Coleridge-Taylor - Danse Nègre, from the African Suite, Op. 35
Daniel Taylor, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s father, was a surgeon from Sierra Leone who went to London in search of a better life. There he met Alice Martin, and both fell in love. Unfortunately, London would not be kind to Daniel Taylor, and he was forced to return to Sierra Leone, leaving an - unbeknownst to him - pregnant Alice behind. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor became a very famous composer, curious about the music of other countries - his cantata “Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast,” about the American Iroquois tribe, made him famous in the United States. In the African Suite, Coleridge-Taylor looks at his Sierra Leonean roots. The music has no African influence whatsoever, but it tries to capture the feeling of African life with the very European compositional style that he learned at the Royal College of Music. The last movement, Danse Nègre, soon appeared as an orchestral arrangement by the composer himself.
Scott - fourth little symphony
The third and fourth little symphonies are part of a continued series of short symphonic works for diverse chamber ensembles that began with my first work in the genre composed while I was a student at the Mannes College of Music in 1980. Both the third and fourth little symphonies are composed for a wind ensemble comprised of ten musicians comprising two flutes, oboe, English Horn, clarinet, bass clarinet, two bassoons and two French Horns. While the third work in this series is closer in length and structure to a full-fledged symphony, the fourth follows the same pattern as the second that I composed in 2021 for the Lowell Chamber Orchestra when Orlando Cela commissioned me to write a companion piece to one of Darius Milhaud's six Petite Symphonies du Chambre. Like the Milhaud works, the fourth little symphony is in three movements, but unlike my other symphonies in this series the movement order is slow-fast-slow and is built upon three of my previous compositions that were written either for voice and piano or a cappella chorus. The first and third movements are expanded versions of two of Four Songs on Haiku of Matsuo Bashō from 2014, while the central movement is an amplified version of my motet Scapulis Suis from 2021, originally composed for women's choir. Both wind decets are dedicated to Maestro Cela and the Lowell Chamber Orchestra.
Born in the Bronx and raised in Manhattan’s Harlem section, the music of Kevin Scott has been performed by numerous American orchestras, and was the recipient of the 1992 Detroit Symphony/Unisys African American Composers’ Forum award. Scott’s interest in composition was kindled while he was attending Christopher Columbus High School, educating himself in composition that ensued in readings of his first compositions by the school’s orchestra and band.
Upon graduation in 1974, Scott began formal lessons in composition with John Corigliano and Ulysses Kay at Herbert H. Lehman College in the Bronx, and continued his studies at the Mannes College of Music with Christine Berl and David Tcimpidis, in addition to conducting with Yakov Kreizberg. In 1984, Scott’s Fanfare G.A.F.: An American Overture was premiered by the Queens Philharmonic, which led to a series of commissions from the Brooklyn Philharmonic and Queens Symphony through the New York State Council on the Arts. In 1989, Scott was appointed resident composer for the RAPP Arts Center in Manhattan, writing scores for various theatrical productions including Thomas A. Ditsch’s Ben-Hur and new adaptations of Chekov’s The Sea Gulland Uncle Vanya (click here to continue reading).
Dvořák - Serenade for Winds, Op. 44
The Serenade for Winds has become one of Dvořák's most popular works thanks to his mastery of wind instrument writing. It is a charming and elegant work that has become a staple of the wind chamber music repertoire. The work is full of youthful invention, illustrates the breadth of Dvořák’s compositional style and captures his genuine playfulness and excitement. As Brahms said of the piece in 1879, “It would be difficult to discover a finer, more refreshing impression of really abundant and charming creative talent.”
