Thu 2/18 @ 7:30PM
Oberlin Conservatory’s online Oberlin Stage Left series continues its tribute to Black composers this week, with Associate Professor of Voice Katherine Jolly hosting an array of her colleagues in solo and small-group works by African-American composers from the 19th century through today.
Once again, the works of prolific 20th-century Black composer William Grant Still, who studied at Oberlin and became known as the “Dean of Afro-American Composers,” will be featured, with organ professor Christa Rakich playing his Elegy for Organ, and flute professor Alexa Still and piano professor James Howsmon joining together for his Summerland and Quit Dat Fool’nish.
Howsmon, Still and bassoon professor Drew Pattison will play Rêverie Champêtre by 19th-century Creole composer Edmond Dédé; while viola professors Peter Slowik and Kirsten Docter and alumni violists Troy Stephenson (’20) and Marlea Simpson (’16) perform A Canadian Boat Song by Maurice Arnold, who studied with Antonin Dvořák during the Czech composer’s stay in the U.S. in the late 1800s.
And Still will shine a spotlight on a pair of young female flutists/composers who are writing music for the instrument, playing Valerie Coleman’s Danza de la Mariposa and Allison Loggins-Hull’s Homeland.
Tune into the program here; no registration is required.
.oberlin.edu/conservatory/stage-left