THE BASICS: Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra Assistant Conductor Jaman E. Dunn returned to Rockwell Hall on the Buffalo State College campus on Friday February 25 to conduct an impressive array of talent in the program SPOTLIGHT ON BLACK COMPOSERS.
The concert experience repeats this Sunday, February 27, at 2:30 pm again at the Rockwell Hall Performing Arts Center. For tickets call 716-878-3005 or visit www.buffalostatepac.org or purchase at the door. There’s plenty of free parking. My advice is to enter the campus using Iroquois Drive at the traffic light on Elmwood. If the lot immediately behind Rockwell is full, continue a few hundred feet for large lots on both the right and left.
THE SHOW: While the presenting organization is indeed Buffalo Opera Unlimited, SPOTLIGHT ON BLACK COMPOSERS is not an opera. Instead, it is a mixed program of voice and instrumental solos, string orchestra, full orchestra, ballet dancers and chorus. It stars soprano Sirgourney Cook and baritone Jaman E. Dunn along with piano, orchestra, and soloists Madeline Olson (harp), Anna Mattix (English Horn), and Inga Yanoski (violin), and pianist Eric Huebner performing works by African American composers William Grant Still, Margaret Bonds, Ulysses Kay, and Adolphus Hailstork. On stage as well was the Mahatammoho Collective, a nine-person dance troupe choreographed by Naila Ansari, who were joined by a thirteen-voice chorus.
As you enter the theater, you’ll see projected an original drawing by David Lightsey of the featured composer William Grant Still and throughout the concert there are video projections by Brian Milbrand.
Previous to this concert, which, again, repeats this Sunday, February 27 at 2:30 at Rockwell, I had interviewed Maestro Dunn, and you can find out more about the program on this YouTube video.
Having heard Jaman E. Dunn conduct the opera CARMEN in December I wrote in my review “From the opening notes of the familiar overture, it was clear that there was a new sheriff in town. Dunn got an impressively consistent, high quality sound from the chamber sized orchestra … Intonation, phrasing, dynamics, it was all there for the entire opera. This was one of the best rehearsed BOU orchestras I’ve heard…”
That was a small orchestra in December. This February Maestro Dunn has a standard sized orchestra, and the bigger sound was even better. After the show, I asked several musicians who regularly perform for the BOU: “What’s his secret sauce? How does he get such great music out of the orchestras?” and they told me that he’s very clear in his instructions, very passionate, and has unique and clever ways of telling the musicians what he’s after. Well, whatever it is, it works.
The program opened with the big voice of Chicago based soprano Sirgourney Cook singing “Golden Days” by William Grant Still beautifully accompanied by, in my opinion, the best active classical pianist in Buffalo, Eric Huebner. (Regularly seen on stage with the BPO at Kleinhans, he’s also the pianist for the world-famous New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and we’re lucky to have him in town.)
When I last heard Sirgourney Cook sing it was at Kleinhans in December and I wrote “She sang for President Barack Obama’s 50th Birthday Party, she sang at the Grammy’s Tribute to Aretha Franklin, and her singing is as close to the late, great Jessye Norman as you’re likely to get.”
Nothing has changed in two months. She set the standard for the rest of the evening. By the way, “Golden Days” is, actually, from an opera COSTASO by Still, so, yes there is a bit of opera. She also sang another song by Still “Grief (Weeping Angel)” with piano, a mysterious piece of American Impressionism.
In between those two songs, Jaman E. Dunn stepped out as baritone soloist, also accompanied by Huebner, for music by Margaret Bonds titled “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” from a poem by her friend and leader of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes. Bonds is also associated with fellow composer Florence Price. In 1931 when Price’s Symphony won first prize and was performed by the Chicago Symphony, in the same contest Margaret Bonds won first prize in the song category. Marian Anderson was a good friend and always included one of Bonds’ songs in her recitals.
Other works on the program by William Grant Still included “Mother and Child” performed by violinist Inag Yanoski with Eric Huebner (a work I’d heard last year in an arrangement for chamber orchestra as performed by the BPO during their pandemic streamed concerts). At that time I wrote “It is … as you’d expect from the title, a bit of a lullaby, but as you’d expect from William Grant Still who straddled two worlds – classical and popular – it’s a little jazzy with a nice syncopation. It was inspired by a painting by African American artist Sargent Johnson, a 1932 work titled ‘Mother and Child’ and you can see it on the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s website here.”
Also previously heard on those pandemic streamed concerts from the BPO at Kleinhans, the haunting “Pietà” by Ulysses S. Kay featuring another Buffalo treasure, Principal English Horn player for the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra– Anna Mattix.
By the way, the newest BPO CD titled “Light in a Time of Darkness” on their own “Beau Fleuve” label features six works chosen for their emotional depth and spirituality. They were digitally recorded, and then streamed during the pandemic lockdown, from late fall 2020 through Spring 2021, including Ulysses Kay’s Pietà again featuring English hornist Anna Mattix. The CD is available here.
Anna Mattix is quite in demand, having just performed Thursday with the Buffalo Chamber Players, she’ll be performing on the Friends of Vienna concert next month, Sunday March 13, at 3:30 at the Kenmore Methodist Church on Landers Road.
“But wait, there’s more!” At the request of Jaman E. Dunn, the BPO Principal Harpist Madeline Olson played yet another work by Still titled “Ennanga” for harp and string orchestra.
Apart from the programs they play, Buffalo is blessed to have the Buffalo Philharmonic in this city because that organization provides a home base or “day job” if you will, for some extremely talented and highly accomplished people who perform at a very high level. Dunn, Huebner, Mattix, Olson are not to be missed.
The first half of the concert concluded with a ballet by Still titled “Sahdji” about African royalty, life, love, lust, and death. Stunningly choreographed by yet another Buffalo treasure, Buff State’s Naila Ansari (who also danced) it is not your leotards and tutus ballet. It’s raw and realistic and yet graceful and balletic at the same time. Neat trick.
After intermission, there was one more work by William Grant Still, his beautiful “Poem for Orchestra” and then we heard the Symphony No. 2 by contemporary composer Adolphus Hailstork, born in Rochester in 1941. Mr. Hailstork’s Piano Concerto was just last week performed at Kleinhans Music Hall (review here) where Mr. Hailstork was in attendance and came up on stage to thunderous applause. I don’t believe that the composer was at Rockwell on Friday, but I hope that he can come up from his home in Virginia Beach to hear this concert on Sunday. I think he would be quite pleased.
It’s a big, bold symphony with four distinct sections, and makes full use of all the colors of the orchestra, especially the brass and woodwinds.
Unfortunately, due to some combination of schools being on winter break, the lingering pandemic, the snow and the recent very cold weather, attendance was down. Hopefully more people can come on Sunday. So, in conclusion, if you’re a person who says “I don’t like opera” this is NOT an opera, it’s a showcase of several famous African-American composers, performed at a very high level of expertise, and I highly recommend this concert, which repeats this Sunday, February 27, at 2:30, at Rockwell Hall on the Buffalo State campus.