“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.