Music by African American Composers: Yesterday and Today

Sunday, January 30, 2011, 3:00 pm

Eastside College Preparatory School Performing Arts Center

Performers
soprano Yolanda Rhodes
vocalist/pianists LaDoris Cordell and Deanne Tucker
clarinetist Carol Somersille
pianist Josephine Gandolfi
violinist Susan C. Brown
cellist Victoria Ehrlich
featuring compositions by
Margaret Bonds
Charles Brown
Valerie Capers
Betty Jackson King
Joshua McGhee
Jacqueline Hairston
Undine Smith Moore
Florence B. Price
Hale Smith
William Grant Still

I. Portraits in Jazz: Musical Tributes by Valerie Capers
(composed for piano solo, ensemble arrangements by Gandolfi)
1. “Ella Scats the Little Lamb” (Ella Fitzgerald)
2. “Billie’s Song” (Billie Holliday) - words by LaDoris Cordell
3. “Waltz for Miles” (Miles Davis)
4. “Blues for ‘The Duke’” (Duke Ellington)
5. “The Monk” (Thelonius Monk)
6. “Cool-trane” (John Coltrane)
7. “Canción de la Havana” (Mongo Santamaria)
8. “Blue-Bird” (Charlie “Bird” Parker)
II. Three Spirituals
Jacqueline B. Hairston - “This Little Light of Mine”
Charles Brown - “Calvary”
Undine Smith Moore - “To Be Baptized”
Yolanda Rhodes, soprano
Josephine Gandolfi and Deanne Tucker, piano
III. from Four Seasonal Sketches by Betty Jackson King
(duet arrangement by Gandolfi)
1. “Spring Intermezzo”
2. “Winter Holiday”
LaDoris Cordell and Josephine Gandolfi, piano
IV. Where Freedom Rings, text and music by Joshua McGhee, commissioned for Picasso Ensemble and Yolanda Rhodes (premiere performance)
Yolanda Rhodes, soprano
Susan C. Brown, violin
Victoria Ehrlich, cello
Josephine Gandolfi, piano
Intermission

V. Three Songs to Poems by Dunbar, Wallace, and Hughes
Charles Lloyd, Jr. - “Compensation” (Paul Lawrence Dunbar)
Florence Price - “Night” (Louise C. Wallace)
Margaret Bonds - “Minstrel Man” (Langston Hughes)
Yolanda Rhodes, soprano
LaDoris Cordell, Deanne Tucker, and Josephine Gandolfi, piano
VI. Instrumental Chamber Music by William Grant Still
Vignettes, for trio - based on folk songs of the Americas:
Winnebago Moccasin Game (Wisconsin)
Carmela (Mexico)
Inca Melody (Peru)
Clinch Mountain (Southern U.S.A.)
Héla Grandpère (Haiti) -
Gardé Piti Mulet Là orMister Banjo (Creole, Louisiana)
Suite for Violin and Piano (3rd movement)
Picasso Ensemble – Brown, Ehrlich, and Gandolfi

VII. Four Spirituals
Betty Jackson King - “Nobody Knows the Trouble I See”
Hale Smith - “I Want to Die Easy”
Jacqueline B. Hairston - “Guide My Feet”
Betty jackson King - “It's Me O Lord”
Yolanda Rhodes, soprano
Deanne Tucker, LaDoris Cordell, and Josephine Gandolfi, piano
Susan C. Brown, violin