pioneering African-American composer William Grant Still Explored at Lincoln Center

By -

Concert Featuring Leon Botstein Conducting American Symphony Orchestra on March 24th

Tri-State Area Students Participating in ASO’s Innovative Music Notes Arts-in-Education Program Will Provide Artwork Inspired by Still’s Life and Music to Be Viewed in Second-Floor Lobby at Avery Fisher Hall on Concert Day

The pioneering African-American composer William Grant Still (1895-1978) ranks among the greatest composers born and educated in the United States, rivaled only by Leonard Bernstein in the variety of his output. On March 22, the American Symphony Orchestra acknowledges Still’s important position in musical and African-American history, and celebrates his under-appreciated genius with its Lincoln Center concert “Revisiting William Grant Still”. The ASO performs three of Still’s landmark compositions – Darker America, Africa, and Symphony No. 2 – along with works by two of his great influences, George Whitefield Chadwick and Edgard Varèse.

A major component of the ASO’s mission is Music Notes, its arts-in-education program, and the orchestra has worked with target schools in the New York City area for many years. The 2008-09 season includes partnerships with twelve schools, from which the teachers have developed a variety of approaches for using Music Notes. St Benedict’s Preparatory High School in Newark, for example, has conducted a yearlong celebration of William Grant Still that has included residencies by ASO musicians and teachers in music classes, with related components in all humanities classes, placing Still in perspective as a figure of the Harlem Renaissance; the program also includes coaching by ASO musicians, student concerts, public art projects, and the production of a special DVD.

Every ASO concert at Lincoln Center is complemented both by a free pre-performance lecture (now in the auditorium of Avery Fisher Hall, 90 minutes before the concert), and by displays of student artwork inspired by the music’s subject matter. The importance to African-American students of learning about the Harlem Renaissance and William Grant Still – not only a greatly talented composer, but also the first Black musician to conduct a major symphony orchestra, the first to have his own symphony performed by a leading orchestra, and the first to have an opera performed by a major opera company – cannot be underestimated.

Some of the fruits of the St. Benedict’s William Grant Still project will be on display in the second-floor lobby of Avery Fisher Hall for the concert on March 22, including ceramic sculptures of African masks, acrylic paintings illustrating a line from “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes, and a selection of acrylic-on-canvas mural strips measuring up to eight feet in length.

Still was often referred to as the dean of African-American composers, but despite his myriad achievements, concertgoers today know little about him and rarely encounter his works. True to its mission, the ASO seeks to redress that injustice with this program, which also poses questions about how race has impacted Still’s musical legacy. As the ASO’s Music Director, Leon Botstein (pictured), explains:

“When this concert … was scheduled a year and a half ago, those who were betting on who might be the next president of the United States gave Barack Obama very low odds. … Eminent African-American composers of classical and concert music have been rare, just as the advent of an African-American president is unique, at least for now. What connects the career of Barack Obama with that of William Grant Still is that they both defy the easy stereotypes we associate with race. … There is no uniformity in response to the world that the color of one’s skin renders inevitable. William Grant Still was an individual who crafted an individual voice … [and] his own vision of the African-American heritage. In the end the promise of individuality and a respect for it commends democracy and freedom to us all.”

William Grant Still trained and worked with the finest teachers of his day to forge the sound of the “American Experience”, composing operas, symphonies, concertos, chamber music, art songs, film scores, and popular music. He was a Mississippian, raised in Little Rock , who studied at Wilberforce University and Oberlin, and later moved to New York to work for W. C. Handy. In her concert program essay, Catherine Parsons Smith notes that Still sought out the influential George Whitefield Chadwick for composition instruction when Handy’s show moved to Boston, and after Still’s return to New York he studied with Edgard Varèse. Varèse, although French, was very Americanized and “encouraged [Still’s] lyric gifts, introduced him to modernist scores, challenged him to experiment with form, programmed his music … and saw that he met conductors who would become his champions.” Although the modernist style influenced Still’s earlier works, he eventually absorbed and integrated more of the popular African-American idiom into his compositions.

Sunday, March 22, 3 pm
“Revisiting William Grant Still”
Leon Botstein conducts the American Symphony Orchestra
Avery Fisher Hall
George Whitefield Chadwick (1854-1931)
    Rip Van Winkle Concert Overture (1879)
William Grant Still (1895-1978)
    Darker America (1924)
    Africa (1930)
Edgard Varèse (1883-1965)
    Offrandes (1921), with Jennifer Rivera, mezzo-soprano
William Grant Still
    Symphony No. 2 (1937)

Tickets start at just $28; call 212.868.9ASO (9276). Group discounts available. All ticket sales are final.

Composer-in-Residence Richard Wilson will give an illuminating pre-concert talk at 1:45 pm in the auditorium of Avery Fisher Hall, free to ticket-holders.

Learn more about this concert and the rest of the season at www.americansymphony.org or from (212) 868-9ASO (9276).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In ...
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

Teaching Composition – What are we trying to achieve

By -
In the process of learning composition I have spent time with a number of instructors who have encouraged me to write twelve-tone, pitch-class, electro-acoustic and other forms of experimental techniques. No matter how much I might understand and appreciate the work of other composers in the genres, these are not forms of music I resonate with. They are simply not forms of music I listen to and I struggle with the idea of writing them. However, in a Master Class by Libby Larsen she made the comment, “Learn them all, because all forms of music have something to offer.” This I very much agree. There are elements of each of the above mentioned forms (and others) that I do resonate with. Berg’s Violin Concerto is a beautiful twelve-tone work, although it is possible to look at numerous sections of the music with a “tonal” analysis. Another composer friend, Gary Bachlund commented that using these techniques can narrow the choices for how to compose a piece of work. If you look at ...
Read more