Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Black Composers

Clipper Erickson Revives R Nathaniel Dett’s Music

Clipper Erickson, piano, doesn’t like to sit still. As a performer and as a recording artist, he is seemingly everywhere at once.

In the past month or so, he has performed at least two solo recitals, on top of George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F, with the Warminster Symphony Orchestra, and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 – twice – with the Knox-Galesburg Symphony in Illinois and locally with the Capital Philharmonic of New Jersey. He’s also anticipating his latest CD release, “Tableau, Tempest and Tango,” due out on Navona Records, PARMA Recordings, on July 13.

The indefatigable pianist, who is on the faculty of Westminster Conservatory of Music in Princeton and Boyer College of Music and Dance – Temple University, is gearing up to present his latest program in a crusade to resurrect the half-forgotten music of R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943).

Erickson will be joined by soprano Deborah Ford, baritone Gregory Hopkins, and Mostly Motets, for a mixed program of Dett’s music at St Michael’s Church, Trenton NJ, on June 10 at 3 p.m.

Dett was born in what is now Niagara Falls, Ontario. The grandson of Underground Railroad refugees, he became an important figure in American music of his time. Yet he is remembered today, if at all, for a lone piano suite, “In the Bottoms,” or perhaps only for its two-minute concluding dance, “Juba,” which was championed by Percy Grainger, among others.

Erickson was the first to record Dett’s complete piano works. His performances have been issued on an album titled “My Cup Runneth Over,” also on Navona, for which he provides his own liner notes. The two-CD set was made possible, in part, through the financial backing of St. Michael’s, where Erickson serves as organist.

You can read more about Dett’s debt to Erickson, the Revolutionary history of the church, and more, in my article in this week’s U.S. 1 Newspaper – PrincetonInfo, out today. Here’s the online version:

http://www.princetoninfo.com/index.php/component/us1more/?Itemid=6&key=6-6-18erickson

Erickson plays “Juba:”

June 6, 2018
Black Composers on WPRB

Florence Price’s “Mississippi Suite.” Joseph White’s Violin Concerto in F-sharp minor. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Symphonic Variations on an African Air.” David Baker’s “Three Ethnic Dances” for clarinet and orchestra. Adolphus Hailstork’s “Done Made My Vow.” George Walker’s “Piano Concerto.” Duke Ellington’s “Black, Brown and Beige.”

These are some of the pieces we’ll be listening to this morning, as we explore the diversity of music of the black experience, from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’ll be serving your coffee black, on Classic Ross Amico.

February 23, 2017
MLK Day Hear Inspiring Black Composers on WWFM

Martin Luther King Day.

Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph Schwantner’s “New Morning for the World (Daybreak of Freedom),” on a text drawn from King’s speeches, still not available on CD? In this fine recording? Why?

Hear it today, on glorious vinyl, alongside music rendered by pioneering African-American composers and performers, including Marian Anderson, Harry T. Burleigh, Natalie Hinderas, Florence Price, William Grant Still and George Walker, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

January 16, 2017
Black Composers on WPRB Radio

William Levi Dawson’s “Negro Folk Symphony.” Joseph White’s Violin Concerto in F-sharp Minor. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.” Olly Wilson’s “Piano Piece for Piano and Electronic Sound.” Joseph Bologne, le Chevalier de Saint-George’s Symphony in G Major, Op. 11, No. 1. Adolphus Hailstork’s exuberant psalm-setting for soloist, chorus and orchestra, “I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes.” Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3. Duke Ellington’s “A Tone Parallel to Harlem.”

These are some of the pieces we’ll be listening to this morning, as we explore the diversity of music of the black experience, from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM or at wprb.com. We’ll be serving your coffee black, on Classic Ross Amico.

February 19, 2016
MLK Day: Celebrating Black Composers on WPRB

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.”

So said Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On this, the eve of King’s birthday anniversary, we present a full morning of music by composers of African descent, much of it underrepresented at any time of the year. You’ll hear fine and shamefully neglected works by David Baker, Marion Bauer, Henry T. Burleigh, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Roque Cordero, William Levi Dawson, Duke Ellington, Adolphus Hailstork, Ulysses Kay, Tania León, the Chevalier J.J.O. de Meude-Monpas, Florence Price, William Grant Still, and George Walker, or as many of these as we can get to.

Clipper Erickson, piano of Westminster Conservatory of Music will drop by at around 10:00 to talk a bit about R. Nathaniel Dett, the grandson of fugitive slaves, who went on to become an important voice in American music. Erickson’s album of Dett’s complete piano works, “My Cup Runneth Over,” has recently been issued on the Navona Records label.

We’ll be there before sunrise to honor MLK’s vision of a daybreak of freedom and justice and equality, from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We rise up with greater readiness, on Classic Ross Amico.

January 14, 2016

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