The Juilliard School tonight will offer a celebration of Black music at the school, which will be performed live and be available online this spring.
Juilliard School faculty member, mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, is hosting a celebration of Black … [+]
The concert, called “Claiming Your Space: A Celebration of Black Music at Juilliard,” will commemorate the 90th anniversary of a student-initiated 1934 concert curated by H. T. Burleigh, composer and pioneering arranger of Negro spirituals for solo voice. This concert featured Black Juilliard singers and instrumentalists who celebrated the work of Black artists and composers.
Among performers at this concert were Juilliard students Anne Wiggins Brown and Ruby Elzy, who originated the roles of Bess and Serena in the 1935 world premiere of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess on Broadway.
Tonight’s concert will present works from the original 1934 program as well as a new arrangement by composer Damien Sneed of Burleigh’s “Sinner, Please Doan Let This Harvest Past,” plus two world premieres, commissioned for the occasion, by Juilliard student composers Danae Venson and Christopher Armstrong.
Hosting the event will be Juilliard visiting faculty member, mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves.
“Claiming Your Space” is curated by ethnomusicologist and music history faculty member Fredara Mareva Hadley, with assistance from Jeni Dahmus, Juilliard’s archivist, and Jane Gottlieb, Juilliard’s vice president for library and information resources. The program is using historic resources from the collection in Juilliard’s Lila Acheson Wallace Library and Archives to discover connections between artist and activist movements from the 1930s and today.
Juilliard is also hosting a special exhibit, “Claiming Your Space: Honoring the Artistry, History and Humanity of Black Juilliard Students,” that brings together archival photographs and programs featuring prominent Black artists and activists whose paths have crossed with Juilliard over the years, including Alvin Ailey, Marian Anderson, Lisa Banes, Robert Battle, Danielle Brooks, Keith David, Congressman John Lewis, and Leontyne Price.
According to Juilliard, the exhibition “highlights the intersection between artists and activism and includes ephemera from the music, dance and drama divisions from the 1930s through the present.”
Hadley said tonight’s concert would “put a bow” on the 90th anniversary of the 1934 concert, and also said it was important that tonight’s concert feature new works and arrangements by living Black composers.
Graves predicted tonight’s concert would be both educational and a “great celebration, lifting great artists to their rightful prominence.”
Tonight’s concert will be available on Juilliard’s streaming platform, Juilliard LIVE, on May 10.
The school is located on the campus of Manhattan’s Lincoln Center.
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