Friday February 10, 2006 SGN.org |
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Volume 34 Issue 06 |
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Saturday, Jul 04, 2009
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The Seattle Choral Company Presents 'Don't Be Weary, Traveler: A Choral Tribute to America's Black Classical Composers' |
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| The Seattle Choral Company Presents 'Don't Be Weary, Traveler: A Choral Tribute to America's Black Classical Composers' | ||
| AFRICAN AMERICAN COMPOSERS AND LOCAL ARTISTS FEATURED
Don't Be Weary, Traveler: A Choral Tribute to America's Black Classical Composers Feb. 25-26 @ Seattle's Town Hall Tickets are $22 (General), $17 (Senior), and $10 (Under 25). Call Brown Paper Tickets at 1-800-838-3006 or www.seattlechoralcompany.org. February is Black History Month in the United States, and each year it is an exciting and appropriate time to explore the many contributions of African Americans to our nation's history. To honor to those contributions, the Seattle Choral Company will present "Don't Be Weary, Traveler: A Choral Tribute to America's Black Classical Composers" to showcase the music of trailblazing African American composers, with a particular focus on their choral works. "Don't Be Weary, Traveler: A Choral Tribute to America's Black Classical Composers" will be performed twice: on Saturday, February 25, at 8:00 pm, and on Sunday, February 26, at 3:00 pm. Both performances will take place at Town Hall Seattle (1119 8th Avenue, at Seneca). For these performances, the Seattle Choral Company will be joined by guest choir, "The Sound of the Northwest," under the direction of Juan Huey-Ray. Mr. Huey-Ray will present a free Pre-Concert Discussion at Town Hall regarding African American music and the development of the Spiritual one hour before each performance-February 25, at 7:00 pm, and February 26, at 3:00 pm. Audio and visual exhibits will also be presented on those dates in the main Lobby at Town Hall. Historically there has been little attention paid to African American composers of classical works, even though American composers in general have seen a new popularity over the last twenty years. America's Black composers have written in virtually all styles and genres, but an impression persists that their contributions are limited to the Spiritual-a style of song that is over 300 years old. From a long list of gifted musicians, Seattle Choral Company Artistic Director Fred Coleman has selected seven composers who best represent the development of the Spiritual as an art form and the rise of contemporary internationalism among America's Black composers, and they are: Harry Thacker Burleigh (1866-1949), Dr. R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943), John W. Work, III (1901-1967), Jester Hairston (1902-2000), Undine Smith Moore (1904-1988), Moses Hogan (1957-2003), Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941) and Scott Joplin (1868-1917). In 1893, Antonin Dvo¯ak predicted that Black music would become the basis for a distinctively American musical language. Black Americans were wary about the repertoire, looking on the Spiritual only as music from the days of slavery, a time to be forgotten. As White America became more sensitive to the qualities of this culture, more opportunities arose for treatments of the literature. Harry Thacker Burleigh, a student at the New York Conservatory where Dvo¯ak taught, began setting the spirituals as art songs for his own baritone voice, and he was followed by others (most notably R. Nathaniel Dett) who turned the melodies into motets for choruses at the Black institutions where they taught. The Spiritual was given new life in recent years by composers Jester Hairston and Moses Hogan, and there arose such ensembles as the Fisk University Jubilee Singers (directed by John W. Work, III from 1946 to 1956) in Nashville and the Moses Hogan Chorale in New Orleans to further popularize this heritage. Some composers have drawn on skills and techniques not native to Black culture. Undine Smith Moore, who taught music for forty-five years at Virginia State College, has been called "the Dean of African American Women Composers." She was trained in the choral-spiritual tradition at Fisk University, but put that aside in her setting of Langston Hughes' poem, "Mother to Son." Adolphus Hailstork has become a frequently performed American composer. He studied under David Diamond, Vittorio Giannini, and Nadia Boulanger at Fontainebleau. Since 1976, he has been a professor and composer-in-residence at Norfolk State University. His "Nocturne" is a tranquil, multi-textured work for a cappella chorus. The music of Scott Joplin will receive special attention during this concert. Joplin's opera, "Treemonisha," will be re-created in concert form with a cast of talented African American singers and actors from the greater Seattle area: Ellaina Pauline Lewis ("Treemonisha""), Awilda Verdejo ("Monisha"), Laird Thornton ("Ned"), Ekello Harrid, Jr. ("Zodzetrick"), and Ronald Campbell ("Parson Alltalk"). Joining the cast as narrator will be actress and arts advocate, Vivian Phillips. Dance scenes will be choreographed by Kabby Mitchell III, with dancers chosen from the cast of "Black Nativity." "Treemonisha" is the only large-scale work to survive from the pen of Joplin, who was the undisputed "King of Ragtime" in the early 20th century, the time of the Harlem Renaissance. Even though his 1899 hit "The Maple Leaf Rag," was America's best-selling sheet music piece at over a million copies, Scott Joplin exhausted both himself and his money trying to get "Treemonisha" produced. He was able to finance a single, unstaged public reading with piano in May 1915 at the Lincoln Theater in Harlem, New York City, but by that time his health was failing. Joplin's disappointment and failure in 1915 with "Treemonisha" was reversed 61 years later. The work brought Joplin a special posthumous Pulitzer Prize awarded in 1976. Masquerading as a folk fable, "Treemonisha" conveys a significant social message, astonishing for its period, and still valid as a basic tenet of liberation: that education is the road to salvation. Scott Joplin, who understood the power of the operatic medium to deliver a message, also touched on the issue of women's liberation, allowing his 18-year-old educated heroine, to become the leader of her people. In "Treemonisha," ragtime and opera join hands and dance together with vigor and charm. Joplin's own orchestrations were mysteriously lost, and recent performances have required significant reconstruction from the original piano score. The Seattle Choral Company will unveil a new arrangement by Philip Demaree for a small vaudeville orchestra, the kind Joplin would have taken on tour in 1911. ABOUT THE SEATTLE CHORAL COMPANY Started in 1982 by its Founding Director, Fred Coleman, the Seattle Choral Company is the Pacific Northwest's leading symphonic chorus and one of Seattle's most accomplished and respected choral organizations. Since 1994, the Seattle Choral Company has released three compact discs: "The Moon Is Silently Singing," containing contemporary cathedral works by such renowned composed as Arvo Pärt, Henryk Górecki and John Tavener; "When the Morning Stars Sang Together," a CD of a cappella works by twentieth century composers; and "Carmina Burana," the long-requested CD of the Seattle Choral Company's performance of this modern-day masterpiece. This recording was aired on Classic KING-FM for the all-request Top 50 Countdown. The SCC has appeared on several occasions as guest artists in Pacific Northwest Ballet's productions of "Carmina Burana" and joined PNB again this past November for their revival of "Hail to the Conquering Hero," featuring choruses by George Frideric Handel. The SCC joined the Seattle Symphony Orchestra at Benaroya Hall for performances of "Those Glorious MGM Movie Musicals" and Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess." In December 2005, the SCC returned to Benaroya Hall as guest artists of the Seattle Symphony in "Holiday Pops with Doc Severinsen" and "New Year's Eve with the Seattle Symphony." The Seattle Choral Company has recorded soundtracks for Public Television ("Death: the Trip of a Lifetime"), and NBC ("Crime and Punishment" and "Noah's Ark"). The chorus is in demand for film trailer recordings, aired at theaters and on national television. Selections from their recent album, "Unearthed," have been heard in promotions for a number of motion pictures, such as "Planet of the Apes," "Minority Report," "Spider Man," and "The Time Machine." Promotional music for "Pirates of the Caribbean," "The Return of the King," "The Alamo," "Van Helsing," "King Arthur," "Spider Man II," "King Kong," and "The Chronicles of Narnia" now features the voices of the Seattle Choral Company, as well. The Seattle Post- Intelligencer praised director Fred Coleman for "eliciting and beautiful choral sound from the singers. Coleman elicited performances which were exciting, vital, even thrilling to hear." After their 1998 performance of Rachmaninoff's "Vespers," the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote "Seattle Choral Company's performance reached a clear sweet purity of tone [and] sounded exquisitely beautiful&It became a moving experience& Again, and again, the different voices would come together on a perfectly pitched chord, such as can give intense pleasure." ABOUT FRED COLEMAN Seattle native Fred Coleman has been the Founding Director of the Seattle Choral Company since 1982, and he currently celebrates his 24th year as their Artistic Director. He began pursuing vocal studies at the University of Washington and at the Cornish Institute and started working with choral groups in 1973. He graduated from the U. of W. with college honors and attended choral master classes with Daniel Moe (Oberlin Conservatory), Dale Warland (Dale Warland Singers) and Robert Shaw. He was invited to sing under Maestro Shaw's baton at Carnegie Hall for the Carnegie Centennial Year. In the summer of 1998, he participated in Mr. Shaw's last Summer Festival Institute before Shaw's death in January, 1999. Coleman has shaped the Seattle Choral Company into the premiere symphonic chorus of greater Seattle. His finely tuned yet spirited performances have captured the praise of audiences and critics alike. Maestro Coleman has led the SCC on a journey through many of the most glorious choral works ever written-including the Berlioz "Te Deum," Prokofieff's "Alexander Nevsky," Orff's "Carmina Burana," Beethoven's "Choral Symphony," Haydn's "Creation," and Bach's "St. John Passion." He has also championed America's finest contemporary choral composers, bringing to local audiences works by Roxanna Panufnik, Philip Glass, William Hawley, Morten Lauridsen, and Seattle composers Donald Skirvin and Bern Herbolsheimer. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently applauded this commitment, stating "it's not surprising that Coleman&would devote an entire program to contemporary music. He has long been an advocate for living composers." A Seattle Choral Company press release |
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