Saturday, February 28, 2015

John Malveaux: Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers present “Bridges” at 5 PM Sunday, March 8, 2015 at St. Bernadette Church, in Baldwin Hills area of Los Angeles

John Malveaux of 
writes:

The Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers presents their production of “Bridges” on Sunday, March 8, 2015, at St. Bernadette Church in the Baldwin Hills community of Los Angeles. 

 
“Bridges” is a dramatization in song and narration that chronicles the events that took place 50 years ago during the three weekend marches to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. This led to the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and many of the freedoms American citizens enjoy today because of the struggles, sacrifices and many times death, of the brave and determined men, women, and children who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Screen writer, choreographer and Stage Manager, Douglas Griffin has fused the a cappella repertoire of the Jubilee Singers with the events of the time, to bring a unique experience that only the Jubilee Singers could provide.
Dr. McNeil, resident of CA, LAUSD educator, retired Music Professor at UC-Davis and Artistic Director of the Singers have travelled since 1968 to more than 77 countries and 48 states, sharing the spirit, beauty and majesty of the Negro Spiritual to the world. The Singers are “bringin’ it home, again” to Baldwin Hills at the beautiful and historic St Bernadette Church, 3825 Don Felipe Drive. 5PM
 
Other noted musicians will be a part of the production, including Motivational Speaker and tap dancer, Dr. David Sharp, from Crystal Cathedral’s “Glory of Christmas” Productions, Bradley Baker - both former Jubilee Singers, members of the Jubilee Singers Reunion Choir, members of Byron J. Smith’s Spirit Chorale & Perry Hayes and The United Men’s Chorus of LA. Truly, a music community WILL remember.
 Call the information Hotline at (424) 228-9220 for ticketing information. Or, go to www.amjsla.org on the internet. Tickets: $25 general seating / $40 selected limited seating.  Discounts for Seniors, Students and groups 6 or more are available. 

Center for Black Music Research: National Endowment for the Arts: Art Talk with Jonathan Bailey Holland:

Jonathan Bailey Holland 
(Sancho Maulion/New York Times)

A tweet from the Center for Black Music Research alerted us to an interview with Jonathan Bailey Holland, who has been featured in AfriClassical a number of times, with the National Endowment for the Arts:



The arts] are a place where we reflect the world around us, and it's the one place that anybody can do that, honestly and, hopefully, in an uncensored way.” – Jonathan Bailey Holland

Jonathan Bailey Holland may be known as a classical composer but he's been influenced by everyone from NEA Jazz Master Wynton Marsalis to legendary rap group Run DMC to 70s rock stalwarts Chicago. A native of Flint, Michigan, Holland has received commissions from the National Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, and the Chicago Sinfonietta, to name just a few orchestras. He has written a ballet (for the Dallas Symphony and the Dallas Black Dance Theater) and musically mused on everything from Chicago's storied architecture to the history of the Underground Railroad. Holland holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and Harvard University, and he teaches at the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston. Holland has commissions upcoming from the Cincinnati Symphony and Left Coast Ensemble and most recently he's completed a work for orchestra, titled Elegy for Humanity, written, he explains,"partly in response to all the injustices and atrocities we continue to hear about in the news these days." We spoke with Holland via telephone about inspiration, failure, and his 2015 cultural resolutions.
NEA:  What was your road to becoming a composer?
JONATHAN BAILEY HOLLAND:  There was always music at home when I was a kid, and I often talk about my dad's eclectic record collection, where he had everything from Lou Rawls to Nat Adderley to Miles Davis to Bootsy Collins to Handel's Fireworks. I always remember getting excited when I would listen to his records, and my mom also played piano just for her own enjoyment…. As a little kid, I would always sit at the piano and kind of make up songs, and then I eventually started taking instrument lessons, piano lessons, and trumpet lessons…. I ended up going to Interlochen Arts Academy for high school, which was great, and started doing some composition while I was there, and this was a kickoff for me, and I’ve just been going since.
- See more at: http://arts.gov/art-works/2015/art-talk-jonathan-bailey-holland#sthash.cz3Vdy5n.dpuf

John Malveaux: NPR.org: New Museum Depicts 'The Life Of A Slave From Cradle To The Tomb'

In recent years, some popular antebellum plantations have started to incorporate displays about slavery. But the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana has designed the visitor's entire experience around that history.  
Debbie Elliott/NPR 

             Whitney Plantation owner John Cummings has commissioned stark artwork for the site, including realistic statues of slave children found throughout the museum.
Debbie Elliott/NPR              

John Malveaux of 
writes:


John Malveaux

'I am listening to Joseph Bologne's violin concertos for the first time and I feel such pride to know that works of such high nobility have flowed from black people also.'

Violin Concertos, Op. 5, Nos. 1 & 2;
Op. 3, No. 1; Op. 8, No. 9
Bernard Thomas Chamber Orchestra
Jean-Jacques Kantorow, Violin 
Arion 68093 (1990)

Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799)
is featured at AfriClassical.com

Samuel Enoh-Tanya of Cameroon made a post in the 
Guest Book of AfriClassical Blog's companion website, 
AfriClassical.com, on Saturday, February 28, 2015:

You cannot know how elated I am to find your website.
I am listening to Joseph Bologne's violin concertos for
the first time and I feel such pride to know that works
of such high nobility have flowed from black people
also. There is a renewal happening within humanity, a
striving for the resurgence of nobility, love and
goodness. Africans must take the lead in this, but they
cannot do so if they do not know how much they
themselves had contributed in the past. Keep on
providing this information to the world and inspiring
Africans all over.


We welcome Samuel Enoh-Tanya to AfriClassical.com
and AfriClassical.blogspot.com and encourage him to help
spread the word about Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges and
the many other classical composers and musicians of
African descent.  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

















Friday, February 27, 2015

Houston Chronicle: Ebony Opera group focuses on composers ( "Duke, Dett and Three Premieres")


Conductor Roland Carter will lead the Houston Ebony Opera Guild's annual gala concert Sunday.       
(Jamie Davis, Houston Chronicle)

Houston Chronicle

February 27, 2015

Since 1992, the African-American Music Gala has been a prominent annual performance for Houston Ebony Opera. And this year will be no exception.

"It's a major concert event," says Mary Marks Guillory, the chair of the Houston Ebony Music Society. "It's a platform for African-American music, including new works. And it reflects our broad commitment to African-American composers."
On the podium for the occasion will be conductor Roland Carter, professor emeritus at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he taught for 23 years. He's also a composer, arranger and music publisher.
Carter has enjoyed a long association with Houston Ebony Opera, dating to 1989. He had high praise for the organization.
"I think it has done quite well - it has grown tremendously. And as the charter members revolve out, there are new members coming in."
The major piece on the program is Ellington's "Sacred Concerts." Carter points out that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the first of the composer and bandleader's cathedral concerts in San Francisco in 1965. 
The major piece on the program is Ellington's "Sacred Concerts." Carter points out that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the first of the composer and bandleader's cathedral concerts in San Francisco in 1965.
For the "Sacred Concerts," Carter will be sharing the stage with DeVonne Gardner - a Philadelphia vocalist who appeared with Ellington in the 1960s and 1970s. The Duke praised her as a "clear-voiced soprano," and she became a regular with his orchestra.
The name R. Nathaniel Dett isn't as widely recognized today as Ellington. But in the 1930s, the Canadian-born black pianist and composer was known nationally, through appearances on NBC and CBS radio networks. He died in 1943.
Carter also feels a personal connection to Dett.
"Dett is very special to me. He founded the music school at the Hampton Institute in Virginia. I was subsequently choir director there for a quarter of a century. So I count him as part of my musical heritage."
Dett's oratorio "The Ordering of Moses" was premiered in 1937 by the Cincinnati Symphony under the distinguished British conductor Sir Eugene Goosens. Carter will conduct excerpts from this work at Sunday's gala.

Dominique-René de Lerma: Link to February 26, 2015 Performance Today Interview with Eduardo Rios, Senior Division Winner of 2015 Sphinx Competition


Eduardo Rios and the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra perform at the 2015 Sphinx Competition (Glenn Triest)


Dominique-René de Lerma:

Click the following link to reach the page on which the February 26, 2015 Performance Today interview with Eduardo Rios can be heard:

Performance Today

Eduardo Ríos is the senior division winner of the 2015 Sphinx Competition, a competition which strives to "encourage, develop and recognize classical music talent in the Black and Latino communities."
Rios grew up in Lima, Peru. Currently, he is a student at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, California. Listen to his interview with PT host Fred Child after the competition.

You can also watch Ríos' award-winning performance on the Sphinx website


--------------------------------
Dominique-René de Lerma

Dominique-René de Lerma: In April 1915 'Musical America' printed an article, 'Our great need: An American genius'; the answer had been present all along, in the spiritual.



Dominique-René de Lerma:

            It was almost a century ago -- 10 April 1915 -- that Musical America, that esteemed journal which still flourishes, printed the following article by Israel Ampter, "Our great need: An American genius."

            He was aware that Antonín Dvorak had addressed the same issue a dozen years earlier, but falls short without noting the answer had been present all along, in the spiritual.  He lauds Germany, which would not be the case three years later when the German-Americans, who had leadership of many American music establishments, were  removed from power because of World War I.  Looking at England, he would agree with the British feelings of cultural inferiority (an American importation), not yet noting the work of Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, or for sure Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.  Britten was yet to make his mark.

            He disdains ragtime and as a result Scott Joplin, and would doubtless have the same negative thoughts about Harry Burleigh.  This was only moments before the start of the Harlem Renaissance, that enormous flourishing of talented performers such as Roland Hayes and Marion Anderson, and composers like William Grant Still and Duke Ellington.  Had Ampter written on the same subject ten or twenty years later, would he then realize these talents had provided the answer?  I doubt that he would even have accepted Gershwin then, but in these words he describes so well what Americans were to worry about for several decades:


“We Shall Not Have an Individual National Music Until a World Master like Wagner Rises from Among Us and Creates for Us an Ideal—European Influence Would Be Negligible if Our Creative Artists Were All—Compelling in Mastery

IT cannot be assumed that selfish reasons alone have fostered the movement to have American musical students pursue their studies in America—i. e., a desire to retain in America the money that otherwise must be spent abroad. Nor patriotic reasons, suggesting that American students should be content with the best training that America affords. These reasons would be totally invalid and absolutely disregarded by the individual students.

No, it is something higher, something ethnological, something esthetic, something ideal. Not the desire to keep ourselves free and untouched by foreign influences in the belief that what is American is, at least for Americans, superior, but the wish that what we do may be as American as possible, as suggestive of our Western aspirations and conception of life, as is within the reach of man to attain. The aim is that what we do and think may be individualistic—not a composite of Old World culture and New World evolution, but New World culture as derived from all that the past has produced and moulded into an entity entirely unparalleled in the history of man. We want to be completely ourselves.
Is there not distinct German music, decidedly characteristic Italian music, music peculiarly French and Hungarian, Russian and Norwegian (at least in Grieg, although the points of resemblance between him, the Scandinavian, and Puccini, the Italian, are numerous) ? Then why not American music?

Foreign Influence on Performers
Our performers, even if they study in America, will for a long time to come be dependent upon foreign influence in their interpretations. Most of the compositions are foreign, and those performers who would forget themselves as much as possible, in the notion that the composition was not created for them, but it is their office to interpret the composition, will have to sink themselves into exotic thought and in their performances try to suggest the current of conception and emotion felt by the foreign composer. True, the master performer will always insist on his own conception of what the composer intended, the performance as a consequence being a blending of the composer and performer.

Then, again, as long as our opera going public intends to remain so shallow as to be content to listen to opera in a tongue that it either does not understand at all or so imperfectly as merely to grasp—and vaguely at that—the content and nothing of the beauty of language and thought the opera will be given in the original language. And that again puts part of our musicians completely under foreign influence.

Our composer at least should be left uncontaminated is the cry. They, the creators of American music, must not be exposed to anything that will detract from their individuality. A short time ago there appeared the statement of an American musician to the effect that as the youthful years are the most impressionable those who during that time study abroad are bound to come back inoculated with foreign ideas and methods. He declared that his own life bears out his contention. It would seem, however, that for our composer to remain here completely—isolated from the rest of the thinking world—would mean to subject him to the only influence at all characteristic in America as far as music is concerned, and at that one that racially and esthetically, he as an individualist should combat and refute—viz., ragtime. Certainly nothing can be more baneful on his development than this ragtime, despite its syncopated rhythm, alluring to the feet of our one-stepping, two-stepping and downward-stepping dance-mad hordes. And even Dvorak to the contrary.

Why have our serious composers not produced genuine, undefiled American music? Why is it that in spite of 5,000 miles separating us from European thought, in spite of our nation’s being composed of other constituents, in spite of our living under quite different physical conditions, in spite of our institutions being different from Old World institutions, in spite of our ideals being distinct, we have not evolved anything powerfully American? Probably for no other reason than that what has been American in music has lacked force, personality, and has yielded to the stronger influence of united Europe. And is that at all strange?

As already stated in the course of these articles, art is not the product of a day. It is the quintessence of a long period of development in a definite direction. It is the soul of tendency. It is the force giving form to outer conditions. It is the culminating power of a nation’s ideals.

What is the American nation? Up to the present it has been a continually varying mass. It is a restless composite of material strugglers, who now seek a formula for their struggles and clamor for the artist to proclaim it. Shall the mere desire give birth to him? Walt Whitman is the only artist that America can claim as American—soul and spirit, mind and body. All our other writers have been bastard. Our painters are pure reflections of Europe. Were our artists masters, all-compelling geniuses, whose personality dominated everything, European thought and influence would be negligible.

Let us look at Europe. The states of Europe are in nearly the same proximity as our American states—certainly far nearer to each other than the western and eastern coasts of the United States. Great Britain is not at a great distance from Germany and France. Yet she and America are practically in the same position—no world-challenging musical genius. Both of them appreciating music, reveling in it, yet not fertile in musical thought. Is it that Anglo-Saxon thought is not musical? (It must be remembered that a good portion of our leading musicians has up to the present been of British origin.)

Are the barriers between the nations of Europe so strong? Do frontiers represent a complete cleavage of thought? Frontiers are fantastic lines of separation—nothing more. The transition from one state to the other is so gradual, so imperceptible that for political reasons it must be emphasized by distinct institutions and forms. The differences- of nationality in Europe arise from racial and geological conditions. The railway and steamship are overcoming these barriers so formidably that we now know of the influence of Russian music in the West (an instance is to be found in a very recent American work). And certainly this is not because Western composers have studied in Russia.

Let us but regard the latest phenomenon in music—the Futurists. Do they not demonstrate that nations (in music) are disappearing, outline, form and content being practically given, with a slight addendum on the part of the composer? I say slight addendum, because that is all that distinguishes the various nationalities among them. A certain plane of thought has been arrived at among them which they all understand—the social spirit dominant. Where now is the wild anarchist, the destructive iconoclast, the devastating breaker-down and sweeper-away of all that is considered good, proper and true, that will take the tools that all musical evolution has brought him, adding thereto his own and clarion forth into the world a new song of life?

Beethoven, living under the régime of Italian music, remained Beethoven; Mozart became part Italian. Beethoven’s genius withstood all the seductive influences that Italian opera radiated; Mozart fell prey to them.

Birth of Our Own Music
And yet we, who have produced no genius in music, are to emancipate ourselves from these influences—perhaps by the distance! It is impossible. The steamship will bring fresh supplies day by day. We who recognize that art is not the product of a single day still stretch forth a begging hand, seeking aid. We whose ears still drink in melody will hearken to new strains. We whose minds crave new ideals will heed a new voice. When the American genius has arrived American music will have registered its birth.

Are conditions in America such, firstly, that all talents in this direction are discovered? (By talents I mean not our especially gifted young men and women, but the faculty of music resident in every person.) Secondly, are they cultivated, supported and encouraged? For our present argument it is quite immaterial whether they grow up into American artists or not—they are merely to develop.
Both of these questions must be answered in the negative. This statement must be taken relatively. To be more explicit, let me designate that which seeks out, fosters and propagates every artistic trait as “atmosphere.” Does, then, atmosphere congenial to this work exist in America?

The word “atmosphere” is so little understood, so mistaken for but one of its elements that a definition ought to be attempted. And yet it is so comprehensive that it could only be deduced from a complete analysis of conditions in places where this atmosphere exists. Conditions in Germany (i. e., normal conditions) are not conducive to the artist spirit.

It has not been a mere matter of chance that Germany has produced such world-wide geniuses. (This Germany is not to be understood as the present political unit Germany, but that larger confederation of the German-speaking people in Central Europe, which, therefore, includes Austria and part of Switzerland.) It is not a mere matter of chance that as a result of her geniuses, hosts of foreign disciples of the art have pilgrimmed to that font of melody. It is not a mere matter of chance that the great masters and teachers of the art have made the Teutonic realm the place of their activity. It is not a mere matter of chance that great interpreters have made it their abode. It is not a mere matter of chance that every composer and performer seeks final judgment of his works in Germany.

It is because the German people are one of the most musical people in the world and have added thereto a sense of system and method that spells to-day technic—technic, the means of a more amplified expression of thought. To state that they are the most musical people in the world would cause endless dispute and lead us to neglect the primary argument at this point. The phenomena mentioned in the preceding paragraph are so convincing that no question can be raised. German sense of system, thoroughness, breadth of idea have all placed new implements at the disposal of the composer and produced that gigantic form of composition that is exclusively German.

Germany takes her art seriously. Every German, whether he understands or occupies himself with art or not, knows that it is one of the nation’s great assets. And the artists are counted among the great men.

This is “atmosphere,” not in its supreme, but highly superior form. The student gives impetus and receives impetus not from a small coterie of similarly employed individuals, but from a nation. He lives and works among a people that can respond, that regards his calling as an exceptional one, that honors him for it, that thinks of its musicians as among its greatest sons. This is the “atmosphere” that surrounds the novice. This is that something which is not as intangible as we are made to believe. It is a something that spurs on to never ceasing effort.

America is, unfortunately, too far away to grasp these influences keenly. And the distances in America, though bridged over by railroad and telegraph, are too great to allow a nation-wide impulse and “atmosphere” to be felt. Furthermore, the blight of the nineteenth century weighs on her. Can she, not emancipate herself, but awaken to her artistic conceptions? She can only if a genius like Wagner appears, whose personality is evidently strong, whose conception of life is not taken from the clouds, but from living men, and is so engrossing, so overpowering, so colossal that we, too, will bow before him and perceive in him a creator not of dollars, but of ideals—a hero! Only then will the world take something from us. Till then we must imbibe at the font—imbibe till our own personalities grow large and strong, and produce the new ideal.


---------------------------------
Dominique-René de Lerma

John Malveaux: Author and professor Lani Guinier will be interviewed Sunday March 1, 2015 on C-Span American History


Lani Guinier

John Malveaux of 
writes:

Author and professor Lani Guinier will be interviewed Sunday March 1, 2015 on C-Span American History.

John Malveaux



Author & Law Professor

Lani Guinier
on In Depth
Live Sunday, Noon - 3 pm ET
on C-SPAN2's Book TV
  

Join us Sunday for a live, three-hour interview with author and professor Lani Guinier. She is a professor at Harvard Law School and a former special assistant at the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and former assistant counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund. Her latest book is Tyranny of the Meritocracy: Democratizing Higher Education in America. She will spend three hours taking viewers' calls, Facebook comments, emails, and tweets.  

University of Wisconsin Stevens Point: 'We performed the Afro-American Symphony last night' 'The students really enjoyed working on it and the crowd went bonkers.'


William Grant Still (1895-1978) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features a comprehensive Works List by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma, http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com

Judith Anne Still forwards a Feb. 26, 2015 message from Dr. Patrick Miles of the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point:



Hello Ms. Still, 

We performed the Afro-American Symphony last night here at UWSP. The students really enjoyed working on it and the crowd went bonkers. It was such a great experience. Thank you. 

Pat

Dr. Patrick Miles

Director of Orchestral Activities/Professor of Horn
Brass Area Coordinator
Graduate Studies Coordinator
Department of Music
UWSP
Stevens Point, WI 54481

Comment by email:
Thanks, Bill--I am always delighted when conductors are blown away by audience approval.  That's what we're all about.  [Judith Anne Still]

Sylvia Y. Cyrus: Tickets Still Available - ASALH Black History Luncheon, Saturday, February 28, 2015; Featured Authors 10 AM-Noon, 89th Annual Luncheon 12:30 PM


Thursday, February 26, 2015

John Malveaux: HistoryOfStCharlesParish.org: The 1811 German Coast Uprising was a revolt of black slaves in parts of the Territory of Orleans

1811 Slave Revolt

John Malveaux of 
writes:

The 1811 German Coast Uprising was a revolt of black slaves in parts of the Territory of Orleans on January 8–10, 1811. The uprising occurred on the east bank of the Mississippi River in what are now St. John the Baptist and St. Charles Parishes, Louisiana. See http://www.historyofstcharlesparish.org/index.php/19th-century/the-territorial-period-1803-1812/slave-revolt

John Malveaux

Dominique--René de Lerma: Harlem Opera Theater: Feb. 27 - Black History Month, Schomburg Ctr 6pm Reception + 7:30 Concert $40; 7:30 Concert (only) $25



Dominique-René de Lerma:

Harlem Opera Theater

Lis Stevens, soprano
Steven Wallace, tenor
Quentin Lee, baritone
Gregory Hopkins on piano

Tickets available online:
www.harlemoperatheater.com


--------------------------------
Dominique-René de Lerma

John Malveaux: Architect Paul R. Williams and Composer William Grant Still both lived on S. Victoria Ave., Los Angeles; both homes are on L.A. Historical Registry

Wikipedia.org: William Grant Still residence, 1262 S. Victoria Ave., Los Angeles, CA, just north of Pico Blvd. This is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #169.  (Downtowngal)

Wikipedia.org: Paul R. Williams Residence, 1690 S. Victoria Avenue, Los Angeles.  (Downtowngal)

On February 25, 2015 AfriClassical posted:


John Malveaux has commented by email:
Architect Paul R. Williams and Composer William Grant Still lived on the same street (Victoria) in Los Angeles and their homes were listed on the Los Angeles Historical Registry 12-1-1976. 1976 was the Bicentennial of the United States. See 169 and 170 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Los_Angeles_Historic-Cultural_Monuments_in_the_Wilshire_and_Westlake_areas

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

John Malveaux: "African American architect Paul Williams designed home at 5531 Bryant Drive East, Long Beach" on "the largest residential lot (2.6 acres) in Long Beach"

Paul Revere Williams

John Malveaux of 
writes:

Famed African American architect Paul Williams designed home at 5531 Bryant Drive East, Long Beach is for sale. The 5 bedroom, 4.5 baths, 5,000 square foot home in the estate section of Park Estates has the largest residential lot (2.6 acres) in Long Beach. Ken Trossen is Broker. See http://www.paulrwilliamsproject.org/

John Malveaux
www.musicuntold.com

Comment by email:
Architect Paul R. Williams and Composer William Grant Still lived on the same street (Victoria) in Los Angeles and their homes were listed on the Los Angeles Historical Registry 12-1-1976. 1976 was the Bicentennial of the United States. See 169 and 170 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Los_Angeles_Historic-Cultural_Monuments_in_the_Wilshire_and_Westlake_areas

Thanks
John

Unity Church of Christianity, Valley Stream, NY: Pianist Roy Eaton, 'Choipin meets Joplin meets Jazz' Sunday, March 15, 2015, 2 PM, Donation $25.00


Roy F. Eaton

Roy Eaton, winner of the first Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Award in June 1950, made his American debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing Chopin's F minor Concerto under George Schick in 1951.  He was re-engaged to perform Beethoven's 4th concerto the following season, and also made his New York Town Hall debut in 1952.  

His career was "temporarily" interrupted by 2 years of service in the U.S. Army during the Korean conflict, then approximately 30 years in advertising at Young & Rubicam, then as V.P. Music Director of Benton & Bowles, then running his own production company.  He was recently inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame for his Ad work.  He is currently on the faculty of the Manhattan Schoo of Music.

Air Force Strings Perform Works of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor & William Grant Still at Maryland Music Educators Association Convention in Baltimore February 20, 2015

is profiled at AfriClassical.comwhich 
features a comprehensive Works List and a 
Bibliography by Dr. Dominique- René de Lerma, 

Air Force Strings
The United States Air Force Band
Washington, D.C.
Colonel Larry H. Lang, Commander
Total Time (58:56)




William Grant Still (1895-1978) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features a comprehensive Works List by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma, http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com


On February 14, 2015 AfriClassical posted:

Dominique-René de Lerma: Air Force Strings And "An American Dream" Includes "Four Novelettes, Op. 52" of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)


Senior Master Sergeant William T. Tortolano writes:


Thank you for your kind note and all your help in getting the word out!
Mr. de Lerma's review was spot-on. I wish we had the money to have printed liner notes, but the Air Force is so tight on money these days. I've put in a request to my commander to let me write them and post them online. I'll let you know if I'm successful.
The Strings have played the Coleridge-Taylor on a couple of Black History Month concerts, including one at the recent Maryland Music Educators conference in Baltimore. Both students and educators were thrilled to get to know the Coleridge-Taylor. We also gave out CDs.
This summer we're giving a couple of concerts in Maine and New Hampshire, so I'm pressing to perform the Foote in his native New England.
Here is a program announcement by The United States Air Force Band:
Air Force Strings take AIM to Maryland Music Educators Posted 1/28/2015   Updated 1/28/2015
by Master Sgt. William Hurd 1/28/2015 - Washington, D.C. -- On Feb. 20, the Air Force Strings will take the Band's Advancing Innovation through Music (AIM) program to the Maryland Music Educators Association (MMEA) Convention, held this year at the Baltimore Convention Center. Designed to build positive relationships with local educational communities, the AIM program gives Band members the opportunity to work side by side with students of all ages, in small environments such as clinics and master classes, as well as in large scale assemblies. The Band also hosts field trips to historic Hangar 2, our home on Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, where students experience a little Air Force history and get a chance to sit-in on rehearsals.  In 2014 alone, the AIM program reached more than 15,000 school students in over 70 events across seven states and the District of Columbia. The Maryland Music Educators Association (MMEA) is the professional association for the school music teachers of Maryland. MMEA's mission is to provide professional development for music teachers, opportunities for excellence for music students and teachers, and to serve as an advocate for music education in schools. The more than 1,100 teacher members are from every geographic jurisdiction of the state as well as from every level of teaching--early childhood through colleges and secondary schools, educating in public, private and parochial schools. MMEA is a state affiliate of the Music Educators National Conference and the National Association for Music Education, the largest arts advocacy organization in the world. At the MMEA convention, the Air Force Strings will present an AIM program to music teachers from across the state of Maryland by performing a concert in honor of Black History Month. The event will showcase works by notable African-American composers William Grant Still and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and also include music by Morton Gould. The Strings are excited to be able to participate in this important gathering of educators and musicians. We look forward to meeting and working with the people who enrich tens of thousands of students' lives with the power of music.