Bach Festival rights old wrongs
William Grant Still was awarded 10 honorary doctorates for his contributions to music and wrote five symphonies and eight operas. Do you know of any them?
George Walker was the first Black man to win the Pulitzer Prize for music. Can you name one of his compositions?
R. Nathaniel Dett was the first Black man to graduate with a music degree in composition and piano from the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory of Music. What’s his most famous work?
If you are drawing blanks on my questions, don’t feel alone. The point of the Bach Festival Society’s exciting “Insights & Sounds” program on Thursday night was to turn the spotlight on these and others who contributed to the American music scene, but because of the racism of their times never became part of the mainstream musical canon. We have been missing out. The Bach Festival Society program, titled “Exploring and Celebrating African American Composers,” featured spirituals, an oratorio and a salute to the African harp called “Ennanga.”
That piece was by Still, who died in 1978. “Ennanga” is a bold work, given a vivid reading by harpist Dawn Marie Edwards for the Bach Festival Society. It’s full of drama at the start, then becomes more lyrical and subtle in the second movement before a delightfully rollicking segment in the final section.
Walker was represented on the program by his “Lyric for Strings.” Under the direction of Bach artistic director John Sinclair, the different instruments’ musical lines combined for a lush sound of great warmth.
Another instrumental piece, Florence Beatrice Price’s “Andante moderato” from her String Quartet in G Major, was played with straightforward grace, offering an air of reassurance. A pizzicato section added unexpected flavor to the middle before the work returned to its more stately style with an undercurrent of strength.
Two guest vocalists brought their own flavor to the program. Chadonné Whiskey had an appealing breathiness at the edges of her mezzo-soprano as she brought a bit of the blues to Price’s “Song to the Dark Virgin.”
Samuel McKelton performed multiple spirituals with grace and a tenor that could find every nuance of sorrow in lines such as “I cannot stay here by myself,” in “I’m a Po’ Lil’ Orphan.” He handled the leaps between upper and lower registers in the peppier “Two Wings” with aplomb.
In “At the Feet of Jesus,” McKelton’s emotional humming was as much a prayer as the lyrics’ pleas for mercy. Before singing the powerful “Stand the Storm,” McKelton said to listen for jazz and gospel influences, but I heard a bit of Broadway with the inspirational song’s dramatic buildup and big finish.
The night’s finale brought members of the Bach Festival Choir to the stage for a joyful “Chariot Jubilee” by Dett, who truly used the voice as an instrument — mixing a cappella sections with the orchestra’s playing.
The scariest part? Dett’s original orchestration of the work was lost; it had to be reconstructed from choral music that mercifully was found.
We can’t afford to “lose” such cultural treasures. And thank goodness we have organizations such as the Bach Festival Society to remind us of such magnificent musical heritage.
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