BLACK & CLASSICAL
A free Black History Month concert!
Beatrice performs solo classical works for piano written by African American women.
PROGRAMME
Clouds, Florence Price
Fantasie Negre No.2, Florence Price
The Spiritual Suite, Margaret Bonds
-The Valley of the Bones (with audience participation)
Four Seasonal Sketches, Betty Jackson King.
-Spring Intermezzo
-Summer Interlude
-Autumn Dance
-Winter Holiday.
The Spiritual Suite, Margaret Bonds
- Troubled Waters
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 additionally 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.
BEATRICE’S NEXT CONCERT IS TONIGHT
AT 7PM
1901 ARTS CLUB, WATERLOO!
The American Piano.
Beatrice gives a hybrid classical-jazz concert of music from America. Music by Gershwin, Copland, Jelly Roll Morton,, Connor Chee and John Adams.
1901 Arts Club, 7 Exton Street, Waterloo. LONDON SE1 8UE