Category: About the Music

George Gershwin

George Gershwin is remembered as one of the most prolific American composers of all time, leaving a significant impact on the landscape of 20th century jazz, popular, and classical music in his short 39 years. He and his older brother, Ira, first found fame as songwriters on Broadway in the early 1920s, before George composed his first major work, Rhapsody in Blue for piano and orchestra. It was after reflecting on his time in France, however, that he composed his first strictly orchestral work, An American in Paris, in 1928.

“I loved [The Hudson River] and I thought how often I had been homesick for a sight of it, and then the idea struck me—an American in Paris, homesickness, the blues. So there you are. I thought of a walk on the Champs-Élysées, of the honking taxi, of passing a building which I believed was a church… There are episodes on the Left Bank, and then come the blues—thinking of home, perhaps the Hudson. There is a meeting with a friend, and after a second fit of blues [a] decision that in Paris one may as well do as the Parisians do.”

George Gershwin, New York, 1929

An American in Paris was born from a musical snippet Gershwin had composed when visiting Paris, which he titled Very Parisienne. He later turned to this snippet when composing what he would call his “rhapsodic ballet”, which he subtitled, “A Tone Poem for Orchestra.”   Structured in a loose A-B-A form, An American in Paris offers a colorful series of impressions based on the Parisian cityscape. A light-hearted, walking-tempo melody opens the piece, evoking images of a foreigner strolling through the streets of Paris, before he is brashfully interupted by honking and taxi horns, which Gershwin actually orchestrated in the score. You will hear the brass section mixing with the oboe and English horn to intertwine the strolling melody with the sounds of the hustle-and-bustle as the traveler takes in the city, before gradually arriving at a reflective B section. While the A section took much inspiration from the writing style of French composers Claude Debussy and Les Six, Gershwin employs the American style of blues in the B section blues, accentuating his homesickness. Gershwin describes the return to liveliness in the closing section as follows: “He finally emerges from his stupor to realize once again that he is in the gay city of Paree, listening to the taxi-horns, the noise of the boulevards, and the music of the can-can, and thinking, “Home is swell! But after all, this is Paris—so let’s go!”  

– G.Angeles-Paredes

William Grant Still

About the Music

Among William Grant Still’s many contributions to American classical music is Can’t You Line ‘Em, a lively tune inspired by a blues folk melody, Linin’ Track, by American musician Lead Belly (Huddie William Ledbetter). Can’t You Line ‘Em captures the rhythm and sounds of railroad construction crews lining up tracks. The original folk lyrics depict the back-breaking labor forced upon African American prisoners working on railroad chain gangs in the early 20^th century:

Oh boys, is you right?
Done got right!
All I hate ’bout linin’ track
These ol’ bars ’bout to break my back

Oh boys, can’t you line ’em, Jack-a Jack-a
Oh boys, can’t you line ’em, Jack-a Jack-a
Oh boys, can’t you line ’em, Jack-a Jack-a
See Eloise go linin’ track

Moses stood on the Red Sea shore
Smotin’ that water with a two-by-four

If I could I surely would
Stand on the rock where Moses stood

Mary an’ the baby lyin’ in the shade
Thinkin’ on the money I ain’t made

About William Grant Still

William Grant Still was born in Woodville, Mississippi, to William Grant (1871 – 1895) and Carrie Lena Fambro Still (1872 – 1927). His mother relocated to Little Rock, Arkansas, to live with his grandmother after his father died when Still was only an infant. Still’s exposure to music began early when his grandmother sang spirituals as she worked around the house. His mother eventually remarried, and his stepfather, Charles Benjamin Shepperson, further cultivated his interest in music by taking young Still to operettas, orchestra concerts, and other music shows. Together, they listened to recordings of classical music, and so began Still’s deep appreciation for both old and new music and a range of sounds and styles including folk, spiritual, and classical. He began taking violin lessons at age 15, and later taught himself how to play other instruments, including the viola, cello, double bass, clarinet, oboe, and saxophone.

Still’s mother had hoped he would become a doctor, and he left Arkansas to pursue a pre-medical degree at Wilberforce University in Ohio. He left Wilberforce just months before graduating, turning his attention to music. He attended Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he studied composition. He later studied privately under the French composer Edgard Varèse, during the peak of his avant-garde period, and the American composer George Whitefield Chadwick at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

Known as the Dean of African American composers, Still wrote operas, ballets, symphonies, and other works; he is best known for his Afro-American Symphony (1931). He was inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame in 1999. In addition to his classical music compositions, he was an arranger for blues musician W. C. Handy and he played in the Harlem Symphony with jazz musicians Fletcher Henderson and James P. Johnson. Additionally, he was appointed music director of the Black Swan jazz label.

Still was honored in 1995 in a centennial celebration of his life and work, when then President Clinton said of him:

Music has always been a powerful, unifying force in our world, bringing people together across lines of ethnicity and geography. William Grant Still understood this, and throughout his long, rich career, he created works of such beauty and passion that they pierced the artificial barriers of race, nationality, and time. Today, one hundred years after his birth, his skilled compositions in chamber music, opera, ballet, symphony, and so many other forms of classical music continue to enrich our culture, and he remains a source of inspiration for musicians and music lovers around the globe.In Still’s own words, he hoped “that my music may serve a purpose larger than mere music. If it will help in some way to bring about better interracial understanding in America and in other countries, then I will feel that the work is justified.”      –J.Reid

Omar Thomas

The Story

Of Our New Day Begun was written to honor nine beautiful souls who lost their lives to a callous act of hatred and domestic terrorism on the evening of June 17, 2015 while worshiping in their beloved sanctuary, the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (affectionately referred to as “Mother Emanuel”) in Charleston, South Carolina. Thomas states, “My greatest challenge in creating this work was walking the line between reverence for the victims and their families, and honoring my strong, bitter feelings towards both the perpetrator and the segments of our society that continue to create people like him. I realized that the most powerful musical expression I could offer incorporated elements from both sides of that line – embracing my pain and anger while being moved by the displays of grace and forgiveness demonstrated by the victims’ families.”

Historically, black Americans have, in great number, turned to the church to find refuge and grounding in the most trying of times. Thus, the musical themes and ideas for Of Our New Day Begun are rooted in the Black American church tradition. The piece is anchored by James and John Johnson’s time-honored song, Lift Every Voice and Sing (known endearingly as the “Negro National Anthem”), and peppered with blues harmonies and melodies. Singing, stomping, and clapping are also prominent features of this work, as they have always been a mainstay of black music traditions, and the inclusion of the tambourine in these sections is a direct nod to black worship services.

Of Our New Day Begun begins with a unison statement of a melodic cell from “Lift Every Voice….” before suddenly giving way to ghostly, bluesy chords in the horns and bassoons. This section moves to a dolorous and bitter dirge presentation of the anthem in irregularly shifting 12/8 and 6/8 meter, which grows in intensity as it offers fleeting glimmers of hope and relief answered by cries of blues-inspired licks. A maddening, ostinato-driven section representing a frustration and weariness that words cannot, grows into a group singing of Lift Every Voice and Sing, fueled by the stomping and clapping reminiscent of the black church.

In the latter half of the piece the music turns hopeful, settling into 9/8 time and modulating up a step during its ascent to a glorious statement of the final lines of “Lift Every Voice….” in 4/4, honoring the powerful display of humanity set forth by the families of the victims. There is a long and emotional decrescendo that lands on a pensive and cathartic gospel-inspired hymnsong. Returning to 9/8 time, the piece comes to rest on a unison F that grows from a very distant hum to a thunderous roar, driven forward by march-like stomping to represent the ceaseless marching of black Americans towards equality. 

The consortium assembled to create this work is led by Dr. Gary Schallert and the Western Kentucky University Wind Ensemble. The orchestral version of this piece was commissioned by the Colorado Symphony and the Wanda L. Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University. (omarthomas.com)

About Omar Thomas

Described as “elegant, beautiful, sophisticated, intense, and crystal clear in emotional intent,” the music of Omar Thomas continues to move listeners everywhere it is performed. Born to Guyanese parents in Brooklyn, New York in 1984, Omar moved to Boston in 2006 to pursue a Master of Music in Jazz Composition at the New England Conservatory of Music after studying Music Education at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is the protégé of lauded composers and educators Ken Schaphorst and Frank Carlberg, and has studied under multiple Grammy-winning composer and bandleader Maria Schneider.

Hailed by Herbie Hancock as showing “great promise as a new voice in the further development of jazz in the future,” educator, arranger, and award-winning composer Omar Thomas has created music extensively in the contemporary jazz ensemble idiom. It was while completing his Master of Music Degree that he was appointed the position of Assistant Professor of Harmony at Berklee College of Music at the surprisingly young age of 23. Following his Berklee tenure, he served on faculty of the Music Theory department at The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Now a Yamaha Master Educator, he is currently an Assistant Professor of Composition and Jazz Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. He was awarded the ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award in 2008, and invited by the ASCAP Association to perform his music in their highly exclusive JaZzCap Showcase, held in New York City. In 2012, Omar was named the Boston Music Award’s “Jazz Artist of the Year.” In 2019, he was awarded the National Bandmasters Association/Revelli Award for his wind composition Come Sunday, becoming the first Black composer awarded the honor in the contest’s 42-year history. 

Now a Yamaha Master Educator, Omar’s music has been performed in concert halls the world over. He has been commissioned to create works in both jazz and classical styles. His work has been performed by such diverse groups as the Eastman New Jazz Ensemble, the San Francisco and Boston Gay Mens’ Choruses, The United States Marine Band, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, and the Showa Wind Symphony, in addition to a number of the country’s top collegiate music ensembles. Omar has had a number of celebrated singers perform over his arrangements, including Stephanie Mills, Yolanda Adams, Nona Hendryx, BeBe Winans, Kenny Lattimore, Marsha Ambrosius, Sheila E., Raul Midon, Leela James, Dionne Warwick, and Chaka Khan. His work is featured on Dianne Reeves’s Grammy Award-winning album, “Beautiful Life.”

Omar’s first album, “I AM,” debuted at #1 on iTunes Jazz Charts and peaked at #13 on the Billboard Traditional Jazz Albums Chart. His second release, “We Will Know: An LGBT Civil Rights Piece in Four Movements,” has been hailed by Grammy Award-winning drummer, composer, and producer Terri Lyne Carrington as being a “thought provoking, multi-layered masterpiece” which has “put him in the esteemed category of great artists.” “We Will Know” was awarded two OUTMusic Awards, including “Album of the Year.” For this work, Omar was named the 2014 Lavender Rhino Award recipient by The History Project, acknowledging his work as an up-and-coming activist in the Boston LGBTQ community. Says Terri Lyne: “Omar Thomas will prove to be one of the more important composer/arrangers of his time.” (omarthomas.com)

Valerie Coleman

About the music

In its original form, Umoja, the Swahili word for Unity and the first principle of the African Diaspora holiday Kwanzaa, was composed a simple song for women’s choir. It embodied a sense of ‘tribal unity’, through the feel of a drum circle, the sharing of history through traditional “call and response” form and the repetition of a memorable sing-song melody. It was rearranged into woodwind quintet form during the genesis of Coleman’s chamber music ensemble, Imani Winds, with the intent of providing an anthem that celebrated the diverse heritages of the ensemble itself.

Almost two decades later from the original, the orchestral version brings an expansion and sophistication to the short and sweet melody, beginning with sustained ethereal passages that float and shift from a bowed vibraphone, supporting the introduction of the melody by solo violin. Here the melody is a sweetly singing in its simplest form with an earnest reminiscent of Appalachian style music. From there, the melody dances and weaves throughout the instrument families, interrupted by dissonant viewpoints led by the brass and percussion sections, which represent the clash of injustices, racism and hate that threatens to gain a foothold in the world today. Spiky textures turn into an aggressive exchange between upper woodwinds and percussion, before a return to the melody as a gentle reminder of kindness and humanity. Through the brass led ensemble tutti, the journey ends with a bold call of unity that harkens back to the original anthem. Umoja has seen the seen the creation of many versions, that are like siblings to one another, similar in many ways, but each with a unique voice that is informed by Coleman’s ever evolving creativity and perspective.
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“This version honors the simple melody that ever was, but is now a full exploration into the meaning of freedom and unity. Now more than ever, Umoja has to ring as a strong and beautiful anthem for the world we live in today.”

About valerie coleman

Valerie Coleman is regarded by many as an iconic artist who continues to pave her own unique path as a composer, GRAMMY®-nominated flutist, and entrepreneur. Highlighted as one of the “Top 35 Women Composers” by The Washington Post, she was named Performance Today’s 2020 Classical Woman of the Year, an honor bestowed to an individual who has made a significant contribution to classical music as a performer, composer or educator. Her works have garnered awards such as the MAPFund, ASCAP Honors Award, Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Program, Herb Alpert Ragdale Residency Award, and nominations from The American Academy of Arts and Letters and United States Artists. Umoja, Anthem for Unity was chosen by Chamber Music America as one of the “Top 101 Great American Ensemble Works” and is now a staple of woodwind literature.

In October 2021, Carnegie Hall presented her work Seven O’Clock Shout, commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra, in their Opening Night Gala concert featuring The Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. This follows on the success of the world premiere of Coleman’s orchestral arrangement of her work Umoja, commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra and performed in Philadelphia and at Carnegie Hall in 2019, marking the first time the orchestra performed a classical work by a living female African-American composer. In February 2022, The Philadelphia Orchestra and soprano Angel Blue, led by Nézet-Séguin, gave the world premiere of a new song cycle written by Coleman, commissioned by the orchestra for performances in Philadelphia and at Carnegie Hall.

Former flutist of the Imani Winds, Coleman is the creator and founder of this acclaimed ensemble whose 24-year legacy is documented and featured in a dedicated exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Along with composer-harpist Hannah Lash, and composer-violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama, she co-founded and currently performs as flutist of the performer-composer trio Umama Womama.

Coleman’s work as a recording artist includes an extensive discography. With Imani Winds, she has appeared on Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, Naxos, Cedille Records and eOne, and as a guest flutist on albums with Wayne Shorter Quartet, Steve Coleman and the Council of Balance, Chick Corea, Brubeck Brothers, Edward Simon, Bruce Adolphe, and Mohammed Fairouz. Her compositions and performances are regularly broadcast on NPR, WNYC, WQXR, Minnesota Public Radio, Sirius XM, Radio France, Australian Broadcast Company and Radio New Zealand.

Committed to arts education, entrepreneurship and chamber music advocacy, Coleman created the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival in 2011, a summer mentorship program in New York City welcoming young leaders from over 100 international institutions. She has held flute and chamber music masterclasses at institutions in 49 states and over five continents, including The Juilliard School, Curtis Institute, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College of Music, New England Conservatory, Oberlin College, Eastman School of Music, Yale University, Carnegie Mellon, Interlochen Arts Academy, Beijing Conservatory, Brazil’s Campo do Jordão Festival and Australia’s Musica Viva. As a part of Imani Winds, she has been artist-in-residence at Mannes College of Music, Banff Chamber Music Intensive and Visiting Faculty at the University of Chicago.

Coleman’s compositions are published by Theodore Presser and her own company, VColeman Music. She studied composition with Martin Amlin and Randy Wolfe and flute with Julius Baker, Judith Mendenhall, Doriot Dwyer, Leone Buyse and Alan Weiss. She and her family are based in New York City. (valeriecoleman.com)

ANTHONY KELLEY

Spirituals of Liberation

1. Work Song (for a Post-Terrestrial Railroad)
2. Elegy for the New Blues People
3. Never Forget

THE STORY

Juneteenth celebrates the emancipation of formerly enslaved American descendants of Africans from unimaginable state-sanctioned brutality and oppression. Kelley states, “this symphonic reflection, titled Spirituals of Liberation, is in many ways a sequel to my 1999 piano concerto, Africamerica, which meditates on the Middle Passage.” The three movements of Spirituals of Liberation explore in musical terms the conditions of forced, free labor, the contemplation of loss and hope by the enslaved, and finally, the solemn embrace by African Americans of their newly granted freedom.

The piece expresses rhythmic, melodic, and cultural elements that sustained the Americans who endured centuries of slavery before the Emancipation Proclamation of 1865. These include syncopation, cycles of repetition with a difference, work songs that accompanied hard labor, memory and reverence for ancestors, and hope and resilience in the face of pernicious exploitation. The tunes are all original, but in the style of 19th-century Black folk music. Felix Mendelssohn composed “Songs Without Words” in his day; these movements can be considered “Spirituals Without Lyrics.”

The first movement, “Work Song (for a Post-Terrestrial Railroad),” is the longest. It begins with an eruptive expression of shock over the proposition of enslavement, followed by a resignation to multiple simultaneous levels of labor. This consisted of both physical work—from the vigorous activity of laying railroad ties to the intricacies of making a lace tablecloth—and the psycho-socio-intellectual labor of crafting a framework of hope and demands for constitutional justice within the same society that subjected Black citizens to shackles. The movement alternates and intertwines a main “work song” tune and a “free” labor theme, fortified by a hammered counter-beat on the anvil, which expand to an unsustainably explosive, complicated state before a reset of tone and mood. At the end of this rigorous movement, the main “work song” tune returns inverted to portray mastery, as Ginger Rogers put it, “backwards and in heels.” Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad liberated many souls, and this movement celebrates their path beyond the underground and even beyond our terrestrial realm.

The second movement, “Elegy for the New Blues People,” is a song of elegy and mourning for the many who trod the path towards the liberty that we can acknowledge today. Leroi Jones, aka Amiri Baraka, defines “blues people” as the generation of children and grandchildren of the enslaved Africans who, rather than concern themselves with the nostalgic return “home” to Africa, acknowledge their geographical immediacy and vow to make America itself a better home, regardless of the cruelty of their situation.

The third movement, “Never Forget,” is a lush, noble melody with heroic harmony that expresses the celebration that the newly freed American citizens would have felt in 1866 and sounds out the importance of telling the complete story of our nation and its development.

Composed on the heels of a devastating and oppressive pandemic, perhaps Spirituals of Liberation also inspires a more empathetic perspective on these enslaved ancestors, enhancing our appreciation of freedom as we explore the possibilities of the better future.

LISTEN FOR:

In each movement, a central melodic theme around which harmony and texture shift to greater complexity, climax, and resolution: repetition with a difference

In the first movement:

• A blues-inflected melody based on a diminished scale: the “work song”
• A vamp that begins in the bassoons and is answered by the horns, then expands to the trombones to accompany the work song
• A “short-lonnnnng” syncopated motive that pervades the movement

In the second movement:

• A gentle, mournful melody in the oboe, comprised of small leaps upward that build to a large descending leap
• A brief moment of “sunlight” introduced by the brass in duple time

In the third movement:

• A more contemporary-sounding melody, complicated by moments of dissonance, culminating in a tutti chorale-style variation
• A feeling of “freedom” expressed in the floating, elegant clarinet line
• A dance-oriented middle section
• In the Coda, elements from the first and second movements that reappear in the third movement, now set in a major key

About Anthony Kelley

Anthony Kelley began his post as Faculty-in-Residence in Fall, 2007. He’s enjoyed getting to know the residents and interacting with their many ideas and talents. He enjoys the arts–from music to stage to gallery to the big screen–and loves sharing discussion based on common group experiences. Kelley joined the Duke University music faculty in 2000 after serving as Composer-in-Residence with the Richmond Symphony for three years under a grant from Meet the Composer, Inc. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Duke University, and he earned a Ph.D. in Musical Composition from the University of California at Berkeley. In 1999, Richmond Symphony premiered his piano concerto, Africamerica, with soloist Donal Fox. In 1998, The American Composers Orchestra gave the premier performance of a commissioned work, The Breaks, under the direction of Gerard Schwartz. The Baltimore, Detroit, Atlanta, North Carolina, Oakland East Bay, Marin (CA) and San Antonio symphony orchestras have also performed Kelley’s music. Among his awards and honors are the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Institute and Academy of Arts and Letters, and composition fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council, the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. His recent work, such as his soundtracks to the H. Lee Waters/Tom Whiteside film Conjuring Bearden [2006] and Dante James’s film, The Doll [2007], explores music as linked with other media, arts, and sociological phenomena. He co-directs and performs in the improvisational Postmodern blues quartet called the BLAK Ensemble. (Notes © 2022 Anthony Kelley)