portrait of this blog's author - by Stephen Blackman 2008

Sunday, September 01, 2019

RHIANNON GIDDENS

Boston Symphony Hall May 2019

More extraordinary music for a Sunday and this again from Big O and the peerless Rhiannon Giddens and her curatorial debut as black music historian with a symphony orchestra. Bear with me this is quite a thesis!I am not entirely sure why David Bowie features yet but the discovery of Florence Price is a revelation  . . . . 

If you listen to one thing today make it this . . . . . . 

Track 202. Florence Price - Piano Concerto in D minor suite 8:12




Big O says:

RHIANNON GIDDENS
with the Boston Pops Orchestra
Keith Lockhart conducting
Boston 2019 

Live at the Symphony Hall, Boston, MA; May 25, 2019 (WCRB HD-FM broadcast June 31, 2019). Very good FM broadcast.

Rhiannon Giddens of the string band The Carolina Chocolate Drops curates this dynamic concert to rediscover the great Black composers who have been hiding in plain sight in every genre of music. Explore Samuel Coleridge-Taylor whose choral music once rivaled Handel’s Messiah to Billy Strayhorn, the genius behind Duke Ellington who wrote “Take the A-Train” and “Day Dream,” and Eubie Blake, composer of the groundbreaking Broadway musical Shuffle Along. We’ll also remember the ladies with Florence Price, the first black woman to have her symphony performed by a major orchestra, and Hazel Scott, the jazz and piano prodigy who became a Hollywood, Broadway and television star. Rhiannon will be joined by collaborators vocalist Darius de Haas (Broadway’s Shuffle Along) and pianist Lara Downes, whose playing has been described as “luscious, moody and dreamy” by the New York Times. - BSO

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