Keyboard collaboration in the name of art is represented here by the
hands of retired judge and pianist LaDoris Cordell and Menlo Park
pianist Josephine Gandolfi, who with Deanne Tucker founded the African
American Composer Initiative. Photo by Laurie Naiman
The Almanac
Sun. Jan. 22, 2017
by
Renee Batti
/ Almanac
The January tradition of
musicians and composers coming together for two rousing concerts
benefiting Eastside College Preparatory School in East Palo Alto lives
on: The African American Composer Initiative concerts are set for
Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 28 and 29, at the school.
Among the performers taking the stage at "Let
the Knowing Speak: A Celebration of Music by African American Composers"
will be the Initiative founders: Menlo Park pianist Josephine Gandolfi,
pianist/vocalist (and former judge) LaDoris Cordell, and
pianist/vocalist Deanne Tucker.
The concerts feature "music drawn from the
traditions of spirituals, jazz, blues, opera and concert music," Ms.
Gandolfi writes in a press release. Composers represented include
Zenobia Powell Perry, Margaret Bonds, Florence Price, Jacqueline
Hairston, Dolores White, Dizzie Gillespie and Bobby Timmons.
Three new compositions will be premiered:
"Tapestry," a jazz tribute to Langston Hughes by Valerie Capers;
"Disco-cioso," a trio for the Picasso Ensemble by John Robinson; and
"Let God Bring Tomorrow," a musical memorial to those killed last year
in a nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, written by Joshua McGhee.
Modern dancers of Eastside Prep, under the
direction of Morgan Mallory, will perform a dance sequence from Zenobia
Powell Perry's opera, "Tawawa House," based on the history of a resort
hotel in Ohio that became a stop on the Underground Railroad, and was
later converted to a school for black youth, eventually becoming
Wilberforce University.
The program also includes spirituals for soprano
and tenor from that opera; "Troubled Water," by Margaret Bonds, for
cello solo and piano; and Dolores White's setting of poetry by Maya
Angelou for tenor, soprano and piano.
***
Tickets are $20 for general admission, $10 for seniors and $5 for students.
Click here to buy tickets online through Brown Paper Tickets.
