≈ 2 hours · With intermission
Last updated: March 15, 2023
Program
SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Othello Suite, Op. 79 (17 min)
I. Dance
II. Children’s Intermezzo
III. Funeral March
IV. The Willow Song
V. Military March
STEWART GOODYEAR Callaloo – A Caribbean Suite for Piano and Orchestra (28 min)
I. Panorama
II. Mento
III. Afterglow
IV. Cadenza
V. Soca
INTERMISSION
FLORENCE B. PRICE Symphony No. 1 in E minor (40 min)
I. Allegro ma non troppo
II. Largo, maestoso
III. Juba Dance
IV. Finale
Repertoire
Othello Suite, Op. 79
I. Dance
II. Children’s Intermezzo
III. Funeral March
IV. The Willow Song
V. Military March
He was dubbed “the Black Mahler” by American orchestral musicians when he arrived to conduct them in the early 1900s, a label which has followed him to the present day. But Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912) deserves recognition on his own terms. Born in Holborn to an English mother and Creole father, Coleridge-Taylor won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music and was propelled to international recognition at the age of only 22 with the epic cantata, Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast. This cantata amassed over 200 performances at the Royal Albert Hall alone and sold more than 200,000 copies during his lifetime. Coleridge-Taylor was especially well received in America, where a plethora of societies were dedicated to him and, on the first of three visits there (1904), he was invited to the White House to meet President Roosevelt.
Among those familiar with his output, Coleridge-Taylor is as much known for his creative versatility as he is for his most famous work, Hiawatha. His output spanned from solo songs to symphonies, to incidental music for the theatre, of which the Othello Suite (1911) in equal parts dramatic and breathtakingly lyrical, is a leading example.
The monthly publication Musical Progress, commenting on the renowned actor and director Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s 1911 production of Othello at His Majesty’s Theatre, identified its music as a feature on which the composer placed his unique stamp. The score’s “melodiousness…is quite a refreshing feature in these days, when so many composers seem to take fright if they find they have written a tune.” Working within a theatrical context, particularly with Beerbohm Tree, who was not known for his musical ear, came with unique challenges. Any proposed musical material was as likely to find itself on the cutting room floor as in the final production. Fortunately, this did not deter the composer, who, having worked on no fewer than four plays with the director prior to Othello, had become a frequent collaborator.
From an early age, Coleridge-Taylor was actively invested in questions surrounding race and colonialism. At 25, he was the youngest delegate to participate in the First Pan-African Conference held at Westminster Town Hall in July 1900. Established to campaign for Black rights and question Western Imperialism, its global reach brought together leading figures from the U.S., the Caribbean, Africa, and the U.K. It was here that the composer first crossed paths with W.E.B. Du Bois, a contact he was to maintain for life.
Seeing no reason to separate his European musical training from his Pan-African outlook, Coleridge-Taylor wrote in the foreword to 24 Negro Melodies (1905) that his ambition was to do “what Brahms has done for the Hungarian folk-music, Dvořák for the Bohemian, and Grieg for the Norwegian.” Best put by writer and academic Mike Phillips, “he became, against the odds, part of his culture’s tradition, while openly declaring the mixture—foreign and domestic—of elements and ideas which moved him.” Today, the integrity of his creative voice retains its ability to speak just as clearly in our time as in his own.
Program note by Charlotte Barbour-Condini
Callaloo – A Caribbean Suite for Piano and Orchestra
I. Panorama
II. Mento
III. Afterglow
IV. Cadenza
V. Soca
One can say that callaloo is my soul food...a dish from the Caribbean composed of taro leaves, coconut milk, and spices from different cultures deliciously blended together. I grew up in a city where the population was what one would call a “callaloo”, composed of people of various backgrounds and religions blending together to create an authentic urban flavour. The people of Trinidad, where half my family is from, call their community a “callaloo” nation, and they celebrate their history and present every February with Carnival, a festival of different sounds and traditions. Calypso, a blend of jazz, African, and French influences, is the heart of Trinidad.
My suite for piano and orchestra, aptly enough titled Callaloo, was composed in 2016, two years after my first Carnival in Trinidad. At thatfestival, I was exposed to gorgeous Calypso music for two weeks straight, riveted every second. The instrumentation of the suite is almostidentical to the symphony orchestra version of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, with bongo taking the place of the banjo. My Callaloo is a blend of Calypso and Lisztian pianism.
The first movement, “Panorama”, is a high-spirited medley of three different melodic and rhythmic ideas. At Carnival, Panorama is a competition between different steel pan groups, each one giving their best arrangements and medley of the top three Calypso songs of the year. The most successful medley wins the prize. For this movement, I wrote my own three themes, but bringing elements that would be familiar to Calypso lovers. The movement uses all the instruments except the horns.
The second movement, “Mento”, is a mid-tempo homage to the Jamaican folk song, with a middle section in 3/4 time inspired by Afro-Cuban music. This movement uses only solo piano, horns, and strings.
The third movement, “Afterglow”, is a slow-tempo mento, made famous in the Western world by artists like Harry Belafonte. This movement uses solo piano, the lower strings, flutes, clarinets, and bassoons, and the percussion section. The atmosphere is that of a siesta, and the colour is that of a golden sunset.
The fourth movement is a solo cadenza for solo piano, starting calm and gradually building up to a frenzy before the last movement,“Soca”.
“Soca”, is the huge finale of Carnival, and is inspired by the Mas, a parade of soca bands and DJs with the costumed participants dancing in the streets to the music played. Everyone comes out to see and participate in the Mas, so it was only appropriate for me to use all the orchestral forces! If you listen closely, there is also a “sampling” of my piano sonata in this movement.
The world premiere of this work, with Kristjan Järvi conducting the MDR Symphony Orchestra, was in Leipzig, a city that I learned has an underground fan base of Calypso. The response from the audience was electrifying.... They cheered and whooped, whistled and stamped. It was the response I hoped and composed for!
Symphony No. 1 in E minor
I. Allegro ma non troppo
II. Largo, maestoso
III. Juba Dance
IV. Finale
Florence Beatrice Price (1887–1953, born Smith) was raised in Little Rock, a town with a flourishing Black middle class. Growing up in this well-connected community simultaneously exposed her to the heights of possibility for African Americans at the turn of the 20th century, and the political precarity of that community’s existence. Her father, James Smith, had worked against the odds to become a highly respected dentist, and was regarded as a pillar of the community by both Black and White residents. Owing to the lack of suitable hotel accommodation for African Americans in Little Rock, individuals seen as leading figures of the Black elite were frequently hosted in the Smith’s family home. It was commonplace for young Florence to meet the likes of W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and Frederick Douglass as house guests. Little Rock’s Black community were consistently vocal in their intention to promote African American cultural pride through education and civic leadership, intentions which left an enduring impression on Florence’s future ambitions.
Florence thrived in Little Rock and beyond. She not only graduated as valedictorian of her high school, but also flourished at the New England Conservatory of Music (1903–06), double majoring in organ and music education. She gained a scholarship to study composition with George Chadwick and became set on pursuing composition professionally. But it was not until moving to Chicago in 1927 that she allowed composing to take a front seat. After graduating, she built an impressive reputation as an educator, and channelled many of her energies into writing instructional pieces for her piano students. Price had written a—now lost—symphony while a student in Boston, but after graduation composed no major orchestral works till her mid-40s. This delay was due in part to financial necessity, and in part to societal (and internalized) expectations that, as a woman, she would dedicate herself primarily to teaching.
Often noted for its promotion of jazz, blues, and gospel, early 20th-century Chicago was also a hub for Black classical music. But it was safety rather than professional ambition that initially drove Price to the city. An expansion of America’s Jim Crow laws had escalated already worsening racial tensions in her affluent hometown. By 1927, Little Rock, previously known as a “paradise” for the Black middle classes, had become a community bearing grim witness to the fallacy of linear social progress. Tensions culminated in a public lynching in the town centre, after which Price fled with her husband and two children. Divorcing her husband after the financial pressures of the Great Depression escalated into violence at home, Florence kept the name of Price for professional purposes, having already built a career for herself. Along with a new city, a new chapter in Florence’s life, both personal and professional, had begun.
Price started work on her first symphony in January 1931, the same month of finalizing her divorce. She found humour and opportunity in a physical injury, writing to a friend, “when shall I ever be so fortunate again as to break a foot!”, and took the time to focus exclusively on composing. Rooted in African American musical traditions, the work actively drew not only from Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony, “From the New World”, but also followed in the footsteps of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, whose posthumous legacy and reputation for incorporating spirituals into his compositions left an even deeper impression in the U.S. than in his birth country.
After a weighty first movement, the symphony incorporates a sure-footed, harmonically rich ten-part brass chorus in the second. An exuberant “Juba” takes the place of what in European symphonies is often a scherzo, as Price harkens to an African-derived folk dance popular with enslaved people in the antebellum South. The work wraps with a finale that brims with brisk vitalityyet remains grounded in the pentatonic scales that are woven into the work’s fabric throughout, as Price resolved to bring the musical traditions of jazz and blues onto the concert platform.
Price was propelled to national prominence after becoming a multi-award winning entrant in the 1932 Rodman Wanamaker Competition. Amongst other successes for her piano compositions, her Symphony No. 1 in E minor was awarded the $500 first prize. It also gained the attention of Frederick Stock, then conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, who was in search of a work to complete his concert at the upcoming Chicago World’s Fair. Price became the first African American woman to have her work played by a major American orchestra, when her First Symphony was performed to resounding critical acclaim by Stock and the CSO in 1933.
Program note by Charlotte Barbour-Condini
Artists
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With a unique combination of intensity, enthusiasm, and technical clarity, American conductor Andrew Grams has steadily built a reputation for his dynamic concerts, ability to connect with audiences, and long-term orchestra building. He’s the winner of the 2015 Conductor of the Year award from the Illinois Council of Orchestras and has led orchestras throughout the United States including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and the Houston Symphony.
Andrew Grams became music director of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra after an international search in 2013 and recently concluded his tenure there after eight seasons. His charismatic conducting and easy accessibility have made him a favourite of Elgin Symphony audiences.
A frequent traveller, Andrew Grams has worked extensively with orchestras abroad, including the symphony orchestras of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, the Orchestre National de France, Hong Kong Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, the symphony orchestras of Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, and Het Residentie Orchestra in The Hague, Netherlands. He has led multiple performances of New York City Ballet’s George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker® and the first performances of the new production of The Nutcracker for the Norwegian National Ballet in Oslo.
Also an educator, he has worked with orchestras at institutions such as the Curtis Institute of Music, the Cleveland Institute of Music, Indiana University, Roosevelt University, the National Orchestral Institute at the University of Maryland, and the Amsterdam Conservatorium.
Born in Severn, Maryland, Andrew Grams began studying the violin when he was eight years old. In 1999 he received a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from The Juilliard School, and in 2003 he received a conducting degree from the Curtis Institute of Music where he studied with Otto-Werner Mueller. He was selected to spend the summer of 2003 studying with David Zinman, Murry Sidlin, and Michael Stern at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen, and returned to that program again in 2004. He served as Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra from 2004 to 2007, where he worked under the guidance of Franz Welser-Möst, and has since returned for several engagements.
As an accomplished violinist, Andrew Grams was a member of the New York City Ballet Orchestra from 1998 to 2004, serving as acting associate principal second violin in 2002 and 2004. Additionally, he has performed with ensembles including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the New Jersey Symphony.
Proclaimed “a phenomenon” by the Los Angeles Times and “one of the best pianists of his generation” by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Stewart Goodyear is an accomplished concert pianist, improviser, and composer. He has performed with, and has been commissioned by, many of the major orchestras and chamber music organizations around the world.
Last year, Orchid Classics released Goodyear’s recording of his suite for piano and orchestra, Callaloo, and his piano sonata. His recent commissions include a piano quintet for the Penderecki String Quartet, and a piano work for the Honens Piano Competition.
Stewart Goodyear’s discography includes the complete sonatas and piano concertos of Beethoven, as well as concertos by Tchaikovsky, Grieg, and Rachmaninoff; an album of Ravel piano works; and an album entitled For Glenn Gould, which combines repertoire from Gould’s U.S. and Montreal debuts. Goodyear’s recording of his own transcription of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker (complete ballet), was chosen by The New York Times as one of the best classical music recordings of 2015. His discography is released on the Marquis Classics, Orchid Classics, Bright Shiny Things, Steinway and Sons, and Naxos labels.
Last summer included performances with the Chineke! Orchestra at Southbank Centre (U.K.) and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the Grant Park Music Festival, and the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York. He also performed with Chineke! at the NAC in March 2023. Highlights of the 2023–2024 season are his recital debut at Wigmore Hall, his debut with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, his return with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and his Carnegie Hall debut with Toronto’s Royal Conservatory Orchestra under Peter Oundjian.
Chi-chi is the Founder and Artistic Director of Chineke! Foundation. She has been instrumental in creating opportunities for Black and ethnically diverse musicians through the Chineke! Orchestra and Chineke! Junior Orchestra, commissioning new works, championing historical composers of diverse heritage, and establishing scholarships with major U.K. conservatoires. The ABO/RPS Salomon Prize, which celebrates “unsung heroes” working in British orchestras, is her dream-child.
Chi-chi is a Professor and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, Honorary Fellow of Trinity Laban Conservatoire, and Honorary Doctor at Chichester University and the Open University. Chi-chi was awarded the CBE for Services to Music & Diversity in 2022, and in 2021 named the first Ambassador for Intergenerational Music Making. She featured in the Powerlist of Britain’s 100 Most Influential Black People for the last four consecutive years. Chi-chi regularly broadcasts for TV and radio, including BBC, Sky Arts, and Classic FM.
The Chineke! Foundation was founded in 2015 by double bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku CBE to provide career opportunities for young Black and ethnically diverse classical musicians in the U.K. and Europe. Chineke!’s mission is, “championing change and celebrating diversity in classical music.”
The past seven years has seen an extraordinary increase in Chineke!’s activities and impact. Chineke! Voices was launched in 2022, shining a spotlight on the extraordinary 16th-century composer Vicente Lusitano, the recording of which will be released in 2023. The Chineke! Junior Orchestra also commenced its debut European tour in 2022 with the opening concert of the Lucerne Festival. The Chineke! Orchestra now gives around 40 concerts each year in the U.K. including at many major U.K. festivals and at St George’s, Bristol, and Warwick Arts Centre where Chineke! has residencies. In London, Chineke! is a Resident Orchestra at Southbank Centre performing regularly at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Royal Festival Hall.
Abroad, Chineke! has undertaken several major tours to Europe and Australia and will be making its debut tour to North America in March 2023. This evening’s concert is the orchestra’s first appearance in Canada. Several CD recordings have already been released since 2017 and in 2022 Chineke! Records was launched in association with Decca Records.
In every concert Chineke! proudly performs works by Black and ethnically diverse composers from all over the world who have been unjustly neglected throughout history. They champion composers from the 16th-century Vicente Lusitano, through to the 19th/20th-century Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and perform, commission, and record works by living Black composers.
Chi-chi Nwanoku says: “My aim is to create a space where Black and ethnically diverse musicians can walk on stage and know that they belong, in every sense of the word. If even one child feels that their colour is getting in the way of their musical ambitions, then I hope to inspire them, give them a platform, and show them that music, of whatever kind, is for all people. And I want audiences to feel welcome, regardless of ethnicity.”
The aims of the Chineke! Foundation and Orchestra are ambitious. In the words of the conductor, Sir Simon Rattle, “Chineke! is not only an exciting idea but a profoundly necessary one. The kind of idea which is so obvious that you wonder why it is not already in place. The kind of idea which could deepen and enrich classical music in the U.K. for generations. What a thrilling prospect!”
Chineke! Orchestra
First Violins
Samson Diamond
Laura Ayoub
Ronald Long
Betania Johnny
Julian Azkoul
Eunsley Park
Soong Choo
Robert Miller
Laure Chan
Teddy Truneh
Second Violins
Julian Gil Rodiguez
Zahra Benyounes
Steven Crichlow
Aaliyah Booker
Blaize Henry
Raye Harvey
Rebekah Reid
Evelyn Abiodun
Violas
Lena Fankhauser
Stephen Upshaw
Natalia Senior-Brown
Audrey Monfils
Wei Wei Tan
Peter Fenech
Cellos
Jakob Nierenz
Adi Tal
David Kadumukasa
Elliott Bailey
Lindsey Sharpe
Benedict Swindells
Double Basses
Chi-chi Nwanoku CBE
Roberto Carrillo Garcia
Thea Sayer
Fabián Galeana
Flutes
Meera Maharaj
Shantanique Moore
Deronne White (pic 1)
Rianna Henriques (pic 2)
Oboes
Myfanwy Price
Banita Wheatley-Holmes
Clarinets
Benjamin Pinto
Anton Clarke-Butler
Bassoons
Linton Stephens
Daria Phillips
Soprano Saxophone
Christian Ross
Alto Saxophone
Rianna Henriques
Tenor/Baritone Saxophone
Robert Gilliam
French Horns
Francisco Gomez
Isaac Shieh
Derryck Nasib
Jonathan Hassan
Trumpets
Gabriel Dias
Bradley Wilson
Atse Theodros
Trombones
Jake Durham
Simon Chorley
Bass Trombone
Michaias Berlouis
Tuba
Hanna Mbuya
Timpani
Jauvon Gilliam
Percussion
Sacha Johnson
Jason Chowdhury
Donnie Johnson
- Official Car of the NAC Orchestra
