Thu 10/13 @ 8PM
Despite people’s worst fears, Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged New Orleans and the Gulf Coast when it made landfall in August 2005, did not silence the voice of the city’s vibrant and unique music scene. In fact, it inspired an outpouring of music in response as the community recovered and rebuilt.
One of the most moving of those pieces was jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard’s A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina), which was released in 2007 and won a Grammy in 2008. As a New Orleans native and resident, he was deeply affected by the disaster and expressed his feelings for its victims in his music, some of which appeared in Spike Lee’s Katrina film, When the Levees Broke.
That piece will be the centerpiece of a concert at Oberlin College’s Finney Chapel. Blanchard and his quintet will join the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Raphael Jiménez, for the performance of the piece. The evening will open with the Ben Cruz Quintet from the Oberlin Conservatory playing short pieces by Herbie Hancock, Mulgrew Miller and Thelonious Monk. The concert is free and open to the public.