Black Composer Showcase: Poets of the Harlem Renaissance
July 29, 2021
“Poets of the Harlem Renaissance” is the second video in the Bienen School's Black Composer Showcase series. Faculty contributors include Drew Davies, chair of the Department of Music Studies and associate professor of musicology, and Ivy Wilson, associate professor of English in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.
Program
(03:45) “Grief” (music by William Grant Still; text by Leroy V. Brant)
Nathaniel Bear, tenor; Alan Darling, piano
(09:03) “Girl” from Heart on the Wall (music by Robert Lee Owens; text by Langston Hughes)
Stephanie Chee, soprano; Alan Darling, piano
(13:40) “Death of an Old Seaman” (music by Cecil Cohen; text by Langston Hughes)
Aaron Short, tenor; Laurann Gilley, piano
(19:38) “A Death Song” (music by Howard Swanson; text by Paul Laurence Dunbar)
Joseph Hack, bass; Alan Darling, piano
(26:27) “The Glory of the Day Was in Her Face” (music by Florence Price; text by James Weldon Johnson)
Katherine Krebs, soprano; Laurann Gilley, piano
About the Black Composer Showcase Series
The Black Composer Showcase series features performances by Bienen School voice and instrumental students and collaborative pianists, as well as scholarly background information on the works and composers provided by faculty and student musicologists and guest presenters. The goals of this series are to broaden the repertoires performed and studied at the Bienen School, inspire collaboration among music studies and performance students, and educate the Bienen School and broader communities about composers of color and their important contributions to classical music.