harlem premiere. $25 Member Discount $30 General Admission

GET TICKETS >

NOBLE Executive Update January 2017: Grant Appointed as Acting Police Commissioner; Benford Sworn in as Chief of Police, University of Houston-Downtown

NOBLE Newsletter

Novlette Grant

KINGSTON, Jamaica - The Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Gordon Shirley announced the appointment of Deputy Commissioner of Police, Novlette Grant to act as commissioner of police as of January 7, 2017, for a period of 90 days.

This move by the PSC follows receipt of correspondence from present Commissioner of Police, Dr Carl Williams indicating his intention to proceed on early retirement as of January, 6 2017.

In a release issued, Shirley indicated that during the time of Grant's acting appointment, steps will be taken to identify a new commissioner of police.

DCP Grant is the second woman police to act in the post of commissioner following in the footsteps of the now retired Javene Bent.

Michael Benford Sworn in as Chief of Police University of Houston-Downtown

Chief Benford at his swearing in ceremony surrounded by NOBLE colleagues, family, and friends.

Sphinx Organization: Cleveland Institute of Music to host the Sphinx Performance Academy in Summer of 2017

The Sphinx Performance Academy (SPA) is a full-scholarship intensive chamber music and solo performance program designed for aspiring Black and Latino string players, ages 12-17. Sphinx is proud to have the Cleveland Institute of Music join Roosevelt University Chicago College of Performing Arts as a new home to the SPA.

Application Deadline: Wednesday, April 12, 2017   To Apply, visit: SphinxSPA.FluidReview.com SPA @ Roosevelt University in Chicago, IL June 30 - July 14 SPA @ Cleveland Institute of Music in Cleveland, OH July 23 - August 6

APPLY NOW!

See what CIM and Sphinx presidents   have to say about the new partnership! Paul Hogle, President Cleveland Institute of Music Afa S. Dworkin (Kevin Kennedy) President and Artistic Director Sphinx Organization

Ritz Chamber Players: Sunday, January 29, 2017, National Sawdust, 80 North 6th Street, Brooklyn, 4 PM, Menotti, Hailstork, Beethoven

www.ritzchamberplayers.org

Adolphus C. Hailstork

Songs of Love and Justice

(Text by Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Alison Buchanan, Soprano

Kyle A. Lombard, Violin

Kenneth Law, Cello

Terrance L. Patterson, Clarinet

Terrence Wilson, Piano