Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Martin Luther King Jr.

MLK, Willie Stargell, and “New Morning for the World”

Back when I was a kid, baseball held enough interest for me that I used to follow the standings. Now I don’t know if I can name a single active ballplayer. What happened to that boy who collected baseball cards? What happened to those baseball cards?

In those days, Willie Stargell would have been part of my world. Funny how 50 years ago, it seemed everyone was. There was no internet, and yet I recognized and maybe even knew a little bit about important figures from the fields of entertainment, sports, politics, science, and the arts, even if I wasn’t particularly interested in all of them. And I was 10! The more “connected” we are, the more clueless we become.

Here’s a photo of me, in happier professional times, in the studio, doing a live air shift and sharing an out-of-print LP of Stargell narrating Joseph Schwantner’s “New Morning for the World: Daybreak of Freedom” – alongside other noteworthy, neglected music, for MLK Day. The text is compiled from speeches and writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Stargell introduced the piece with the Eastman Philharmonia conducted by David Effron, on January 15, 1983 (King’s birthday), at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. This was followed by performances in Philadelphia, New York, Pittsburgh, and Rochester (home of the Eastman School of Music). Since then, the work has received hundreds of performances throughout the United States.

At the time of its premiere, Stargell was still first baseman and team captain of the Pittsburgh Pirates. You can read more about him here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Stargell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Stargell

Schwantner was honored with a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1979 for “Aftertones of Infinity.” Inexplicably, this performance of “New Morning for the World” has never appeared on compact disc. Since I won’t be able to share it with you on the radio today, here it is, posted on YouTube:

This year, my community service was helping some of my neighbors shovel out their cars and cleaning up a few empty parking spaces. Hey, someone shoveled my walk yesterday. Just paying it forward.

I wrote the following in 2021. I’m not sure I have the faith to stand behind it anymore:

“I know I made the observation before, but it bears repeating: that Stargell would have been subjected to such discrimination and harassment in the still-recent past demonstrates how short history is, and how pertinent was King’s life’s work.

“Tolerance, respect, kindness, and basic human decency never go out of fashion. Points can be made without violence, and just because someone disagrees with a certain perspective doesn’t automatically make him a moron, or Satan. That’s not to say there isn’t right and wrong, or that there isn’t evil in the world. Take a stand. Have the courage to speak. But also have the patience to listen. Then pause to consider.

“Mobs and movements tend to do something to people. They can attract attention, they can inspire, and they can even spur change. But they also have a dangerous tendency to create straw men and to dehumanize. In my experience, most people, when encountered one on one, are fundamentally decent and want to do right by one another, regardless of how they vote.

“There are plenty of ‘broken’ people, to be certain. But fear and ignorance (not to be confused with stupidity), along with a propensity to view oneself as better or more worthy than somebody else, are at the root of so many of the world’s problems.

“The most basic attitude adjustment can mean so much. And I offer this as a highly-flawed human being, who doesn’t always practice what he preaches. We can always do more, all of us. And we should always strive to be better.”

Ah… younger, idealistic Classic Ross Amico.

Time for a shower, and then off to the wildlife center.

“Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music… there is a stepping stone towards all of these.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

———–

PHOTO: One of the advantages of working on a federal holiday is being able to share Willie Stargell narrating “New Morning for the World.” Another is not bothering to shave.

January 19, 2026
Adolphus Hailstork & “Done Made My Vow”

I’ve been a fan of Adolphus Hailstork since the 1980s. That’s when I first heard “Done Made My Vow,” as part of a concert broadcast over the radio.

“Done Made My Vow” (1985), often described as a gospel oratorio, was inspired in part by speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. So uplifting was the marriage of words and music, I hoped for years that it would be recorded. Then one day I stumbled across a copy in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra gift shop.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” I hope you’ll join me for this extraordinary piece, scored for speaker, chorus and orchestra.

Hailstork has been part of the fabric of American music since at least the 1970s. Born in Rochester, New York, in 1941, he earned his BA from Howard University, his MA from the Manhattan School of Music – where his teachers included Vittorio Giannini and David Diamond – and his doctorate from Michigan State, where his studied with H. Owen Reed. Then he was off, like so many of his great American forebears, to study at Fontainebleau with Nadia Boulanger.

For many years, Hailstork was composer-in-residence at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where he taught. He is perhaps best known for his choral music, though it was the wistful slow movement of his Symphony No. 1, composed for a summer music festival in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, that next caught my ear.

His brief but boisterous curtain-raiser “Celebration!” was included in Paul Freeman’s legendary “Black Composers Series,” recorded for Columbia Records back in the 1970s. Freeman remained a champion of Hailstork’s work for the rest of his career. I particularly recommend his recording of “Sonata da Chiesa,” a multi-movement work for string orchestra, inspired by Hailstork’s impressions as a boy chorister singing at the Cathedral of All Saints in Albany.

As preamble to the oratorio, we’ll also enjoy Hailstork’s rhythmically exciting “Variations for Trumpet” (1981).

The music is hale, but the sentiments are King. I hope you’ll join me for “Done Made My Vow,” on “All Hail Hailstork,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.

AND, if you are as swept away by it as I was, you might be interested to know that the New York Philharmonic will be performing it on the same series of concerts with William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 2 “Song of a New Race,” March 2-4!

Hailstork’s “Sonata da Chiesa” (1992)

Symphony No. 1 (1988): Mov’t II, Lento ma non troppo

“Motherless Child” (2002)

“Celebration!” (1974)

February 19, 2023
MLK Ellington Music Meaning Faith

“Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music… there is a stepping stone towards all of these.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Duke Ellington’s eulogy to MLK, “Three Black Kings” (King of the Magi, King Solomon, and Martin Luther King Jr.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhr1ZQ7vPeY

“King Fit the Battle of Alabam’”

Ellington meets MLK in Chicago

January 17, 2022
MLK’s Message on WWFM

I hope you’ll join me for my annual broadcast of “New Morning for the World: Daybreak of Freedom,” by Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph Schwantner. The work incorporates texts by Martin Luther King, Jr. I’ll be airing the out-of-print LP, with Willie Stargell the narrator, among my featured works, between 4 and 7 pm. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

“Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music… there is a stepping stone towards all of these.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 20, 2020
MLK Day Music Inspired by King’s Words

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

So said Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On this MLK Day, we’ll hear at least two works inspired by King’s speeches.

“New Morning for the World: Daybreak of Freedom,” by the Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph Schwantner, has become something of a contemporary classic. My preferred performance of the piece is from an out-of-print LP, featuring narration by former Pittsburgh Pirate Willie Stargell. However, last year I played a digital recording, with Raymond Bazemore and the Oregon Symphony conducted by James DePreist. This year, I thought we’d give a try to Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., and the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin. You’ll be able to hear it in this afternoon in the 4:00 hour.

Then at 6:00, I’ll be sharing a recording of Adolphus Hailstork’s inspiring oratorio “Done Made My Vow,” which also incorporates texts from King’s speeches, with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Morgan State University Choir.

In between, we’ll mark the birthday anniversaries of Placido Domingo, Henri Duparc, Nikolai Golovanov, Antonio Janigro, and Alexander Tcherepnin.

The music is King, on this MLK Day, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

January 21, 2019

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