art song / Blues / Chamber music / classical music / University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music / WGUC classical radio / WVXU

Local classical music focuses on music by African American composers

janellegelfandLeave a comment
Anthony McGill performing at the Linton Music Series recently/ photo by Tina Gutierrez

 

Something good has come out of all the turmoil this summer. Arts organizations are programming music and even entire seasons devoted to the music of African American composers. It is music long neglected in our country. From the King of Ragtime Scott Joplin, whose “Maple Leaf Rag” appears on the Pops’ digital program on Oct. 3, to Florence Price, whose elegant symphonies, concertos and piano pieces are enjoying a revival, it is wonderful music that deserves study by scholars and performances by our major institutions. And now, that is happening at the Cincinnati Symphony, the Cincinnati Pops, the Cincinnati Song Initiative and others.

The Cincinnati Symphony and Pops are programming a free “digital season,” seven livestreamed concerts recorded in Music Hall, kicking off at 8 p.m. this Saturday, Sept. 26.

The repertoire includes the Violin Concerto by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges – who is sometimes regarded as the “Black Mozart,” performed by Augustin Hadelich. Louis Langrée will open the CSO’s livestreams with Jessie Montgomery’s “Banner,” a new work which weaves the National Anthem together with the Black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” as well as other anthems.

Of course, we will also enjoy the artistry of musicians such as the superb clarinetist Anthony McGill, who recently was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize. This year, the prize also acknowledged his leadership as an “advocate for social justice and music education in underrepresented groups.” McGill, the first African American to hold a principal chair in the New York Philharmonic, got his start with the Cincinnati Symphony.

On Nov. 21, McGill will perform with the CSO the first performances here of Anthony Davis’ You Have the Right to Remain Silent.

Watch for my interview with Langrée about his programs on Friday in the Cincinnati Business Courier, and with the Pops’ John Morris Russell on Oct. 2.

I’m always intrigued by the programs created by the Cincinnati Song Initiative. This inventive group, led by Samuel Martin, is presenting a ticketed digital season. “A World of Song” pledges to bring “some of the greatest Black voices of America to dynamic life.”

Nicole Heaston, soloist, with Blair Salter, piano collaborator
Nicholas Newton

The opening concert, Oct. 11, features artists Kayla Collymore, Jasmine Habersham, Nicole Heaston, Nicholas Newton, Rolando Salazar and Blair Salter.

In 2008, the 30th anniversary of Still’s death in 1978, I wrote a bit about him:
Still was born in 1895 in rural Mississippi, and raised in Little Rock, Ark. He grew up listening to opera on the family phonograph, a passion of his step-father. Although he dreamed of composing opera, he entered Ohio’s Wilberforce University as a pre-med student at age 16. His mother feared he could not make a living as a musician because of his color.
His accomplishments speak not only of his distinguished career, but of the ground-breaking path he took. His Afro-American Symphony was the first symphony by an African-American composer to be performed by a leading orchestra in 1931.
His daughter Judith Anne Still told me several years ago, “When he wrote the Afro-American Symphony, my father was trying to elevate Negro music in the minds of people, so they would learn to value and respect it.”
He was the first African American to compose an opera produced by an important company, the first to conduct a major orchestra (the Los Angeles Philharmonic), and one of the first to write for radio, film and television. Still’s Festive Overture won the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s contest for a “Jubilee Overture” in 1945.

Discover more from janellesnotes

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Leave a Reply