Black History Month Concert

BUTLER UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MUSIC presents BLACK HISTORY MONTH CONCERT Butler University Choirs Butler University Jazz Ensemble Butler Symphony Orchestra Butler Ballet Voices of Deliverance Livestream Thursday, February 25, 2021 7:30 P.M. The forty-sixth program of the Butler University School of Music 2020-21 season Jordan College of the Arts | Butler University | 4600 Sunset Ave | Indianapolis, IN | 46208 PROGRAM Lift Every Voice and Sing James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) J. Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954) Combined Butler University Choirs Dr. Robert Townsend, guest conductor Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring Ring with the harmonies of Liberty. Let our rejoicing rise High as the listening skies Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us. Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us. Facing the rising sun of our new day begun Let us march on till victory is won. Stony the road we trod, Bitter the chastening rod Felt in the days when hope unborn had died. Yet with a steady beat Have not our weary feet Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? We have come over a way that with tears has been watered. We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered. Out from the gloomy past, Till now we stand at last Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast. God of our weary years, God of our silent tears Thou who has brought us thus far on the way. Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light Keep us forever in the path, we pray. Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee. Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee. Shadowed beneath Thy hand May we forever stand True to our God True to our native land. Harlem Air Shaft Duke Ellington (1899-1974) Butler University Jazz Ensemble Matt Pivec, director Sean Imboden, clarinet In celebration of Black History Month, the Butler University Jazz Ensemble is honored to pay tribute to three iconic American musicians: Duke Ellington, Benny Carter, and Count Basie. In the words of Duke Ellington from a 1944 interview in the The New Yorker, So much goes on in a Harlem air shaft. You get the full essence of Harlem in an air shaft. You hear fights, you smell dinner, you hear people making love. You hear intimate gossip floating down. You hear the radio. Jordan College of the Arts | Butler University | 4600 Sunset Ave | Indianapolis, IN | 46208 An air shaft is one great big loudspeaker. You see your neighbor’s laundry. You hear the janitor’s dogs. The man upstairs’ aerial falls down and breaks your window. You smell coffee. A wonderful thing is that smell. An air shaft has got every contrast. One guy is cooking dried fish with rice and another guy’s got a great big turkey. Guy-with-fish’s wife is a terrific cooker but the guy’s wife with the turkey is doing a sad job. You hear people praying, fighting, snoring. Jitterbugs are jumping up and down always over you, never below you. That’s a funny thing about jitterbugs. They’re always over you. I tried to put all that in “Harlem Air Shaft.” Phantom Chapel William Grant Still (1895-1978) Butler Symphony Orchestra Richard Auldon Clark, conductor Phantom Chapel (1944) began as a solo work, the first movement in a two-part work entitled “Bells.” This performance is Still’s own reworking of the piece for string orchestra and piano. A beautiful and haunting tone poem, this remains one of Still’s most picturesque and atmospheric works. Won’t You Celebrate with Me Lucille Clifton (1936-2010) A Reading by Lucille Clifton Ella’s Song Bernice Johnson Reagon (b. 11942) Butler University Choir John Perkins, conductor Kim Kenny, Kelly Kirk, Jana Dinkaloo, soloists Dedicated to Civil Rights pioneer Ella Baker, this song by Sweet Honey in the Rock founder Bernice Johnson Reagon is a powerful song of courage and struggle. The song gives the next generation a chance to understand “what it takes” to struggle for Black freedom. Raisin in the Milk - A Double Consciousness Written and Directed by Ramón Flowers Butler Ballet Please note: This production includes the usage of some adult language and graphic images. Raisin in the Milk - A Double Consciousness investigates the nature of racism in the United States, and how it plays out in American Ballet. Brenda Dixon-Gottschild’s scholarship documenting the Africanist presence in certain forms of mainstream ballet serves as a point of departure for this project. I have unpacked racial stereotyping and appropriation as some of the causes of what W.E.B. DuBois has called “double consciousness,” and their impact on the “Black Dancing Body.” My research examines the struggle for black dancers of unifying different components of their composite identity, and how this process plays out phenomenologically. In my process, I sought a better understanding of the mechanics and cultural politics of “appropriation” and its implications for understanding how racism works and is disseminated on artistic and aesthetic grounds. My research is an embodiment of the African diaspora which had an influence on the founding father of American Ballet, George Balanchine. I have investigated movements and music that helped me mark the temporal, and evolutional aspect of my project. Using juxtaposed movements from the classical ballet vocabulary and traditional Africanist style movements to expose the similarities or appropriated components of American Ballet, I further explored Joanne Kealiinohomoku's scholarship about how Ballet is a form of “ethnic dance,” as an embodied work of research. Jordan College of the Arts | Butler University | 4600 Sunset Ave | Indianapolis, IN | 46208 Strong God Kirk Franklin (b. 1970) Voices of Deliverance Butler University Choir Kim Kenny, guest conductor Devin Archie and Heather Curtis, soloists This work by famed gospel artist Kirk Franklin situates the work of equity as an impossible dream, fulfilled through humans, but, perhaps only through the spiritual intervention of a Strong God. Voices of Deliverance and the Butler University Choir produced this song under the direction of Kim Kenny. Our talented, first-year student, Devin Archie, prepared the solo. This recording was first aired at the Center for Faith and Vocation’s film series last week. The evening centered “How Sweet the Sound,” a film about gospel music in L.A. during the 1960s-70s. I Got it Bad (and That Ain’t Good) Duke Ellington (1899-1974) Butler University Jazz Ensemble Matt Pivec, director Annie Brown, vocals Sabin Martinez, alto saxophone Originally written to feature vocalist Ivie Anderson and alto saxophonist Otto Hartwick, the quintessential swing ballad “I Got it Bad” provides lush harmonies from the saxophone section as our own Annie Brown and Sabin Martinez deliver the solo statements. The Negro Speaks of Rivers Langston Hughes (1902-1967) Reading by Auboni Hart (Butler alumna, class of 2020) Mother and Child William Grant Still (1895-1978) Butler Symphony Orchestra Richard Auldon Clark, conductor Mother and Child (1943) was inspired by the African-American artist Sargent Johnson’s touching painting of the same name. Originally this was the second movement of a three-movement suite for violin and piano. Still later adapted this piece for string orchestra. This work represents Still’s lush and lyrical string writing at its best. No Color Stacey Gibbs (b. 1962) Shawn Kirchner (b. 1970) Butler University Chorale Eric Stark, conductor Jordan College of the Arts | Butler University | 4600 Sunset Ave | Indianapolis, IN | 46208 The first-ever collaboration of composers Stacey Gibbs and Shawn Kirchner, “No Color” seeks to find common ground between the two races represented by the compositional team. “No Color” offers us the chance to reflect that united we are stronger than divided, and no color should come between us. Meetin’ Time Benny Carter (1907-2003) Butler University Jazz Ensemble Matt Pivec, director Mitchell Remington, trumpet Xavier Robertson, tenor saxophone From the pen of Benny Carter and the band of Count Basie, the gospel influenced “Meetin’ Time” is one of ten movements from the Kansas City Suite, which depicts scenes, venues and sounds from this midwestern American cultural center. We Sing As One B.E. Boykin Butler University Spectra Becky Marsh, director Geoffery Stemen, piano One woman, one voice, one hymn one voice! Daughters of the Earth, we sing as one. Bestowing in us a melodic spirit, undaunted by the fight we press on. Measures of music enriched with God’s light. Eternally endowing our hearts with a rich diaspora of lyrical inheritance. A legacy with love and fortitude, A praise song in tune with a who sing, We sing as one. We sing in harmony, we sing in unity, we sing in love as One woman, one voice, one hymn, we sing as one! We selected Brittney Boykin’s piece, “We Sing as One,” as our contribution to this year’s Black History Month concert to honor and celebrate Black Americans in three intentional ways. First, we celebrate the brilliance and musical work of Ms. Boykin, a composer, pianist, conductor, and music educator who identifies as a Black female. Next, her piece was commissioned to celebrate the 133rd anniversary of the founding of Spelman College, “a historically Black college and a global leader in the education of women of African descent, dedicated to academic excellence in the liberal arts and sciences and the intellectual, creative, ethical, and leadership development of its students” (2021). Finally, in discussing our positionality as musicians singing this piece, Spectra musicians recognized that we must take care to honor the intent of this piece, which led us to the discussion of “allyship.” We recognize that we are not the Spelman College Glee Club, who premiered this work, and that Butler is a predominantly white institution.

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