Change of Venue for THE JOFFREY BALLET’s WINNING WORKS: CHOREOGRAPHERS OF COLOR AWARDS 2014, Performance date and time remain the same

Three World Premieres now at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place

March 1, 2014

CHICAGO (February 24, 2014) – The upcoming performance of Winning Works: Choreographers of Color Award by The Joffrey Academy of Dance has changed venues due to last week’s electrical fire at the Harris Theater, an event unrelated to the Winning Works production. The production will now take place at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, 175 E. Chestnut Street, and the date and time of the performance remain unchanged, which is Saturday, March 1 at 7:00 pm. Winning Works ticket holders will be notified by the Joffrey Ballet box office staff about the change of venue.

This is the fourth annual presentation of Winning Works: Choreographers of Color Award by The Joffrey Academy of Dance, Official School of The Joffrey Ballet. The program features three World Premieres by rising-star choreographers Justin Allen, Stephanie Batten Bland and Norbert De La Cruz III, along with Academy Co-Artistic Director Alexei Kremnev’s restaging of Le Roi S’Amuse. All four works are performed by the international members of the Joffrey Academy Trainee Program.

Stefanie Batten Bland’s piece Chiral, consisting of eight women and two men set to music by Nils Frahm, is a fusion of contemporary and classical dance vocabulary exploring behavioral patterns of the body in symmetrical and non-symmetrical orders. The women in this piece switch between dancing on and off pointe, reflecting both masculine and feminine nature.

Justin Allen’s Interconnect is derived from the idea of finding the connection between both the choreography and the music. The steps themselves are an exact reflection of the music and Allen’s intention is for the audience to see exactly what they are listening to. Interconnect is danced by seven women and three men to contemporary classical music by Ezio Bosso.

Norbert De La Cruz III’s Kuya, for seven women and four men, aims to tell his own story of deeply personal relationships. The idea of “presence” versus “vanishing” guides his exploration of mistake and fear through the medium of contemporary ballet. Kuya is set to an original score composed by Kevin Keller.

Kremnev’s restaging of Le Roi S’Amuse is set to recorded music composed by Leo Delibes and performed by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. The piece is inspired by the six ancient dances and thematic material written for the ball scene in a Comedie-Francaise production of Victor Hugo’s 1882 play Le Roi S’Amuse.

“Dance remains a ‘universal’ language.  People from all backgrounds dance, and communicate, without sharing words.  Dance is a powerful bridge.  With Winning Works, we celebrate all that is different and all that is universal amongst us,” stated Ashley Wheater, Joffrey Ballet Artistic Director.

“Winning this award was a huge honor and one of the greatest successes of my choreographic career,” said 2013 Winner William McClellan. “The dancers were a complete joy to work with and we learned and grew together through the process.”

Ticket Information

Tickets for the Winning Works: Choreographers of Color Award 2014 at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, 175 E. Chestnut Street are $20 in advance and $23 at the door. Tickets can be purchased in advance by visiting http://winningworks.eventbrite.com.

2014 Sphinx Senior Division Laureates: 1st Place, Xavier Foley, double bass; 2nd Place, Clayton Penrose-Whitmore, violin; 3rd Place, Nicholas Mariscal, cello

1st Place: Xavier Foley - double bass

2nd Place: Clayton Penrose-Whitmore - violin

3rd Place: Nicholas Mariscal - cello

SphinxMusic.org:

1st Place: Xavier Foley - double bass

Sphinx Virtuosi
Sphinx Competition
    2014 Senior Division Semi-Finalist - age 19
    2013 Senior Division Semi-Finalist - age 18
    2011 Junior Division second place Laureate - age 16
    2010 Junior Division Semi-Finalist - age 15

Bio

Xavier Dubois Foley (Born August 9, 1994) is a classically trained double bassist who currently studies at the Curtis Institute of Music. He was taught by Douglas Sommer before his acceptance to the Curtis Institute (2011), where he is now being taught by Hal Robinson and Edgar Meyer.

Xavier was part of a music program that provided free lessons, and tickets to observe the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Concerts. This program is known as the “Talent Development Program”, which is also part of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

2nd Place: Clayton Penrose-Whitmore - violin

Sphinx Virtuosi, violin

Sphinx Competition

    2014 Senior Division Semi-Finalist - age 20

    2008 Junior Division first place Laureate - age 14

    2006 Junior Division fourth place Laureate - age 12

Bio
Clayton Penrose-Whitmore, 20, attends the New England Conservatory of Music where he is a violin performance major studying with faculty member Nicholas Kitchen.

Clayton was the First Place Junior Division Laureate in the 2008 Sphinx Competition. He has appeared as a soloist with the New World Symphony, the Colorado Symphony, the Hartford Symphony, the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, the Ypsilanti Symphony, the Jacksonville Illinois Symphony Orchestra and the Alton Symphony Orchestra.

As a member of the Emerald String Quartet, Clayton was awarded the Silver Medal in the Junior Division at the 2010 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. The quartet also received the Gold Medal at the 2010 Saint Paul String Quartet Competition. They were awarded first place in the Jules M. Laser Chamber Music Competition and were the Open Division Overall Winner of the Chicago National Chamber Music Competition.

3rd Place: Nicholas Mariscal - cello

Sphinx Competition
    2014 Senior Division Semi-Finalist - age 21

Bio

Nicholas Mariscal is a 21-year-old cellist currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music under the tutelage of distinguished cellist Eric Kim. He has won numerous competitions and awards and has had many distinctions both as a cellist and a composer.

A native of Tucson, Arizona, Nicholas won a medal each year he participated in the Tucson Philharmonia Youth Orchestra’s Concerto Competition, including two gold medals and two concerto performances with the orchestra. In addition, he won concerto competitions of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra, leading to solo performances with both orchestras.

Nicholas is an alumnus of the Interlochen Arts Camp, where he was a member of the prestigious World Youth Symphony Orchestra for two summers. He was principal cellist of the orchestra for five of the twelve weeks he attended the camp, leading the cello section under such distinguished conductors as David Effron, JoAnn Falletta, and Jung-Ho Pak. He was awarded a prize in music for cello both summers he was there.

In the Jacobs School of Music, Nicholas has had numerous successes and important performances. In 2010, he was one of twelve music students awarded the Jacobs Scholarship, the largest scholarship awarded at the Jacobs School. He is currently the principal cellist of the school’s top orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestra, and has also served as principal of the school’s Chamber Orchestra and New Music Ensemble. Recently, he has performed the Beethoven Triple Concerto with an Ad Hoc orchestra, as well as Sofia Gubaidulina’s Cello Concerto “Canticle of the Sun” with the Jacobs School’s Contemporary Vocal Ensemble under the direction of Dominick DiOrio.

WFPL.org: 'Exploring the Works of Black Classical Musicians' 13 Audio Samples, 3 Minutes Each

George Walker has a website at http://georgetwalker.com/

and is featured at AfriClassical.com

WFPL 89.3 FM Louisville

NPR Digital Network

By Daniel Gilliam

Classical music can be easily generalized as a white, European art form. But the last 150 years proves that it's an art that is more diverse and nuanced.

For example, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799), the son of a planter and his slave, was a virtuoso violinist and conductor of orchestras in Paris.  And Beethoven wrote for the famous violinist named George Bridgetower, who was of African and Polish ancestry.

In the 20th century, classical music became an art form for anyone who wanted it. Our series, African-American Voices, highlights the contributions of some of the most influential classical musicians of the U.S., who also happen to be black and in most cases overcame tremendous discrimination and hostility just to perform music.

[George Bridgetower, William Levi Dawson, James DePreist, Florence B. Price, Francis Johnson, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges and George Walker are profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features Works Lists for Bridgetower, Dawson and Price by Dr. Dominique-René de Lerma, www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com.]

2014 Sphinx Junior Division Laureates: 1st Place, Sterling Elliott, cello; 2nd Place, Mira Williams, viola; 3rd Place, Hannah White, violin

1st Place: Sterling Elliott - cello

Fourteen-­‐year old Sterling Elliott began his cello studies at the age of three under the direction of Suzuki Cello teacher Susan Hines. Sterling, the youngest of 3 siblings, did not originally want to play the cello; he wanted to play the violin like his older brother and sister. After a bit of encouragement, he made The Elliott Family String Quartet perfect by  learning to  play the  cello. Sterling performs frequently with his siblings and mother in the Elliott Family Quartet/Trio.

2nd Place: Mira Williams - viola

Mira Williams, 15, studies viola with Marko Dreher. Under the baton of James Setapen, Mira is principal violist for the Academy of the Music Institute of Chicago, a pre-college program for gifted, young musicians. She has been a William Warfield Scholar at the Academy from 2009 to the present. Mira performs regularly with Academy members and has participated in master classes and private lessons with Almita and Roland Vamos, Kirsten Docter, Heidi Castleman, Rachel Barton Pine, Steve Tenenbom, Mark Jackobs, Caroline Coade, Jeffrey Irvine, Roberto Diaz, David Bowlin, Paul Neubauer, and Robert Rozek, who called her “a big international talent with world class instincts.”

3rd Place: Hannah White - violin

Hannah, age 13, has been playing the violin seven years. A fellow, she is in her fourth year as merit scholarship recipient and member of the Music Institute of Chicago's Academy, a pre-college training program for highly gifted musicians where she studies with MIC artist faculty members Dr. Hye-Sun Lee and Almita Vamos. Hannah is also a recipient of the William Warfield Memorial Scholarship.

did-you-kno.tumblr.com: 'Nina Simone, aged 12, at her first...classical recital, refused to play until her parents were allowed to sit in the front row'

John Malveaux of www.MusicUNTOLD.com sends the above link from did-you-kno.tumblr.com

The comment is found at Wikipedia, 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Simone 

John Malveaux: William Grant Still Composed the Music for the PBS Film 'Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey'

John Malveaux of www.MusicUNTOLD.com writes:

Continuing to reflect on the absence of a Hollywood Walk of Fame STAR honoring composer William Grant Still, please note his music for Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey http://www.pbs.org/ralphbunche/filmmaking_about3.html.

Several weeks ago upon meeting a young USC graduate, violinist, and composer with focus on film and television, I mentioned William Grant Still composed themes for television's Perry Mason and Gunsmoke. Chanda Dancy expressed complete surprise. William Grant Still also attended USC. I expressed complete surprise because USC has a prominent Black Alumni Association. See http://alumnigroups.usc.edu/baa/home.shtml

Thanks

John Malveaux

Comments:
1) Yes, this is true--Ralph Bunche was a friend.  My father was a friend of his cousin, and he gave a party for him when he came to Los Angeles.  Judith Anne Still, www.williamgrantstillmusic.com.

2) To avoid any misunderstanding, William Grant Still wrote background music for scenes in both Perry Mason and Gunsmoke. The Perry Mason theme was composed by Fred Steiner, and Gunsmoke's theme was composed by Rex Koury.
JMW [John McLaughlin Williams]

3) MusicUNTOLD thanks John McLaughlin Williams for additional clarification about Gunsmoke and Perry Mason themes verses scenes.  John Malveaux www.MusicUNTOLD.com.

Longfellow Chorus: Frances Walker-Slocum has 'experience advocating for the music of Clarence Cameron White, 1880–1960'

[(Photo by Emil Hoppe) Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features a comprehensive Works List and a Bibliography by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma, www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com. We are collaborating with the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Foundation of the U.K., www.SCTF.org.uk]

Frances Walker-Slocum

Clarence Cameron White
Photo by APEX (Paris)

"First American appearance after two years in Paris"

On February 21, 2014 AfriClassical posted an excerpt from The Longfellow Chorus Newsletter of February 20, 2014: 

Longfellow Chorus: 'Frances Walker-Slocum, a living legend in her own right, and part of the historic legacy of Coleridge-Taylor in America'

The final paragraph of the blog post reads:

The first black woman to become a tenured professor at Oberlin, she taught there from 1979 until her retirement in 1991. A distinguished, internationally acclaimed piano recitalist, she has championed music by minority composers throughout her career. As such, she is a fountain of knowledge, not only about Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, but also about numerous composers whose music has been overlooked or forgotten.

Here is the second portion of the text of The Longfellow Newsletter of Feb. 20, 2014:

[Clarence Cameron White, 1880–1960, violinist, composer and educator, attended Oberlin College from 1896 to 1901. From 1906 to 1909 he studied and performed with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor in England. He was inspired to compose his opera, Ouanga—about the turbulent early years of the Haitian Republic—after attending with Coleridge-Taylor a performance of SC-T's opera Thelma in Queen's Hall, London, in 1908. Photo by Charles Kaufmann from the Oberlin College Archives.]

Ask her, for example, about her personal experience advocating for the music of Clarence Cameron White, 1880–1960. Unlike Walker-Slocum, who received her Oberlin degree in 1945, White attended Oberlin College from 1896 to 1901, but did not receive a degree. White was the only black member of the Oberlin student orchestra during his student years there.

Clarence White grew up in Oberlin. It was a performance of Messiah at Oberlin College, attended by White at the age of six, that first inspired his love of music. 

White's grandfather, John H. Scott, was a freed slave who moved to Oberlin with his family and became active in the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Community, part of the Underground Railroad. Scott's grave is stop #22 on the Oberlin Freedom Trail.

White met Coleridge-Taylor in 1904 in Washington, DC, when SC-T conducted his Scenes from The Song of Hiawatha with the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society. White performed with SC-T during his repeat performances in Washington and elsewhere in 1906, and studied with him in London until 1909.

[Concert program from the premiere of Ouanga, by Clarence C. White. Photo by Charles Kaufmann from the Oberlin College Archives.]

Conceived in 1908, completed in 1930, but not performed until 1949, White's opera Ouanga was inspired by a performance in Queen's Hall of SC-T's opera Thelma, which White attended with SC-T in 1908. Based on the story of the assassination of the first emperor of Haiti, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and with its influence of Haitian folk music and Vodou spirituality, Ouanga can be called White's Hiawatha. 

Clarence White, 1880–1960, was five years older than his mentor, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, 1875–1912. We can only imagine and wonder what SC-T would have accomplished had he also lived until 1960.

Ouanga awaits its first twenty-first century performance. White's papers, including musical scores and correspondence with Coleridge-Taylor, are in the Clarence Cameron White Papers at the New York Public Library.

Charles Kaufmann, Artistic Director

The Longfellow Chorus

PO Box 5133

Portland, Maine 04101

Comment:
Note: It is Clarence White, himself, who, many years after the fact, said he saw Thelma with SC-T in 1908. Jonathan Butcher points out, "SC-T hadn't completed Thelma in 1908" and it was never performed in Queens Hall. "What is correct is that, I believe, the Thelma Prelude/Fantasie was premiered at the Queens Hall."
Charles Kaufmann 

Judith Anne Still on Documentary 'The Negro Soldier': "the producer...replaced William Grant Still's pieces with others."

On February 21, 2014 AfriClassical posted: 

John Malveaux: William Grant Still was an Orchestrator of a War Dept. Documentary 'The Negro Soldier,' Released 70 Years ago, in 1944

Judith Anne Still, the daughter of William Grant Still, operates WilliamGrantStillMusic.com.  She writes:

Actually, my father was supposed to orchestrate the film, but the producer said his music was "too good" to represent the Negro "as he really was," so they replaced William Grant Still's pieces with others. 

Judith Anne Still

Comment by email:

Thank you for backstory/true history. The Internet Movie Database lists William Grant Still as uncredited orchestrator http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0830238/

Thanks, John Malveaux www.musicuntold.com

Renee' Baker: 'listen to this broadcast - Swedish Public Radio' (57 minutes, English Translation)

Renee' Baker sends this link to a 57-minute broadcast on the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project as heard on Swedish Radio, with English translation:

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/327300?programid=2960&playepisode=327300

Renee' Baker
Music Director
Chicago Modern Orchestra Project
Mantra Blue Free Orchestra
reneebaker@comcast.net
reneebakercomposer.com
chicagomodernorchestraproject.org

Comment by email:

The Music of Renee' Baker captures my senses and her comments capture my intellect.  John Malveaux

American Opera Project: Only 3 more chances to see HARRIET TUBMAN! February 22, 3PM; February 27, 7:30PM; March 1, 7:30PM

(photo by Richard Termine)

HARRIET TUBMAN:

WHEN I CROSSED THAT LINE TO FREEDOM

WORLD PREMIERE CHAMBER VERSION by NKEIRU OKOYE

Irondale Center, 85 South Oxford St., Brooklyn, NY 11217 DIRECTIONS

Tickets $25 | Senior/Students $15 | Matinees $15  BUY TICKETS

Presented in rep with the Irondale Ensemble Project's Color Between the Lines as part of Lines of Freedom- music-theatre that pays tribute to the heroes who fought for the end of slavery. COMPLETE INFO