BLACK & CLASSICAL EP LAUNCH CONCERT
BLACK AND CLASSICAL
CLASSICAL MUSIC BY BLACK WOMEN COMPOSERS.
A celebration of BEATRICE’S ‘Black and Classical’ EP release.
PROGRAMME
Clouds, Florence Price
Fantasie Negre No.2, Florence Price
The Spiritual Suite, Margaret Bonds
-The Valley of the Bones
Four Seasonal Sketches, Betty Jackson King.
-Spring Intermezzo
-Summer Interlude
-Autumn Dance
-Winter Holiday.
The Spiritual Suite, Margaret Bonds
- Troubled Waters
Stay for wine and a mingle
PROGRAMME NOTES
Price, Bonds and King were key parts of the 1930s-40s Chicago Renaissance; an African American creative movement that blossomed out of Chicago. The movement became characterised by Artists mixing western and African heritage art forms together. This created unique expressions of music, theatre, poetry and art which empowered the black identity, community and powerfully impacted civil rights activism. Although each composer is very different to the other Price, Bonds and King all fused their classical compositions with jazz, negro spiritual, African rhythm and gospel influences
FLORENCE BEATRICE PRICE, 1887-1953, was born into a racially segregated society two years after the abolition of American slavery. Although a prizewinning composer in her time, her career was juxtaposed with denied access to many areas of the classical institution on account of her race and sex. Her composition, Clouds, uses the symbolism found in African American art where clouds represent freedom. Although Price frames Clouds within a traditional classical structure it is created to sound like a free improvisation. Moving in opposition to the societal segregation of her time she integrates sounds that would have been kept separate, western classical with black heritage music heard in her Chopin, Ravel, Rachmaninoff and jazz fusion.
MARGARET BONDS 1913-1972 was a child prodigy pianist, composer and student of Florence Price. She wrote over two hundred works, most of which were lost after her death. Bonds is widely known for her classical arrangements of negro spirituals, she was additionaly a civil rights activist. Her piano solo Troubled Water is based on Wade in the Water, a spiritual song that was sung by African American slaves.
BETTY JACKSON KING 1928-1994 was a singer, pianist, composer and President of America’s National Association of Negro Musicians. Known primarily as a vocal composer, her Seasonal Sketches for solo piano are sublimely lyrical and with jazz influences.
ABOUT BEATRICE
Beatrice Nicholas is a British pianist and composer of Jamaican-Ghanaian heritage. She is known as an engaging performer in the UK, France, Germany, Poland, Thailand and the Czech Republic. Beatrice has enjoyed performing at prestigious venues such as London's Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, Snape Maltings, Edinburgh's Queen’s Hall and the Cartier Foundation in Paris. Her compositions and arrangements have been featured on BBC Radio 3, premiered inside London's St Pancras Clock Tower, commissioned by the Nottingham Chamber Music Festival and showcased by the British Black Classical Foundation