Two previous articles in MIROIRS CA highlight historical accomplishments of African-American classical composers: Dvorak’s Prophecy and Colour of Music. New York Youth Symphony (NYYS) has just released a recording on the Avie Records label that is vibrant, inspirational and thought-provoking in featuring works by three African-American women composers: Valerie Coleman, Jessie Montgomery and the venerable Florence Price (1887-1953). Since 1963, NYYS has dazzled audiences on their home turf of Metropolitan New York as a talented group of players between the ages of 12-22 who perform a variety of repertoire such as classical, jazz and musical theater. Led by Music Director Michael Repper this recording includes works of Price I really was curious about – Ethiopia’s Shadow in America (1932) and Piano Concerto in One Movement (1934) with Michelle Cann – in a world premiere recording.
Although African-American composers have contributed to America’s classical and jazz scene for quite awhile, Florence Price will perhaps be among the most remembered for being the first Black woman composer to have had a work played by a major US orchestra, the Chicago Symphony. In many ways she was a trailblazer, having studied at New England Conservatory of Music, becoming Chair of the Music Department at Clark Atlanta University, a historical Black college and writing over 300 works – many of which were discovered in 2009 at a dilapidated, deserted summer house used by Price.
Ethiopia is a three movement mini docudrama about Black people who were shipped to the US during the slave trade that Price annotates with “The Arrival of the Negro in America,” “His Resignation and Faith” and “His Adaptation.” The opening unfolds in leitmotifs of dense orchestration where one can almost visualize the hardship endured, then transitions into a sweet toned reoccurring melody and jazz infused sequences that contain some upbeat and brilliant orchestration for winds and brass. NYYS delivers a polished and totally stirring performance of this intriguing work.
Needless to say, Price wrote this and Piano Concerto in One Movement during a time when racial segregation was en vogue. The injustice however could not deny the rise of artists such as Marian Anderson who in addition to singing at leading concert halls in the US and Europe, became acquainted with Albert Einstein. As the story goes, while giving a performance at Princeton University in 1937, she stayed at Einstein’s home because hotels denied her entry.
This one movement piano concerto actually combines three distinct moods ranging from ultra-romantic virtuosic flourishes and spiritual infused melodicism to Gottschalkesque rhythms reminiscent of his Bamboula, Op. 2 with lively scoring throughout. Cann, who often performs Prices’ works for piano and chamber music tosses off octaves, arpeggios and trills with commanding aplomb in collaboration with NYYS players who display a fine sense of precision, refinement and intuition.
The title of Valerie Coleman’s Umoja: Anthem of Unity (2019) represents a principle of the holiday Kwanzaa. It is a work overflowing with lyricism that incorporates a tune of uncomplicated purity into richly embellished phrases that ebb and flow with harmonic twists – especially the strings and winds as Coleman is a top-notch flutist who received Performance Today’s 2020 Classical Woman of the Year. The performance is beautifully projected by NYYS.
By contrast, Jessie Montgomery’s Soul Force (2015) is a fiery mélange of resonance that draws you into swirling sounds of percussion, brass and quasi-Bolero paced metric sequences - all from a talented upcoming composer who is also a violinist, founding member of PUBLIQuartet and recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation.
This New York Youth Symphony debut recording knocks it out of the ball park.