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Dear Friends & Gentle Hearts

African American Art Song Essentials

Louise Toppin, soprano
Darryl Taylor, countertenor
Alastair Edmonstone, piano

Catalog #: TROY1990
Release Date: February 7, 2025
Format: Digital
Chamber

DEAR FRIENDS & GENTLE HEARTS from Albany Records celebrates the decades-long friendship and shared mission of Louise Toppin and Darryl Taylor in promoting classical vocal music by Black composers. United by a common goal since their formative years at the University of Michigan and Aspen Music School, they have long championed underrepresented works through Toppin’s Videmus and Taylor’s African American Art Song Alliance. 

This album, their first duet recording, features compositions by Black composers across generations, reflecting on cultural and societal issues. Many pieces were commissioned for or dedicated to the artists, highlighting their deep connections with the composers.

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Track Listing

# Title Composer Performer
DISC 1
01 Song of the Seasons: Spring Valerie Capers Louise Toppin, soprano; Alastair Edmonstone, piano; Sarah Koo, cello 2:03
02 Song of the Seasons: Summer Valerie Capers Louise Toppin, soprano; Alastair Edmonstone, piano; Sarah Koo, cello 3:29
03 Song of the Seasons: Autumn Valerie Capers Louise Toppin, soprano; Alastair Edmonstone, piano; Sarah Koo, cello 2:15
04 Song of the Seasons: Winter Valerie Capers Louise Toppin, soprano; Alastair Edmonstone, piano; Sarah Koo, cello 2:37
05 Balm in Gilead Hale Smith Louise Toppin, soprano; Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 4:28
06 In Vain Dave Ragland Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 2:15
07 I'll Never Turn Back Dave Ragland Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Albert Wu, viola 3:46
08 I Believe Dave Ragland Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 3:25
09 It's Me O Lord/ Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray Shawn Okpebholo Louise Toppin, soprano; Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 6:05
10 Encore Songs: Tobacco Florence Price Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 0:42
11 Encore Songs: A Flea and a Fly Florence Price Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 0:24
12 Encore Songs: "Come, come", said Tom's Father Florence Price Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 0:33
13 Encore Songs: Song of the Open Road Florence Price Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 0:35
14 Three Bah'ai Prayers: O God refresh and gladden my spirit Undine Smith Moore Louise Toppin, soprano; Sara Andan, flute; Ryan Stranksy, trumpet; Sarah Koo, cello; Marissa Benedict, trumpet; Noah Breneman, oboe 3:01
15 Three Bah'ai Prayers: He is the compassionate Undine Smith Moore Louise Toppin, soprano; Sara Andan, flute; Ryan Stranksy, trumpet; Sarah Koo, cello; Marissa Benedict, trumpet; Noah Breneman, oboe 5:38
16 Three Bah'ai Prayers: For the sweet and scented dreams Undine Smith Moore Louise Toppin, soprano; Sara Andan, flute; Ryan Stranksy, trumpet; Sarah Koo, cello; Marissa Benedict, trumpet; Noah Breneman, oboe 8:16
17 Dream Song H. Leslie Adams Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano; John Walz, cello 4:22
18 I believe I'll go back home Charles Lloyd Louise Toppin, soprano; Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano; 3:59
19 Jersey Hours: 1. Over the lightning Palisades Ulysses Kay Louise Toppin, soprano; Ellie Choate, harp 4:42
20 Jersey Hours: 2. The nakedness of rain Ulysses Kay Louise Toppin, soprano; Ellie Choate, harp 4:27
21 Jersey Hours: 3. The city gleams serene Ulysses Kay Louise Toppin, soprano; Ellie Choate, harp 5:15
DISC TWO
01 Yet Do I Marvel Adolphus Hailstork Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 5:30
02 Two Songs: Enogod Fredrick Tillis Louise Toppin, soprano; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 2:04
03 Two Songs: Me Fredrick Tillis Louise Toppin, soprano; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 5:17
04 Four Motivations: The cottager to her infant Robert Owens Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano; Sarah Beth Overcash, violin; Albert Wu, viola 4:10
05 Rimbaud Cabaret, Op. 101: Le Dormeur du Val Robert Owens Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano; 4:16
06 Rimbaud Cabaret, Op. 101: Au Cabaret-Vert Robert Owens Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 4:05
07 Rimbaud Cabaret, Op. 101: Rages de Césars Robert Owens Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 4:17
08 Rimbaud Cabaret, Op. 101: Rêve pour l'hiver Robert Owens Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 3:25
09 Come unto me Reginald Rison Louise Toppin, soprano; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 2:47
10 I am that I am Reginald Rison Louise Toppin, soprano; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 3:44
11 He restoreth my soul Reginald Rison Louise Toppin, soprano; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 3:31
12 Three Daily Songs: 1. Morning Revelation Reginald Rison Louise Toppin, soprano; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 2:46
13 Three Daily Songs: 2. Greet the Day Reginald Rison Louise Toppin, soprano; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 2:23
14 Three Daily Songs: 3. Night Comes Reginald Rison Louise Toppin, soprano; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 2:52
15 Quilting: I. Introduction; Ghosts Andre Myers Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano; Victoria Lee, oboe; Kathryn Nevin, clarinet; John Walz, cello 3:08
16 Quilting: II. For a Poet Andre Myers Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano; Jonathan Davis, oboe; Kathryn Nevin, clarinet; John Walz, cello 2:13
17 Quilting: III. Youth Sings a Song of Rosebuds Andre Myers Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano; Victoria Lee, oboe; Kathryn Nevin, clarinet; John Walz, cello 1:53
18 Quilting: IV. Litany of the Dark People Andre Myers Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano; Victoria Lee, oboe; Kathryn Nevin, clarinet; John Walz, cello 3:42
19 Quilting: V. From the Dark Tower Andre Myers Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Victoria Lee, oboe; Kathryn Nevin, clarinet; John Walz, cello 2:16
20 Quilting: VI.Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts Andre Myers Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Victoria Lee, oboe; Kathryn Nevin, clarinet; John Walz, cello 3:11
21 Ride on Jesus Jacqueline Hairston Louise Toppin, soprano; Darryl Taylor, countertenor; Alastair Edmonstone, piano 2:39

Recorded 2018, 2022 & 2023 at Winifred Smith Hall, University of California Irvine in Irvine CA

Recording Engineer Benjamin Maas
Editing, Mixing & Mastering Benjamin Maas
Assistant Editor Nick Norton
Graphic Design Melissa McCann

Special thanks to: UCI Claire Trevor School of the Arts for the use of Winifred Smith Hall

Funding provided by:
University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, & Dance
Videmus, Inc
Flora Foundation
UCI Claire Trevor School of the Arts

With special thanks to Dr. Willis C. Patterson, mentor and inspiration

Executive Producer Bob Lord
Artistic Directors, Albany Records Peter Kermani, Susan Bush

VP of A&R Brandon MacNeil
A&R Chris Robinson

VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Chelsea Olaniran
Digital Marketing Manager Brett Iannucci

Artist Information

Louise Toppin

Soprano

Louise Toppin has received critical acclaim for her operatic, orchestral, oratorio, and recital performances world-wide. Represented by Joanne Rile Artist Management, she toured in “Gershwin on Broadway” with pianist Leon Bates and tenor Bill Brown. She has recorded more than 18 CDs of primarily American music including Songs of Illumination, (Centaur Records), and on Albany Records Ah love, but a day, He’ll Bring it to Pass, and La Saison des fleurs. She has published 12 collections of music by African American composers with Classical Vocal Reprints including An Anthology of African and African Diaspora Songs, and Rediscovering Margaret Bonds.  Recent performances include the world premiere of Julia Perry’s Frammenti dalla lettere with the Akron Symphony Orchestra, and performance with Julia Bullock and the New World Symphony. She co-curated and sang a festival of Black Music in Hamburg, Germany with Thomas Hampson, Larry Brownlee, Leah Hawkins, and Justin Austin, sang a recital on Harry Burleigh for Oxford Lieder Festival (England), performance at the U.S. Capitol for Congress and President Obama, a performance with Camerata Romeu (Cuba) and concert for the opening of the Smith sonian’s African American Heritage Museum.

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Darryl Taylor

Countertenor

Darryl Taylor is a trailblazing countertenor renowned for his captivating performances and exceptional vocal talent. His performances effortlessly traverse genres, from Baroque to contemporary, showcasing his versatility and depth as an artist.  Taylor has appeared with recitalists and with orchestras in the United States, Europe, Cuba, and China. These include Or feo Català, Musica Angelica Orchestra, Santa Monica Chamber Orchestra, Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Bernardino Symphony, Bakersfield Symphony, Lyra Baroque Orchestra, Bach Collegium San Diego, the Johann Strauss Sinfonietta of Vienna, the W.A. Mozart Philharmonic of Cluj, Romania, Camerata Mediterania of Barcelona, and the Aspen Music Festival (Young Artists Series), under the batons of conductors Andreas Mitisek, Anthony Parnther, Martin Hasselböck, Jory Vinikour, Phil Nuzzo, Conxita Garcia, Cristian Florea, Gert Meditz, Gustav Meier, Richard Rosenberg, James Vail, Rebecca Burkhardt, and Bruce Nehring.

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Richard McKay

Alastair Edmonstone

piano

An advocate of modern music, Alastair Edmonstone has collaborated with leading composers such as Jonathan Harvey, Lee Hyla, Huck Hodge, and Gunther Schuller. Notable performances include the Seattle premier of Luciano Berio’s Sonata per pianoforte solo, the Boston premier of Gunther Schuller’s Grand Concerto for Percussion and Keyboards, which he recorded for Naxos records, and over a dozen performances of Olivier Messiaen’s legendary piano cycle Vingt regards sur l’enfant-Jésus throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. 

As chamber musician, Edmonstone has performed with members of the Baltimore and Boston Symphony Orchestras, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Orpheus Orchestra, and Canadian Brass. 

A native of Perth, Scotland, he is a graduate of the University of Washington (D.M.A.), New England Conservatory (M.M., G.D.) and Birmingham Conservatoire (B.mus.). He is currently Keyboard Collaborative Artist and Music Director of Opera Theater at California State University, San Bernardino. 

Sara Andon

flute

Sara Andon is an international soloist and recording artist known for her ravishing tone and deeply engaging musical interpretations. She has performed all over the world with orchestras such as the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfonico de Tenerife, Los Angeles Philharmonic, LA Opera, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, as well as orchestras for hit Broadway shows Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” “Les Misérables,” “Wicked,” and “Phantom of the Opera.” 

Andon is also Principal/Solo Flutist of the Redlands Symphony, Los Angeles Ballet Company, Bright work Newmusic Ensemble and records weekly with the Hollywood Studio Orchestras for countless major motion pictures, TV, documentaries and video game scores. Her two most recent solo recordings are Cinema Morricone – An Intimate Celebration for flute and piano, honoring legendary composer Ennio Morricone released on Sony Classical, as well as John Williams Reimagined, celebrating his legendary music reimagined for flute, cello, and piano released on the Warner Classics Label, with the blessing of Maestro John Williams himself. Andon is a graduate of USC and the Yale School of Music and is the Artist Teacher of Flute at the University of Redlands Conservatory of Music, Idyllwild Arts Academy and gives master classes throughout the world.

Marissa Benedict

trumpet

Born in San Francisco CA and raised in Marin County where she started playing piano at age 7, violin at age 9, and trumpet at age 10 (studying with Joe Alessi, Sr). She continued playing all three instruments until graduating from High School and moving to Los Angeles to attend USC, where she earned a Bachelor of Music Degree in Trumpet Performance (June 1984), studying with Boyde Hood. Benedict is very proud to have opened a new chapter in her career as Assistant Professor of Trumpet at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and is a resident of Lake Elmo MN. Before leaving for Minnesota, she was a freelance trumpet player in Los Angeles for 34 years. She currently is still principal trumpet for The Pasadena Symphony/Pasadena Pops, 2nd trumpet for Long Beach Symphony/Pops, principal trumpet for Orchestra Santa Monica. She plays regularly with, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and other Los Angeles area orchestras. She is one of the founding members of The Modern Brass Quintet who perform throughout the Los Angeles area.

Along with performing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Benedict played in their “Boston to London” 2018 tour, 2019 Asia Tour, the 2019 OSCARS®, and 2019 tour to Scotland. A very active and in demand studio player, she can be heard on nearly 160 motion picture recordings, including Spider-Man No Way Home (Release date 12/2021), Lightyear (Release date 2022), Incredibles II, Spider-Man Far from Home, Coco, Moana, Rogue One, Spider-Man Homecoming, Indiana Jones IV, Avatar, The Polar Express, Spider-Man 2, Monsters, Inc., and War of the Worlds. Her television studio recording credits include Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Voyager, JAG, Commander in Chief, Galavant, and Deep Space Nine. Along with her busy playing career, Benedict held positions at Cal State San Bernardino, Glendale Community College, The Colburn School of Performing Arts, and had a private studio of over 22 students. Benedict is a Yamaha Performing Artist.

Noah Breneman

oboe

Noah Breneman is a freelance oboist based in Los Angeles. He is currently Principal Oboe of the Reno Chamber Orchestra. Originally from Reading PA, Breneman attended The Pennsylvania State University, graduating magna cum laude with a Bachelors degree in Oboe Performance. While at Penn State, Noah won the Symphonic Wind Ensemble’s Concerto Competition in 2014, performing Eric Ewazen’s Hold Fast Your Dreams. In 2018, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a Masters degree at the University of Southern California, which he completed in Spring 2020 amidst the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic. While at USC, Breneman performed with The Santa Ana Winds, a woodwind quintet, which competed in the 2019 Plowman Chamber Music Competition. He was previously Principal Oboe of the American Youth Symphony. Recent engagements include The Britt Festival Orchestra (English Horn/Oboe III), The Reno Philharmonic, and Chamber Orchestra of the South Bay. His teachers include Jill Haley, Tim Hurtz, Joel Timm, and Marion Kuszyk. In addition to his career as an oboist, Breneman is also Music Buyer for the LA Phil Store, where he curates the music sections for the retail stores at both Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl.

Ellie Choate

harp

Ellie Choate’s versatility affords her the opportunity to touch every area of music making, including opera, symphony orchestra, and with many headline artists. Most recently, she recorded a CD of Armenian children’s songs with acclaimed soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian that has been nominated for a GRAMMY®. She has worked on the scores of major motion pictures (such as Spiderman II and Mission Impossible III), and recordings (Ray Charles’ Genius Loves Company) as well as on-screen in film and television, and is active as a soloist, chamber musician, clinician, and teacher. Choate has also produced publications and several CDs of her arrangements of pop and jazz, classical, and inspirational music.

Jonathan Davis

oboe

Dr. Jonathan Davis plays regularly with orchestras around Southern California, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pacific Symphony, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Opera Pacific, and the San Diego Symphony. He is an active studio player, recording dozens of movies ranging from Spiderman II to Moana and Mulan. He is also a member of the Northwind Quintet, a woodwind quintet that introduces the fun of music to elementary schools. While living in New York, Davis was a member of the New Haven and Hartford Symphonies, and performed with the New York Woodwind Quintet, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and as a soloist on NPR’s Performance Today.

Sarah Koo

cello

Cellist Sarah Koo is known for her solo and chamber performances. She graduated with her Master and Bachelor of Music degrees from The Juilliard School where she was the sole recipient of the prestigious William Schumann Award for outstanding achievements in music, academics, and leadership. Koo made her 2000 New York debut in a solo recital at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall as the youngest winner of the Artists International Competition. Koo performed as the Assistant Principal Cel list of the Phoenix Symphony and toured Europe with the Symphonica Arturo Toscanini under the direction of Maestro Lorin Maazel. Koo, an avid outreach advocate, was a teaching artist with the New York Philharmonic and brought music education to the public schools of New York. Koo, an avid chamber musician, has been featured numerous times in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fischer Hall. Chamber studies have been with Gil Shaham, Joseph Kalichstein, Peter Salaff, Jerome Lowenthal, and Jonathan Feldman. Solo studies have been primarily with Gilda Barston, Richard Hirschl, Darrett Adkins, and Ardyth Alton.

Victoria Lee

oboe

Oboist Victoria Hiromi Doo Lee takes music anywhere — from chamber music in California aquariums and European solo tours, to wind octets in Branson pubs and the Park Avenue Armory with the New York Philharmonic. Notable engagements include principal chair of the Santa Monica Symphony and founding member of award-winning Syrinx Quintet. In addition to her career on the West Coast, she contributes to the Taneycomo Festival Orchestra’s mission of revitalizing classical music in unconventional spaces while engaging in educational initiatives. Victoria holds multiple degrees from the Manhattan School of Music. Based in Huntington Beach, she balances her roles as a performer, educator, and clinician, enriching the musical landscape of Southern California. 

Kathryn Nevin

clarinet

Kathryn Nevin earned her M.M. and D.M.A. in Clarinet Performance from University of Southern California.. Nevin has performed with many orchestras including San Diego Symphony, Pasadena Symphony, New West Symphony, Long Beach Symphony, Long Beach Opera, Santa Barbara Symphony, Opera Santa Barbara, and Fresno Philharmonic, and is a member of St. Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra, Desert Symphony, Redlands Symphony Orchestra, and Long Beach Municipal Band. Nevin is an active soloist and award-winning chamber musician, currently a member of Calico Winds. Nevin has been featured on NPR’s Performance Today. She has taught and performed at the Montecito International Music Festival, and has appeared in chamber music concerts with faculty at the University of Redlands, the Taylor String Quartet, the Shanghai Quartet, as well as with Los Angeles Philharmonic principal strings. She is currently the Artist Teacher of Clarinet at the University of Redlands.

Sara Beth Overcash

violin

Sarah earned a master’s degree at the University of Southern California, studying with Glenn Dicterow. Awards include first prize in the Memphis Beethoven Club Young Artist Competition. Overcash has performed with California Young Artists Symphony, American Youth Symphony, and Downey Symphony. 

Ryan Stransky

Trumpet

Dr. Ryan Stransky is currently serving as Instructor of Music-Brass at Alcorn State University in Lorman, Mississippi. Stransky completed his D.M.A. in Trumpet Performance at the University of Southern California, M.M. in Trumpet Performance from Temple University, and B.M. in Trumpet Performance from the University of Minnesota.

He has had the privilege to study trumpet under Tom Hooten, Jen Marotta, Tony Prisk, and David Baldwin. He has received additional trumpet instruction and mentorship from Bob Dorer, Ron Hasselman, Jim Olcott, and David Bilger. He was also able to receive brass quintet coaching with Doug Tornquist, Tim Morrison, and Jeff Curnow.

Stransky is an active member and affiliated with The Honor Society, Pi Kappa Lambda, the International Trumpet Guild, the Historic Brass Society, and the Musical Arts League of Natchez. He is currently serving as a member of the Alcorn State University Faculty Senate, and is also serving as a Board Member of the Natchez Festival of Music. He is a proud recipient of the Mississippi Arts Commission Individual Artist Mini-Grant in Fall 2022, and Fall 2023. He is a Hawkins Mutes Affiliate.

John Walz

cello

John Walz is a celebrated soloist and chamber music artist, known for his dazzling virtuosity and elegant musicianship. A student of the legendary French cellist, Pierre Fournier, he has appeared as soloist with more than 300 symphony orchestras on 4 continents, including the major symphonies of Los Angeles, London, Prague, and Munich. In 1979, Walz, along with pianist Edith Orloff, founded the Pacific Trio. Now performing with violinist Roger Wilkie, this renowned ensemble has played more than 900 concerts throughout North America and Europe. As a recording artist, he has recorded the Concertos of Dvorak, Haydn, Bloch, Shostakovich, Martinu, and the Sonatas of Brahms. He is currently the principal cellist for the Los Angeles Opera.

Albert Wu

Viola

Albert has served as first violinist in the Pacific Symphony, Opera Pacific, the LA Opera; Concertmaster for the LA Classical Ballet Orchestra, the Four Seasons Symphony, The Greater LA Metropolitan Orchestra, Costa Mesa Symphony, OCC Symphony, UCI Symphony Orchestra, La Primavera Orchestra, and the Chicago Pops Orchestra; and Associate Concertmaster for the Indiana University Concert Orchestra, the Camerata Orchestra, and the American Youth Symphony. He has performed under Kurt Masur, Christoph Eschenbach, Myung-Whun Chung, and Mehli Mehta. Albert has performed as a soloist throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. He is on the faculty at the Mango, ICMC, and Grumo Music Festivals in Italy.

Notes

This recording, DEAR FRIENDS & GENTLE HEARTS, quoting the title of Countee Cullen’s poignant poetry, comes together in recognition of a decades-long dear friendship between kindred spirits. Brought together early in their formative years as performers and scholars, Louise Toppin and Darryl Taylor joined forces through separate careers with a shared goal; the celebration, propagation and dissemination of classical vocal music created by Black composers. Their efforts have been accomplished through Taylor’s African American Art Song Alliance, concurrent with Toppin’s through Videmus. Keenly aware of the relative dearth of access to published and recorded solo vocal and chamber music by Black composers, they combined their voices, literally and figuratively in this effort.

Their affinity for and love of the solo vocal and chamber music of Black composers was reinforced as graduate students at the University of Michigan School of Music, and later as Fellows of the Aspen Music School Vocal Chamber Music Program, where they both studied with Adele Addison and Jan de Gaetani. Although they have performed together for many years and have been featured individually on the same recordings, the duets on this CD are the first commercial demonstration of how well their voices work together. Decades after the early, expert advice of their teacher and mentor George Shirley to consider a duet recording, they are now returning to honor that suggestion. This expansive presentation of solo and vocal chamber music, much of it commissioned by or composed in dedication to Toppin and Taylor, brings them full circle to where they began — celebrating friendship and their love for making music together.

The composers and works included on this recording represent a cross-section of generations of Black composers with significant commonalities: all have challenged the status quo personally, educationally, and artistically; all have reflected upon and responded to the contemporary and historical societal issues of their respective times in unique and equally evocative ways by linking their com positional styles to the culture and society; and all have found a distinctive approach to Alain Locke’s assertion that the traditional Black spirituals would be foundational in Black musicians’ successful contribution to classical music. The relationship between Toppin and Taylor is one of a long friendship in the same manner that the composers whose music appears on this recording are their long-standing friends and collaborators.

Notes by:
Maurice Wheeler, PhD
Director of Archives, The Metropolitan Opera
Professor of Information Science, University of North Texas

Composer, pianist, educator, and arts advocate Leslie Adams was born in Cleveland OH, where he exhibited a special interest in music at a very early age. As an elementary school student in the Cleveland public schools, his interests were nurtured through early training in piano and music theory, and he began collecting recordings of all genres of music, including classical and jazz v cal and instrumental music. Adams was especially fond of the popular and commercial music of the era, from Broadway to Boogie Woogie. 

He began voice lessons in junior high school and was encouraged to audition for the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. He was accepted and focused his studies on voice, piano and music education and earned a B.M.E. His interest in composing began in his junior year with a course in composition. By his senior year he composed an orchestral score for a ballet, having studied composition with Joseph Wood and Herbert Elwell. After graduating in 1955, he served as Associate Musical Director for a Karamu House European tour of short operas. He then moved to New York City and held a variety of jobs, including accompanist for vocalists, choral ensembles, and theater and dance companies, notably the newly formed Joffrey Ballet Company. During that period, he continued private composition studies with Robert Starer and Vittorio Giannini. 

Adams’ official debut as a composer was in New York’s Steinway Hall (1961), in his first all-Adams program. It provided the encouragement he needed to continue to envision composing as his future, and a concert later that year at Judson Hall provided the critical success he desired. He earned a master’s degree in music from the California State University at Long Beach, studying with Leon Dallin, and a Ph.D. from Ohio State University in 1973, studying with Marshall Barnes. Adams also completed additional studies in orchestration with Edward Mattila, Eugene O’Brien, and Marcel Dick. He served for many years as a choral conductor and educator in New Mexico, New Jersey, Florida, and Kansas. In 1979 he decided to focus full-time on composition as he felt constrained and compromised by academia. Since that time, Adams’ composing energies have focused on commissions, guest composer, and composer-in-residence projects, and his many personal composition projects (which was his preferred impetus for creating new works). 

Adams was one of the most gifted lyrical composers of the past half-century. For him, “Beauty is paramount, so the music [has] got to be melodious and pretty….” This is most evident in his nearly 50 works for voice and piano. That beauty and lyricism is also present in his numerous instrumental compositions, including chamber orchestra works, a ballet  (A Kiss in Xanadu), piano concerto, symphony, choral works, opera (Blake), solo sonatas and many other works. His writing is diatonic and known for conjuring vivid imagery through use of rich textures, neo romantic harmonies, and mingling classical, jazz, pop, and African American folk song tonalities. The extraordinary sophistication is a hallmark of his writing, although his compositions are initially deceptive in their simplicity. His writing process would begin with an arduous search for text that possesses “a certain vibration” that inspired him; one where the general contours and “feel” of the text became apparent. Adams described his inspiration as “spontaneous” and “almost coming from an unearthly source,” and it is in these vocal compositions where the clearest impact of his artistry and depth of spiritual connection is experienced. 

Two of Adams’ most celebrated song cycles are from his early works; the Five Millay Songs (1960) were followed closely by  Nightsongs (1961). Originally titled  Six Songs on Poetry by Afro-American Poets, Nightsongs is his most frequently performed work. The Dunbar Songs (1981) was followed by The Wider View  (1988), and the remainder were completed the following decade;  Love Memory (1990); Amazing Grace (1992); Flying, and Lullaby Eternal (both 1993) and Daybirth (1994). Taylor recorded the first all-Adams CD with his debut, Love Rejoices, on Albany Records. This recording remains a standard bearer for interpretation of Adams’ significant song output. His most ambitious large-scale recent project had been the completion of the project that Adams refers to as his “autobiography.” The Twenty-Six Etudes for Solo Piano took Adams ten years to complete (1997–2007), having worked solely on the etudes during that time. Maria Thompson Corley recorded the first 12 etudes for Albany Records in 2004. Thomas Otten, who recorded the remaining etudes in 2014 for Albany Records, joined Corley that same year in a premiere performance of all 26 etudes at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 

Adams has been the recipient of numerous commissions, including from the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, and the University of Kansas. His music has been performed with European and North American orchestras including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Prague Radio Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra Buffalo Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony, and  the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. 

Adams is the Winner of the National Opera Association’s 2006 Legacy Award.  He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards from organizations that include: the National Endowment for the Arts, the Jennings Foundation, the Cleveland Foundation, the National Association of Negro Women. The African American Art Song Alliance established the Adams-Owens Prize in Composition to pay tribute to the legacy of Adams and Robert Owens. The award honors composers who have continued that legacy of these two unmatched exemplars of excellence in contemporary art song composition. 

In 2012, Darryl Taylor began commissioning select composers to write songs on the poetry of Countee Cullen. Among those who agreed to participate was H. Leslie Adams. Adams was initially reluctant to set to music the work of a poet who he believed was “already full of music.” It was with the poem, “To a Poet,” which he retitled “Dream Song,” that Adams submitted, with a slightly amended text. The work, originally scored for countertenor and piano, was premiered at the Kerrytown Concert Hall in Ann Arbor MI in 2013. Adams completed a version for voice, cello, and piano in 2018. Adams previewed and approved of the recording of “Dream Song” before he transitioned in May 2024.

Pianist, composer, and music educator Valerie Capers was born in the Bronx NY and after losing her sight at age six was educated at the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind. While there her love for music was nurtured and after graduation she became the first blind student admitted to the Juilliard School. Capers graduated from Juilliard having earned both a B.M. and M.M. degree in piano, thus becoming the school’s first blind graduate. She was born into a musical family; both her father and brother were jazz musicians. Soon after leaving Juilliard, at her brother’s urging, she immersed herself in jazz performance and composition. A few years later, in 1966, Capers made her first recording, Portrait in Soul, with the jazz trio she established. 

After Juilliard, performing and teaching privately kept Capers busy. In 1971, however, she was convinced to accept a job at the Manhattan School of Music, where she developed a jazz curriculum and served as advisor to blind students. In 1987, she was appointed chair of the Department of Music and Art at Bronx Community College at the City University of New York (CUNY), a position she retired from in 1995 as professor emeritus. Continuing her commitment to educating future musicians, even after retirement, Capers published a collection of intermediate jazz piano compositions in 2000 intended to expose classically trained pianists to jazz.  

Capers has received many awards during her career, including several honorary doctoral degrees, and recognition from the Smithsonian Institution and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her collaborators on stage include Mongo Santamaria, Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie, James Moody, Wynton Marsalis, Ray Brown, Tito Puente, Slide Hampton, Paquito D’Rivera, and many others. She has performed widely throughout the United States and in Europe with her ensembles at colleges and universities, music festivals, clubs, and at the nation’s most prestigious concert venues, such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. These wide-ranging experiences, along with Capers’ radio and television appearances, have enabled her to continue to explore performing and composing in different musical genres. She is known to blend elements of classical with jazz and blues, and three of Capers’ most recognized and celebrated compositions are reflective of that diversity. Sing About Love, her Christmas cantata, was produced at Carnegie Hall, the “operatorio,” Sojourner Truth, was staged in New York city by the Opera Ebony Company, and Song of the Seasons, a song cycle for voice, piano, and cello, was commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution and premiered in Washington DC. 

Song of the Seasons, completed in 1987, was Caper’s first extended vocal composition. The colorfully descriptive and sensitive text is a blending of haiku and her own writing. Capers’ sensitive compositional skills shimmer in the way she guides the singer through a broad range of emotions and imagery. The songs beautifully capture the challenges and triumphs of love and life as expressed through the passage of time and the seasonal changes of nature. Capers has stated that music is her “language.” That is clearly true, and in Song of the Seasons, nature is her muse. Capers heard Louise Toppin perform the Song of the Seasons nearly 20 years ago at Carnegie Hall and suggested that Toppin record them. That suggestion is now fulfilled. 

Recognized as one America’s most renowned and prodigious postmodern composers, Adolphus Hailstork is a native of upstate New York. Born in Rochester and raised in Albany, his musical studies began in the fourth grade after taking a musical aptitude test in the public school system. Free violin lessons were soon followed with piano, organ, and singing lessons. Foundational in his years of early study were also the years he spent as a student in the Episcopal Cathedral School of Albany’s Cathedral of All Saints. As a boy soprano in the Cathedral’s choir of men and boys, Hailstork fell in love with choral music. He has stated that participation in the Anglican choral tradition was a significant formative influence in his musical life, and he makes a correlation between the melodic inflections and cadences in his music to those influences. 

He began composing at a young age, long before entering college. His first composition was written for his high school choir and his first published composition was a madrigal, Cease Sorrows Now. Hailstork received a B.M. degree in 1963 from Howard University, where his first serious composition studies began with the renowned composer, Mark Fax. As a student, he composed the musical comedy, The Race for Space, and it was performed at Howard during his senior year in college. As the winner of a Lucy E. Moten Travel Fellowship, he was able to spend the summer of 1963 in France. Hailstork attended the American Academy in Fontainebleau, France where he studied with Nadia Boulanger, placing him among a very elite group of American composers who studied with the celebrated pedagogue. 

Hailstork received a second B.M. degree in 1965 from the Manhattan School of Music, and the M.M. degree from Michigan State University in 1966. His master’s thesis, Statement, Variations and Fugue, was performed by the Baltimore Symphony that same year. During the Vietnam War he served in the U.S. Army as director of an officer’s club. At the end of his period of service, he returned to study and composing at Michigan State University and earned a Ph.D. in composition in 1971. Hailstork’s com position teachers after Boulanger were Ludmila Ulehla, Nicolas Flagello, Vittorio Giannini, David Diamond and H. Owen Reed. Although far from his eventual composition al voice and esthetic, Hailstork attended sessions during the summer of 1972 on computer music and synthesizer at the Electronic Music Institute at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and another on contemporary music in 1978 at the State University of N.Y. at Buffalo. He continued to seek learning and growth opportunities long after his career was well established; in 1987 Hailstork received a Fulbright fellowship for study in Guyana. 

In 1971 Hailstork won first place in the Ernest Bloch Award competition for his choral work, Mourn Not the Dead, and the award proved to be a bellwether of future achievements. Successive composition awards included the 1977 Belwin-Mills Max Winkler Award presented by the Band Directors National Association; first prize in the Virginia College Band Directors’ 1983 national competition for his composition, American Guernica; and first prize in the University of Delaware Festival of Contemporary Music in 1995 for the chamber work, Consort Piece. 

Like many other composers before him, Hailstork set the acquisition of commissions as an early personal goal, and they have provided a significant impetus for the creation of his prodigious catalog of compositions. His first significant commission was for Celebrating the Bicentennial of the United States (1974). He refers to time he spent on faculty at Youngstown State University as his “all embracing American composer” phase. Since that time, Hailstork has produced an extraordinary number of commissioned works, including concerti for solo instruments, operas, cantatas, chamber works, a ballet, symphonies, choral and orchestral works, band works and band transcriptions, oratorios, jazz ensembles, theater works, and voice. There seems to be no classical musical format beyond his grasp. 

Hailstork’s music has been performed by major orchestras in Detroit, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Orlando, Bismarck, Grand Rapids, and the National Philharmonic in North Bethesda; by choral societies in Houston and Virginia; opera companies in Dayton, St. Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, and the Trilogy Opera of Newark; and music festivals in Baltimore, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Colorado, and the Myrelinques Festival of France. 

The many honors and recognition of his work include the title of Cultural Laureate of the State of Virginia in 1992; honorary doctorates bestowed by the College of William and Mary, and Michigan State University; a Distinguished Alumni Award from the Manhattan School of Music; and having Fanfare on Amazing Grace (composed originally for organ) performed by the United States Marine Band in the U.S. Presidential Inauguration ceremony in 2021. 

With over 300 compositions, Hailstork’s is a unique musical and cultural voice, creating music that speaks to our contemporary society and is reflective of broad ranging influences. Hailstork considers himself a “cultural hybrid;” his training in Euro-classical traditions is as apparent as his connection to African American musical and cultural traditions. Always aiming to tell a story through the blending of music with the text, he describes his strikingly atmospheric compositions as “always lyrical, tonal, narrative, dramatic, and propulsive.” A listener is as likely to hear influences of jazz and spirituals, as to hear Copland, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams or Barber. He writes from the heart and from his experience as a Black man in the United States. Hailstork has great reverence for the Black spiritual. Building upon the examples of past generations of Black composers, such as Florence Price, he pays homage to Black culture and religious tradition through use of the spirituals in his compositions. 

The tremendous success and critical acclaim of his choral works, such as the cantata I  Will Lift Up Mine Eyes, the triptych Songs of Isaiah, and the oratorio Done Made My Vow, places Hailstork among the nation’s preeminent choral composers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and he proudly admits that choral music is his “favorite medium.” From early in his career he has used his music to contribute to the discourse on historical and contemporary issues of race, social justice and human rights. As an example, the murder of George Floyd in 2020 inspired him and librettist Herbert Martin to collaborate on the oratorio, America’s Requiem: A Knee on the Neck, which premiered in March 2022. 

Despite having been celebrated as a composer of wide ranging scope, Halstork has stated that his “true musical heart is based in song,” as is exemplified by his prolific catalog of choral works, operas, vocal chamber works, and solo song literature. Yet, his songs are the least known of his compositions. He began writing for solo voice in the late 1950s with a set of songs, Lollipops (1959), and has since composed approximately 80 songs. Many of his songs are composed for voice in partnership with piano accompaniment; other combinations include voice with harp, string quartet and clarinet, strings and timpani, clarinet and piano, string bass, or viola.  

Setting to music the poetic voices of a broad range of writers, his most notable songs cycles  include: Four Romantic Love Songs  (poetry by Paul Laurence Dun bar),  Summer. Life. Song.  (poetry by Emily Dickinson), Songs of Love and Justice (words of Martin Luther King Jr.), and Ventriloquist Acts of God (poetry by Ellen Wise). Over 50 of his songs are composed for soprano, but he has continued to expand into other vocal categories. In 2012, during the African American Art Song Alliance Conference, Darryl Taylor inquired about the availability of Hailstork compositions for countertenors. As he had yet to write for this fact, Hailstork asked for a suggestion of text. From his earliest musical training and creative output, religion and spirituality have been a central theme in Hailstork’s work and Taylor recommended that he set the text of “Yet Do I Marvel,” Countee Cullen’s sonnet pondering God’s nature and man’s struggle to understand it.

Jacqueline Hairston, pianist, composer, arranger, educator, and vocal coach, was born in 1932 in Charlotte NC. Her most celebrated musical works include spiritual arrangements and art songs, piano works, and compositions and arrangements for choir. 

Hairston was encouraged by her parents at an early age to explore her love of music, especially her interest in the piano. The family eventually obtained a piano for the home and she began to focus enthusiastically on her musical training. In high school, she attended the Juilliard School of Music pre-college music education program during the summers. While in high school, she began to show signs of interest in composition. As Hairston learned more about the historical and religious significance of spirituals she began to experiment with her own arrangements. After graduation from high school, she attended the Howard University School of Music where she initially pursued a degree in piano performance. However, she shifted her career goals and instead earned a B.Mus.Ed after which she earned a M.Mus.Ed from Columbia University. 

Back in Charlotte, Hairston became a schoolteacher and taught piano and voice lessons privately until her move to California. In 1973 Hairston accepted a position as a music instructor at Merritt College where she taught for 15 years, eventually becoming chair of the music department. During those years at Merritt College she taught and mentored many students through her ensembles, especially through the gospel and jazz choirs. Hairston recalls that when she joined the faculty of Merritt she was not accomplished in playing gospel-style piano, but was able to advance quickly with the guidance of a student who excelled in gospel music. Among her many talented students were Dwayne Wiggins of Tony, Toni, Tone, and Maxine Jones of En Vogue. After retiring from Oakland’s Merritt and Laney Colleges, Hairston taught at UC Berkeley in the Young Musicians Program and at Oakland’s new School for the Arts. 

Throughout her teaching career, Hairston continued to compose and her compositions have been performed by some of the world’s top orchestras and choruses, including the London Symphony Orchestra, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Oakland Symphony, and Metropolitan Orchestra of Lisbon. The Columbia Symphony and London Symphony have also recorded her works. Hairston has been especially connected to liturgical and sacred music throughout her career, and has set diverse inspirational writings. For her piano recording, A Balm in Gilead, Hairston set words from Howard Thurman’s treatise on spirituals. Thurman, the noted theologian, philosopher and civil rights activist, was Hairston’s chaplain at Howard University. She is a well-known practitioner of sound-healing and developed a college-level course titled “Healing the Soul with Music,” and subsequently released a healing music piano CD, Spiritual Roots + Classical Fruits: A Healing Harvest. 

Hairston’s numerous awards and recognitions include, the 2004 California State University – Dominguez Hills “Living Legend Award” for her work in preserving sacred music of the African Diaspora, an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) ASCAPlus grant, induction into the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame in 2011, the Adams-Owens Composition Award from the African American Art Song Alliance, and a “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Living Heritage Foundation (Sacramento CA). 

Hairston’s work to expose a wider audience to spirituals has been widely heralded. She has served as artist-in residence at Northern Illinois University and as composer-in-residence for the  Negro Spiritual Foundation  in Orlando FL, received the San Francisco (Channel 5-TV) Jefferson Award as Preserver of the Negro Spiritual, and been invited twice, in 2012 and 2016, as guest conductor to present her solo and choral arrangements of spirituals at Carnegie Hall. For the 2012 performance she composed and premiered a tribute to her late cousin by marriage, the legendary musician Jester Hairston. 

Hairston’s art songs and arrangements of spirituals are renowned for their transcendent beauty and for her exceptional ability to write for the voice. Her vocal compositions have been performed by generations of legendary singers, from William Warfield, Grace Bumbry, Denyce Graves, and Kathleen Battle to scores of contemporary singers. Battle recorded Hairston’s arrangements on her 1996 GRAMMY® Award-winning CD with guitarist Chris topher Parkening, Angels’ Glory, and has also included them in her “Underground Railroad” concerts.

The popularity of Hairston’s spiritual arrangements and sacred vocal compositions overshadow a catalog of equally beautiful and poignant art songs. Hairston is acknowledged not only as a composer and arranger, but as a coach and pianist. In this capacity, she has worked alongside numerous singers, dutifully commenting on their performances and crafting works in response to their gifts. Her duet represented on this recording was originally scored for soprano and baritone. As longtime collaborators with Hairston, Toppin and Taylor questioned specifically whether their pairing of soprano and countertenor would be an enhancement for this recording. Hairston’s response was both heart-warming and informative, “If Louise and Darryl are doing it, the performance will be stellar!”

Ulysses Kay was born in Tucson AZ into a musical family, which included his uncle, New Orleans jazz cornetist and bandleader Joe “King” Oliver. Kay studied piano, violin, and saxophone in his youth and was able to tap into what would become his life’s work. He earned a B.M. in 1938 from the University of Arizona and then studied with Howard Hanson at the Eastman School of Music, where he earned a M.M. in 1940. He later studied with Paul Hindemith at Tanglewood and at Yale University, and with Otto Luening at Columbia University. During World War II, Kay served as a member of the U.S. Naval Reserves Band and began to receive recognition for his high-profile mainstream performances. 

His commissioned work, Of New Horizons, was premiered by The New York Philharmonic at Lewisohn Stadium in 1944. Another composition, Suite for Orchestra, won a Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) prize in 1945, and in 1947 Leonard Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic in the premiere of another work, Kay’s Short Overture. Between 1958–1968 Kay composed over 40 works and received many prestigious commissions. Among them was a commission for Western Paradise in 1975 from Washington DC’s National Symphony Orchestra. His final commission, which was unfinished, was for a com position to commemorate in 1992 the 150th anniversary of the New York Philharmonic. Several of Kay’s orchestral works were premiered and performed by major orchestras and world-class conductors, such as the Chicago Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic. Outside of academic circles, his compositions continue to languish in relative obscurity. 

For 15 years Kay worked at BMI and after having several university visiting professorships he joined the faculty of Lehman College, City University of New York. He retired as a Distinguished Professor in 1988 from Lehman Col lege. Among his many awards and recognitions include a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship, the “Prix de Rome” for study at the American Academy in Rome, Guggenheim Foundation grants, a Fulbright Scholarship, travel to the Soviet Union in the U.S. State Department cultural exchange tour, membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and numerous honorary doctorates. Kay was a prolific and trailblazing composer who wrote over 135 wide-ranging compositions, including a ballet, large orchestral works, operas, choral works, chamber works, works for voice and solo instruments, and numerous com positions for film and television. His works, influenced by Bartok and Hindemith, have been characterized as having complex polyphony, vibrant textural coloring and warm melodies. 

Commissioned by Mrs. Paul R. Emmanuel for the Emmanuel Harp Trio, Jersey Hours was composed in 1978 for solo voice and three harps. The work was premiered in Teaneck NJ in 1979 by soprano Patricia Winsauer and the Emmanuel Harp Trio on a concert series entitled “Teaneck Artists Perform.” The text is by Kay’s frequent librettist collaborator, Donald Dorr, who also wrote the libretti for Kay’s operas Jubilee and Frederick Douglass. The harp is referenced in the text of the songs, in which the instrument seems to symbolize the fragility and beauty of life. Kay also arranged the work for solo voice and one harp, or voice and piano, the former which is the arrangement heard on this recording. This CD is the premiere commercial recording of Jersey Hours.

Charles Lloyd, Jr. was a musician of diverse gifts, and accomplishments as a composer, pianist, arranger, accompanist and vocal coach. Lloyd was Professor of Music and Director of Choirs at Southern University and A&M College, Baton Rouge LA. A native of Toledo OH, he received a B.S. in Music Education from Norfolk State University and a M. M. in Piano Performance from the University of Michigan. 

On August 2, 2008 his opera Emmett Till debuted at Science High School in Newark NJ. The Trilogy Op era Company commissioned the work. Lloyd was featured on the Hamilton Fairfield Symphony Orchestra American Masters Concert Series as one of America’s Premier exponents of African-American Spirituals. Ballad of the Black Mother and Amazing Grace, composed and arranged by Lloyd, appear on Songs of America, recorded by Oral Moses, bass-baritone on Albany records. Lloyd was also a collaborative composer for The Sisyphus Syndrome, a thematic concert in the operatic tradition to text by Amiri Baraka, and debuted at The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman performed two of his works on Spirituals in Concert, a 1990 broadcast conducted by James Levine and recorded by Deutsche Grammophon. I believe I’ll go back home/Lordy, won’t you help me were first presented in this live recorded performance at Carnegie Hall. The composer recounted in interviews having been at the home of Jessye Norman when as a 26 year old composer, he arranged Give Me Jesus and I believe I’ll go back home/Lordy, won’t you help me. His compositions and arrangements appear on Great Day in the Morning and Spirituals, recorded by Jessye Norman on Philips Records; The Passion of Christ in Spirituals recorded by Veronica Tyler, soprano; Let it Shine recorded by Laura-English Robinson, soprano; and the debut recording of Carolyn Sebron, mezzo soprano. His opera Song of Solomon was premiered in Detroit MI, in 1988. In 2000, Warner Bros. Publications published a collection of Lloyd’s spirituals, entitled The Spiritual Art Song Collection. One of Lloyd’s compositions is included in The New Spiritual publication, and his art song Compensation appears in The Anthology of Art Songs by Black American Composers both compiled by Willis Patterson. Lloyd has had several choral spirituals published, and his compositions and career has been highlighted in two doctoral dissertations, The Vocal Works of Charles Lloyd, Jr.: The Dramatic Works, Art Songs and Spiritual Art Song by Charis Kelly Hudson, Louisiana State University, December, 2011 and The Contributions of Twentieth Century African American Composers to the Solo Trumpet Repertoire: A Discussion and Analysis of Selected works by: Ulysses S. Kay, Adolphus C. Hailstork, Regina Harris Baiocchi, and Charles Lloyd, Jr. by Orrin Wilson, University of Nebraska, June 2011. 

Lloyd is the recipient of the ASCAP Award, and the Arts Ambassadors’ Award by the Baton Rouge Arts Council.

Undine Smith Moore was highly regarded as the “Dean of Black Women Composers.” Over a 60-year career she composed more than 100 pieces, including compositions for solo voice and accompaniment, choral works, and instrumental pieces. Despite the national and international recognition those compositions garnered (including a Pulitzer Prize nomination), Moore saw her role as an educator as central to her professional identity. She considered herself primarily as a “teacher who composes, rather than a composer who teaches.” Publication of her works began relatively late in Moore’s career; thus, only one-fourth of her compositions were available during her lifetime. 

Moore’s early education in her home town of Jarratt Virginia, with her teacher Lillian Darden, a Fisk graduate, prepared her to attend college to study music. She attended Fisk University as recipient of the first scholarship given by the Juilliard School for study at Fisk. In 1926, she earned a B.A. from Fisk University, having focused her studies on piano and organ. It was during that period of study that she began composing and exploring more deeply the musical history and folk music of Black Americans. Born into a southern Black family in which her grandparents were slaves, Moore was heavily influenced by the music she experienced in her home and community, especially by Black folk music and spirituals. Reflecting upon her early musical influences, she identified Black folk music and Bach as central to her development. After employment for a short period as a supervisor of music programs in North Carolina public schools, Moore was hired in 1927 as piano instructor and organist at Virginia State College (now Virginia State University). She taught courses in counterpoint and theory, and was director of chorus, which enabled her to use her chorus as a lab for her own compositions. She remained at Virginia State as Professor of Music Theory and Composition until her retirement over four decades later. Early during her tenure at Virginia State, Moore earned a M.A. and professional diploma in music from Columbia University Teachers College (1931), during which she commuted to New York for three years. Additionally, she pursued studies at the Manhattan and Eastman Schools of Music. 

Moore was a strong advocate for the promotion of Black music and believed that if provided the appropriate platforms, Black music could be a vehicle for social change. She used her position and influence at Virginia State College in 1969 to co-found and co-direct, with Altona Trent Johns, the College’s Black Music Center. The Center brought leading Black composers, lecturers, and other musicians to the college and provided significant national exposure of their music. Moore considered the creation of the Black Music Center and the impact it had on future composers and musicians as one of her most important achievements. 

Moore received honors and awards for her musical accomplishments throughout her career. In 1977, she was awarded the distinction of Music Laureate of the State of Virginia, having received the Virginia Governor’s Award in the Arts in 1985. She was also awarded honorary D.M. degrees by Virginia State College in 1972 and Indiana University in 1976. In 1981, Moore was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for the oratorio, Scenes from the Life of a Martyr. Based on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the oratorio premiered at Carnegie Hall and she considered it her most significant work. 

Moore continued composing after her official retirement and many consider her works created during that later period to be among her finest. 

By the 1950s, her usage of certain “Black idioms,” such as syncopated rhythms and call and response antiphony, signaled a distinct and deliberate shift. She became less constrained by conventions as she freely explored the music of her heritage. Dissonance, bitonality, quartal harmonies, non-homophonic textures, and extended techniques were liberally employed. Originally trained as a classical pianist, Moore excelled in writing for the voice, and most of her compositions include chorus or solo voice. Moore created over one hundred works, including many arrangements of the traditional songs and Black spirituals she learned in her childhood. Her choral arrangements of spirituals were among the first of her compositions to gain recognition, including Striving after God, Mother to Son, Hail Warrior, and Daniel, Daniel, Servant of the Lord.” 

Moore’s compositions raised the consciousness of Black musical traditions in America and in turn she had a significant broad impact on 20th-century American music. In addition to Scenes from the Life of a Martyr, among her most well-known and celebrated compositions are Afro-American Suite for flute, violoncello, and piano; Lord, We Give Thanks to Thee, for chorus; Daniel, Servant of the Lord, for chorus; and the art song, Love, Let the Wind Cry How I Adore Thee.” 

In reflecting on the impact of her career, Louise Toppin wrote, “Growing up in Ettrick (Petersburg), Virginia, Dr. Moore was a consistent musical force in the musical education on myself and all of the other students who studied at the Matoaca Laboratory School on the campus of Virginia State. We watched her present concerts (quite often premieres) in the auditorium next to our school and we sang her works in our church choir! Our church organist, Clarence Whiteman, was also the university organist and her colleague. So many of her works were written for my church choir, St. Stephen’s Epsicopal Church, which was literally across the street from her church (Gilfield Baptist Church)!”

Although Dr. Moore is noted for her choral works and spirituals, her catalog of more than 25 art songs is in process for publication. Toppin chose the Three Songs (commissioned by Janis Peri in 1978) for this recording because this work represents a compositional style from Moore’s eclectic, exploratory period of composition. The vocal line is a chant so reminiscent of the chants Toppin sang in the Episcopal church, which made them familiar and somewhat nostalgic. For her text Moore chose to explore texts of the Bah’ai faith with their emphasis on peace, compassion, unity of all people and worthiness of all religions. Toppin writes, “The instrumentation moves from two voices (soprano and flute) to three voices (soprano, flute and cello) to four voices soprano, two trumpets and oboe) as if the pieces are inviting more voices to join in the conversation.” This album is the premiere commercial recording of Three Songs.

Composer and educator Andre Myers teaches composition, music theory, and electronic music on the faculty at the University of Redlands School of Music. Myers has previously served on the faculty at Occidental College and Renaissance Arts Academy in Los Angeles. His lyrical, yet intense, compositional voice brings a new and fresh expressiveness to the emerging works that address the social and political challenges of our times. For Myers, social and political agency are “at the forefront of every musical choice, and influences every decision.” 

Myers began playing piano at age 10 and was already composing by the time he became a teenager. A native of Ann Arbor MI, he earned a B.M. in Composition from the Eastman School of Music, and his M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in composition from the University of Michigan. His first formal composition studies were with David Liptak at Eastman, whom he credits with helping him initially find his voice through composing. Other composition teachers have included William Banfield, Erik Santos, Samuel Adler, Robert Morris, William Bolcom, Warren Benson, Joseph Schwantner, Evan Chambers, and Bright Sheng. 

Myers was awarded an associate artist residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and served as composer in-residence for the Michigan Philharmonic Orchestra’s “CLASSical” music outreach program, where he received three commissions by the orchestra. Other commissions have included compositions for MacArthur Fellow and Los Angeles Philharmonic violinist Vijay Gupta, international violist Brett Deubner, and for the Albany Symphony. 

Ranging from meditative and plaintive to powerful, dramatic and hopeful, Myers’ compositions are a blending of genres that are meant to build bridges. With works centered in western concert music, he has used the early neoclassical influences of Stravinsky, mixed with Monk, Ellington, and others, to create a compositional palette that is uniquely personal and suited for free expression. Regardless of audience, whether framed in rap, hip-hop, jazz, blues or western concert structures, Myers’ writing is immediate, poignant, and poetic. 

Myers has composed for solo and chamber ensemble, orchestra, solo voice and choir, as well as for theater, film, and dance. His works have been performed by the symphony orchestras of Detroit, Albany, Santa Monica, Occidental/Cal-Tech, and University of Michigan; featured in public radio programming; and presented in conferences across the United States and in Europe. 

Evoking the delicacy and quiet desperation of life’s chain of hopes, dreams, and capitulations, the song cycle Quilting: Poems of Countee Cullen originated in 2012 with a commission from the African American Art Song Alliance. Beginning with two songs for countertenor voice and piano, an additional four songs followed and led to the creation of a chamber orchestra version of the cycle. Darryl Taylor premiered the cycle in 2013 with Orchestra Santa Monica, with Allen Robert Gross conducting. This chamber version, completed in 2018, is scored for countertenor, clarinet, oboe, cello, and piano.

A GRAMMY®-nominated and award-winning composer and educator, Shawn Okpebholo’s compositions have received acclaim globally; ranging from the large-scale orchestral, operatic, liturgical, and choral to more intimate art songs and spirituals. Of Nigerian and African American ancestry, Okpebholo was born in Lexington KY. He grew up attending the Salvation Army Church, where he had access to world-class music instruction from fellow congregants. He learned to play the baritone horn, participated in worship services and also attended Salvation Army-sponsored music camps throughout the United States. 

At 14 years old, Okpebholo arranged the contemporary British hymn Be Still for the Presence of the Lord for baritone horn and played it at church. James Curnow, well-known composer of band music, was among the parishioners who took notice and began providing him with private composition lessons. Because of those early experiences in the brass band and youth choir, Okpebholo has a strong connection to choral music and wind instruments. 

He earned a bachelor’s degree in composition and music history from Asbury College; a Master’s degree and Doctoral degree in Composition from the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati; and completed additional studies in film scoring at New York University through the Buddy Baker Film Scoring Program. Okpebholo is Jonathan Blanchard Distinguished Professor of Music Composition and Theory at Wheaton College Conservatory of Music (Illinois), having taught previously at Union University (Tennessee), Northern Kentucky University, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Because of his early experiences as a recipient of free musical lessons, he is committed to and engaged in volunteering his musical talents and expertise through outreach to underserved communities. As a teacher and composer, he also regularly conducts masterclasses at academic institutions worldwide and serves on the com position faculty of summer music festivals. 

As a graduate student, Okpebholo became interested in the music of his African ancestry and that interest has led to ethnomusicological fieldwork in both East and West Africa. He has studied the music of South Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda, the Akambe people in the Machakos region of Kenya, and the Esan people in southern Nigeria. That field research resulted in transcriptions, chamber and symphonic compositions, and academic lectures. 

Okpebholo regularly receives commissions from orchestras, music societies, performing artists, universities, arts organizations, and performance venues. Included among notable commissions are the Kennedy Center, Philadel phia Chamber Music Society, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Symphony, United States Air Force Strings, the International Tuba and Euphonium Association, Astral Artists, Aspen, Newport Classical Music, and Tanglewood Festivals, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the International Horn Society, the Jackson Symphony Orchestra, the United States Army Field Band, Imani Winds, and Urban Arias. Among his residencies are the Fifth House Ensemble, the Saykaly Garbulinska Composer-in-Residence with the Lexington Philharmonic, and a residency with the Chicago Opera Theater, which culminated in the premiere of his opera, The Cook-Off. 

Okpebholo’s compositions are featured on numerous commercially released recordings, including the first CD devoted solely to his music, Steal Away, a collection of re-imagined spirituals; and GRAMMY®-nominated,  LORD, HOW COME ME HERE?, his second solo album. His works have been featured on PBS NewsHour and radio broad casts across the country, including NPR. He has received numerous honors. Recognition for his artistry includes the following awards and prizes: the Academy of Arts and Letters Walter Hinrichsen Award 2022, First Place Winner of the 2020 American Prize in Composition (professional/wind band division), Winner of Barlow Endowment Prize for Music Composition, Second Place Winner in the 2017 American Prize in Composition (professional/ orchestral division), inaugural awardee of the African American Art Song Alliance’s Leslie Adams-Robert Owens Composition Award, and First Prize Winner in the Flute New Music Consortium Composition Competition.

Okpebholo’s music has been performed on five continents and throughout the United States in major venues including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy, Kimmel, and Lincoln Centers, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Cathedral. Sponsoring organizations have included the Cincinnati and Houston Symphony Orchestras, Washington National Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago recital series, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra Music Now Series. 

Establishing his place within the legacy of previous generations of Black composers who have addressed social and political trauma in their works, like Adolphus Hailstork, Okpebholo draws heavily upon the contemporary and historical experiences of African Americans in America. Ranging from the atrocities of slavery through the violence of the Civil Rights era to the current battles for racial and social justice, his music is bold, beautiful, unsettling, and impossible to overlook. Collectively, his works for voice in this vein provide a social commentary that is unflinchingly honest, yet hopeful. 

His compositional voice is matched expertly by the lyrics and writings that he chooses to set. Okpebholo’s work, Two Black Churches, commemorating the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham AL (1963) and the shooting of a pastor and eight church members at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston SC (2015) is a prime example. For that project, Okpebholo collaborated with baritone Will Liverman. He has also created commissioned works and new projects with singers such as Lawrence Brownlee, J’Nai Bridges, Tamera Wilson, Michael Mayes, Rhiannon Giddens, and Ryan McKinney. His art songs and vocal works have been presented in concert and recital at the Des Moines Metro Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Portland Opera, and Los Angeles Opera. The duet on this recording was originally written for J’Nai Bridges and Will Liverman. At the request of Darryl Taylor, it was re-imagined for Toppin and Taylor. This recording is the world premiere of the version for soprano and countenor.

Robert Owens was an American expatriate composer, pianist, and actor who spent the majority of his professional life in Europe, primarily in Germany. After frustrating attempts at life as a musician and music educator in the United States, Owens moved to Europe in the 1950s to pursue his career without the burden of American racism and its associated social restrictions. 

Owens was born in 1925 in Dennison TX. His father, a successful businessman and politician, moved his family to Berkeley CA shortly after his birth. Beginning at age 4, Owens’ first piano lessons were with his mother, an accomplished pianist and active performer. His passion for the piano was evident very early. His first compositions were written at age 8 and by the time he was a 15-year old high school student, Owens had composed his first songs and a piano concerto. The concerto was premiered by the Berkeley Young Peoples’ Symphony with him as the soloist. 

After high school graduation in 1942, Owens served 4 years of military duty. In 1946 he used the GI Bill to travel to Paris, France (Germany was off-limits at the time) in hopes of studying at the Paris Conservatoire. He was instead accepted into the École de Musique where he earned the Diplome de Perfection in piano, studying with Jules Gentil and Alfred Cortot. Owens made his concert debut in Copenhagen in 1952 and subsequently moved to Vienna, Austria in 1953 to perform and compose while studying with Professor Grete Hinterhofer at the renowned Musik und Darstellende Dunst Akademie (Music and Performing Arts Academy). 

He returned to the United States in 1957 and accepted a music instructor position at Albany State College in Georgia. This geographic move also marked a significant shift in his compositional output. In 1958 he met Langston Hughes and with the poet’s encouragement began setting to music selections from Hughes’ book of poems, Fields of Wonder. He first composed the song cycle Silver Rain for tenor and piano, followed by a second cycle Tearless for baritone and piano. Despite the surge of creativity generated by the Hughes poems, Owens began to feel the weight of the racism and segregationist policies and practices of the south. After winning a piano competition in New York, he used his prize money to fund his return to Europe. In 1959 he resigned from his position in Georgia and returned to Europe, where he lived for the remainder of his life. 

Upon his move to Hamburg, Owens quickly realized that life as a concert pianist was going to be more difficult than he had imagined. To stabilize his finances, he accepted a job as an extra in a film production. Because he had no acting experience, he quickly arranged for breathing and diction lessons from a friend who was a successful singer and voice teacher. Owens composed for her The Three Songs, op. 18, as a show of his gratitude. He spent four years fine-tuning his acting skills while continuing to supplement his income with piano appearances. Owens was an excellent pianist and frequently accompanied American singers in recitals and other performances during their tours of Germany. Many of his songs became especially popular among African American singers who were performing in Europe, and he occasionally composed songs for and collaborated with these singers. His most widely performed song cycle Heart on the Wall for soprano and piano, was commissioned for coloratura soprano, Mattiwilda Dobbs. By the time Owens moved to Munich in the early 1960s he had obtained management and was in demand equally as a musician and an actor. His acting credits include leading roles in Ionescu’s The Lesson, Shakespeare’s Othello and Uhry’s Driving Miss Daisy. 

Owens is known primarily for his extensive writing for solo voice. Yet, his instrumental compositions have also received high praise, especially in Europe. The Idomeneo Quartet, Op. 93, with movements for oboe and strings is a good example. As with his vocal writing, the instrumental compositions are equally lyrical, and require the same kind of expressive interplay between solo instruments and the piano that is central in his songs. 

As a composer of songs, Owens has been drawn to celebrated poets from various backgrounds. The catalog of songs and song cycles includes settings of poets such as Emily Bronté, Emily Dickinson, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Hermann Hesse, Hugo von Hoffmansthal, Lord Byron, William Wordsworth, Waring Cuney, Countee Cullen, Walt Whitman, Edna St.Vincent Millay, and most notably, Langston Hughes. Owens set 46 of Hughes’ poems in six song cycles. For American audiences, his profile as a composer is primarily analogous with African American art song; however, he saw himself as a composer positioned squarely in the European tradition. He stressed that his songs, irrespective of the poet’s ethnicity, were written for everyone. 

Owens’ process for creating a new composition assured that his song cycles were uniquely different, yet his affinity for the styles present in the German Lieder writing of Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf, Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann made his own craftsmanship feel refreshingly new, and simultaneously familiar. His attention to language, early exposure to European art songs and preparation for an acting career all influenced significantly his approach and process for composing songs. Owens’ ability to capture the underlying emotional essence and power of poetry is foundational to his compositional brilliance. He spoke of poetry having the ability to take him to “other spheres,” and he sought to pass that experience on through the marriage of poetry with his music. 

His creative process most often began with the piano. There, he created the emotional colors and musical environment necessary to tell the story. From that piano accompaniment, he would derive the melody. Owens saw the music as being in service to the message, and the singer and pianist were equal partners in that effort. To that end, his songs challenge singers to explore and employ a broader and more nuanced range of emotional colors in their singing. This was also evidenced in his opera, Kultur! Kultur!, which premiered to great critical acclaim in 1970 at Ulm, Germany, and had its U.S. premiere in 2015 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

In recognition of his accomplishments, Owens received the Preisträger International Lifetime Achievement Award from  das Kulturmagazin – AnDante and the National Opera Association’s “Lift Every Voice” Legacy Award in 2009, providing a well-deserved and fitting capstone for the impact of his compositions on contemporary vocal classical music. Previous recognition also included the International Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Negro Musicians (2008); the “Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks Visiting Profes sorship” at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2004); and in 2006, Owens was invited by the Munich Compos ers organization to compose a work for Mozart’s 250th birthday celebration. 

Owens’ catalog of vocal works contains three song cycles in German, including the complex Drei Lieder für eine tiefe Stimme (Three Songs for a Deep Voice), op. 47. Al though he spoke French fluently, having lived and studied in France early in his career, he had not set French texts when Darryl Taylor inquired about availability of his songs in French. Owens revealed that the reason for such a void was simple, “No one has asked before.” This occurred in 2007, when Taylor performed Owens’ music for Radio Bavaria at the Munich Hochschuele für Musik. Three years later, Owens presented him with the scores for four songs on texts of Arthur Rimbaud. Taylor premiered the cycle, Rimbaud Cabaret, Op 101 at the 2012 African American Art Song Alliance Conference, with Owens at the piano.

Florence Price was born into an affluent Black family in Little Rock AR. Recognized as the first African American woman to receive national distinction as a composer, Price composed symphonies, chamber music, concertos, songs, and short pieces for teaching piano. She received early piano lessons from her mother, an accomplished soprano and pianist, who encouraged her at age four to play for the acclaimed piano prodigy John Boone (known as Blind Boone) during a visit to the Smith home. As a girl, Price’s first exposure to classical music was through the Presbyterian Church, which at the time did not allow music for church services to deviate from the standard Presbyterian hymnal. 

Price’s earliest composition was published at age 11 and she entered the New England Conservatory of Music in 1903. As a scholarship recipient, she studied with Charles Chadwick and Frederick Converse, and graduated in 1906 having earned a Soloist’s Diploma in organ and Teacher’s Diploma in piano. After graduation, she returned to Arkansas to teach. In 1907, she became head of the music department at Shorter College in North Little Rock. She worked at Shorter until 1910 when she accepted an offer to become head of the music department at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta GA. She returned to Arkansas in 1912 to marry attorney Thomas Jewell Price. 

Price continued to compose and teach privately, and frequently created pieces to use as teaching exercises for her students. Through the late 1920s she continued to study and hone her skills, and eventually began to experiment with larger compositional forms. The growing racial tensions in Little Rock, combined with her periodic studies at the Chicago Musical College, inspired the Price family to relocate to Chicago IL. In Chicago, she established herself as an organist, pianist and teacher, and her artistry and skills grew tremendously as a member of the city’s vibrant community of Black classical musicians. 

By the early 1930s, G. Schirmer Publishing had published Price’s At the Cotton Gin and she began to take advantage of the availability of foundation awards for musical composition. Her Symphony No. 1 in E minor and Piano Sonata in E minor both won multiple prizes by the Rodman Wanamaker Co. As winner of a 1932 Wanamaker prize, the premiere of Price’s Symphony No. 1 was included on a Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert program at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, along with John Alden Carpenter’s Concertino, with piano soloist Margaret Bonds, and songs sung by Roland Hayes. Because of that performance, Price became the first African American woman composer to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra. The event was a turning point in national recognition of Price as a serious composer, and subsequently led to performances of her symphonic works by top orchestras in New York, Detroit, and Brooklyn. It also clearly positioned Price as peer to her white counterparts and to celebrate African American male composers, such as William Dawson and William Grant Still. Price wrote over 300 compositions, including nearly 50 songs. The most well known and most performed of her works, including her prize-winning symphony and the Piano Concerto in One Movement (1934), were created in the 1930s. 

Originally trained as an organist, she remained committed to teaching organ students and creating works for performance and religious services. Her organ compositions ranged from beginning student exercises to large-scale performance works such as Sonata No. 1 for Organ, and Passacaglia and Fugue. 

During her years in conservatory, Price was influenced by the music of Darius Milhaud, Claude Debussy, and Anton Dvorak. Like Dvorak, she was inspired to overlay her own cultural influences onto her classical musical training, experimenting early with using African American folk music in her compositions. Price developed into what was considered a “Black Nationalist” or “Americanist” composer; she incorporated American musical fragments of folk music and spirituals into her compositions. She even experimented with creating her own spirituals, and more significantly for the time, made compositional aberrations to match the dialect or vernacular of a text. Price was affected by the social and cultural times in which she lived and created, and her work shows alignment with the ideology of the cultural renaissance movement sweeping through Harlem and Chicago. 

During the Harlem Renaissance, Black creative artists were especially encouraged to embrace and amplify African and Black American identity and representation. Price felt free to experiment and challenge creative boundaries, and was drawn to the works of prominent Black writers such as Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, and Paul Laurence Dunbar. 

Her works, however, remained European in their com positional aesthetic and approach. Commissions were not a major aspect of her career; however, in 1951 Price was commissioned by Sir John Barbirolli, conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, and former music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, to write a concert overture or string suite based on spirituals. Her music had an appeal and an aesthetic that drew Americans to her work, and later generations of Black composers have benefitted from the acceptance and approval that she achieved. Margaret Bonds, Camille Nickerson, Undine Smith Moore, Jacqueline Hairston, Lena McLin, Betty Jackson King, Dorothy Rudd Moore, and many others are all part of a legacy secured by Florence Price. 

Price had an affinity for vocal writing and her works for voice were well-known during her lifetime. Her vocal compositions were especially popular during the 1930s and 1940s and were performed often in Black churches. Many famous singers, including Harry T. Burleigh, Roland Hayes, Lillian Evanti, and Marian Anderson, regularly programmed her songs and arrangements of spirituals. Her arrangement of the spiritual, My Soul’s Been Anchored in de Lord, was written for and made famous by Ander son when she performed it at her 1939 Lincoln Memorial concert. 

Prices’ songs have historically been overlooked and are not included in the American art song canon. Yet, they are pivotal in the early legacy left by composers who sought to establish uniquely American art songs that fused Black American and European musical idioms. Because of her wide-ranging musical influences, Price exhibited a compositional dexterity that appealed to audiences from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds. As Burleigh’s art songs had done earlier, Price showed tremendous diversity of stylistic approach and subject in her songs. Her Four Encore Songs show a lighter and un characteristically humorous side of Price’s compositional range.

A native of Chattanooga TN, Dave Ragland is a four-time EMMY®-nominated composer, pianist, conductor, vocalist, and educator based in Nashville. Ragland has earned the reputation of being one of Nashville’s most versatile composers, whose skills and accomplishments extend beyond the traditional boundaries of western classical music. The multi-talented musician is a graduate of the Chattanooga School for the Arts & Sciences, Tennessee State University (TSU), and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC). 

Ragland’s talent and diversity of skills have led to several consecutive prestigious awards and commissions. He is the 2023 First Place Winner of The Atlanta Opera’s 96-Hour Opera Composition Competition; the 2022 Adams Owens Composition Award from the African American Art Song Alliance; and the 2021 American Prize in Composition, for One Vote Won, his one-act opera commissioned by the Nashville Opera, which received its digital world premiere in September 2020. In 2021 Ragland arranged Lift Every Voice and Sing for GRAMMY®-nominated tenor Lawrence Brownlee’s performance on the Washington National Opera’s Concert for Inauguration Day. In 2020, he was selected as a fellow in the inaugural cohort of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) composer mentorship program. 

Opera commissions have also included children’s operas for the Cedar Rapids Opera and Portland Opera (Oregon), and Steal Away, an opera he composed while he was Artist-in-Residence for OZ Arts. His work on the Frist Art Museum’s exhibition, Nick Cave: Feat, received high acclaim, as did his aleatoric canon, Tones for Elijah, mourning the death of Elijah McClain, a young Colorado violinist who died after being arrested by police as he walked home. This work was premiered by Darryl Taylor during the historic global pandemic in 2021. 

Ragland’s additional performance credits include Los Angeles Opera, Washington National Opera, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Nashville Ballet, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Intersection Contemporary Ensemble, chatterbird, Intersection Contemporary Ensemble, and the GRAMMY®-nominated Alias Chamber Ensemble. 

He is artistic director of Inversion Vocal Ensemble, a regionally touring vocal ensemble that often collaborates with artists ranging from Folk and Country to Neo Soul and Contemporary R&B. Ragland has also served as chorus master for Nashville Symphony’s “Let Freedom Sing” concert series for several seasons. As a vocalist, musical director and conductor, he has performed with GRAMMY® winners Jennifer Hudson, Marcus Hummon, John Prine, the Fairfield Four, Tanya Tucker, GRAMMY®-nominee Rivers Rutherford, and many emerging artists. 

Selected as a Composer Mentor for 91Classical’s inaugural Student Composer Fellowship, he shares more directly with students his creative approach. Advice received as a college freshman at TSU from baritone William Warfield had a significant impact on Ragland’s development as a composer. Warfield’s advice was to become a student of all art and artistic endeavors, not just music. That has led to his ability to compose for a variety of mediums, and in a broad range of musical genres. Ragland views composing as a medium through which he expresses his wider artistic and spiritual voice. 

Included among his musical influences are the accomplishments and compositions of Black musical forebears such as Undine Smith Moore, John W. Work, Clarence Cameron White, J. Rosamond Johnson. Ragland sees himself as a dramaturg “at heart” and as such, storytelling is always the foundation on which he builds a project. With a passion for singing and opera, Ragland is a skilled and sensitive craftsman when writing music for voice. The songs included on this recording are exemplary of that skill. 

Written for soprano Alyson Cambridge, I Believe, is built upon a text identified as a poem created by a prisoner in a Nazi prison camp of WWII. Ragland’s song sets the first strophe of the poem found scrawled on the wall of a cell in NS-Dokumentationszentrum, a former Nazi interrogation prison in Cologne. The arrangement of the traditional spiritual, I’ll Never Turn Back No More, is set for voice and viola. In Vain was composed for Darryl Taylor and uses as its text Emily Dickinson’s poem of inequitable longing and selfless love.

Educator, pianist, and composer, Reginald Rison was born in Brooklyn NY. He studied at the Juilliard School and with composer John W. Work at Fisk University, before earning a B.A. in piano from Brooklyn College (1955). Rison later earned a M.M. in piano from Manhattan School of Music (1963) and an Ed.M. from Columbia University (1982). Fluent in Spanish, he taught music, as well as English and Spanish in New York public schools for over 25 years. In the mid-1980s he moved to Dallas TX and joined the faculty of Bishop College, where as Assistant Professor of Voice and Piano he was coordinator of the music program in the Department of Fine Arts. 

Rison was an ardent supporter of aspiring African American performers and composers and that commitment was reflected in the many organizations to which he devoted his time and resources. Included among them were the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM), the Music Educator’s National Conference, the College Music Society, and Dallas African-American Composers and Performers Organized, Inc (DACAPO).  

A versatile artist, Rison had an active performing career throughout the United States and abroad as pianist, dancer, and choreographer. He is most known for his instrumental compositions. In 1986, excerpts from his symphonic work, Freedom Suite, were performed by the Dallas Symphony. His vocal compositions (choral and solo) are equally compelling and Rison composed seven songs, six of which are recorded for this album. After his death, Louise Toppin was invited to perform a recital of Rison’s songs in a memorial concert during the 1997 NANM annual conference in Philadelphia PA.  

Rison’s first songs in 1987 the Three Daily Songs depict the cycle of life. He was both the poet and composer for this cycle. In conversations with Louise Toppin he revealed that although they are not autobiographical, the songs give snapshots of his personal view of one’s life. Each song is a wonderful pairing between the text and the lyrical melodic line, and is joined by a rich very pianistic accompaniment. In the first song, Morning’s Revelation, the jaunty accompaniment sets the mood for the young bird that is trying to take his first flight, whereas in Greet the Day, the quartal harmonies of the piano are sprinkled with chromaticism that sets a somber mood as the text presents the passion of a deep love. The writing is dramatic and ends on a hopeful note for the love presented. The final song, Night Comes, presents an ever present arpeggiated accompaniment representative of the passage of time. His conclusion to the song and the cycle, is an unresolved bitonal harmony evoking a sense of uncertainty (whether good or bad) about the future. 

Rison was an optimistic and a deeply spiritual person. In 1995 and 1996, he wrote four sacred songs in collaboration with singers he admired. In 1995, he composed Come Unto Me and For God so Loved the World’ (John 3:16-18), and in 1996 He restoreth my soul and I am that I am, which arrived in the mail to Louise Toppin shortly before Rison was killed in a home invasion. Toppin is honored to present his songs on this release.

Composer, pianist, arranger, and educator, Hale Smith established a career that enabled him to adroitly and fluidly overlap his craft and love of both jazz and classical music. Born in Cleveland OH, he began studying piano at age 7, at his request. At age 14, Smith gave his first public performance as a member of an all-teenage jazz group, the Freemans. He excelled at the piano and also played mellophone (similar to the French horn) in his high school band. Smith was quickly drawn to composing and by age 16 had attracted the attention of Duke Ellington, who kindly offered him pointers and encouragement. He was drafted into the Armed Services after graduation from high school and was a music arranger for the U.S. Army during his tour of duty. After two years he resumed his education and earned a B.M. in 1950 and M.M. in 1952, both from the Cleveland Institute of Music (CMI). At CMI he studied composition with serialist Marcel Dick, and theory with Ward Lewis. Smith supported himself during that period by playing piano in nightclubs. In the same year that he completed his master’s degree, Smith was a winner of the first Student Composer’s Award sponsored by the music licensing organization, Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) for his song cycle, Four Songs. 

Smith relocated to New York in 1958 and eventually worked with many of the most prominent jazz artists of the time, including John Coltrane, Betty Carter, Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Abbey Lincoln, Horace Silver, Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, Randy Weston, and Ahmad Jamal. He also worked as a music proofreader and editor with publishing houses, such as Frank Music, Sam Fox, and E. B. Marks. He progressed in the music publishing field and later worked as a copyright infringement consultant for C.F. Peters Corporation. He also worked as a freelance music consultant and orchestrator. After teaching briefly at the C.W. Post College of Long Island University in Brookville NY, Smith accepted a faculty position at the University of Connecticut at Storrs in 1970, where he remained until his retirement in 1984. Throughout his career, he was active in promoting the activities of Black musicians and served as an advisor to Columbia College-Chicago’s Center for Black Music Research. Notwithstanding his strong advocacy, he objected to being characterized or identified as a Black composer. He believed that music by Black composers was on par with works of mainstream composers and it should be presented in programming without calling attention to race or ethnicity. 

In 1973, Smith was the first African American to receive Cleveland’s Arts Prize in Music. During the span of his career he received numerous additional honors and awards including appointment to the New York Council on the Arts by Governor Mario Cuomo,the Composer’s Recording Award in 1988 from the American Academy and Institute of Arts & Letters, an Outstanding Achievement Award in 1982 from the Black Music Caucus of the Music Educators National Conference, appointment to the boards of the American Composers Alliance (ACA) and of Composers Recording, Inc. (CRI), receipt of an honorary doctorate from the Cleveland Institute of Music (his alma mater), and numerous composition commissions. 

Smith’s musical expression was centered in the contemporary evolution of European classical music. His uniqueness comes from his other cultural and musical influences, such as jazz and his love of jazz improvisation, and the ways in which he navigated those sometimes disparate spheres. Equally comfortable engaging both traditional and contemporary compositional techniques, Smith’s style of writing is an obvious fusion of the two approaches. His most widely known compositions include the serial-influenced orchestral work Contours for Orchestra (1961), his piano composition, Evocation, and A Twelve Tone Adventure for Band. Smith was highly successful in creating an extraordinarily wide scope of music: his compositions include works for solo instrument, chamber ensembles, voice and chorus, orchestras, band, film, jazz ensembles, and incidental music for theater, radio and television. Major orchestras in the United States and Europe have performed his works including, the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic, and London’s Royal Philharmonic. His work has been performed and recorded by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Sinfonietta, Slovenian Symphony Orchestra and Louisville Symphony Orchestra. 

His compositions for voice have not received the same coverage as his orchestral compositions but they are equally excellent examples of his craft and artistry. Smith’s 1952 win of BMI’s student composition award for Four Songs was a precursor to his future success in writing for voice. The Valley Wind (1955) for soprano and piano, was also singled out for early critical acclaim. He continued to expand the range of his vocal compositions beyond the traditional pairing of voice and piano, often creating innovative collaborations with solo instruments, chamber, and jazz ensembles, chorus, and orchestras. Another early example of this branching out is his Two Love Songs of John Donne  for Soprano and Nine Instruments (1958). Nearly 30 years later, his chal lenging Three Patterson Lyrics  (1986), for soprano and piano, shows the continued innovation and broadening of expression as he set poetry from Raymond Patterson’s Twenty-Six Ways of Looking at a Black Man and Other Poems. 

Although Smith’s vocal music has remained relatively obscure for decades, his arrangements of spirituals became popular among celebrated artists such as Hilda Harris, Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman, and thus wider audiences began to take notice of his full catalog of vocal literature. Smith’s original arrangement of Balm in Gilead was scored for the Battle-Norman duo, and performed with orchestra under the baton of James Levine. Its part writing intermingles the two voices, sharing primary melodic material within the same phrases seamlessly. Consistent with Smith’s desires, it is not published. His ardent desire was for his non-spirituals catalog not to be obscured or otherwise overlooked by performance of his spirituals, as has occurred with many Black composers.

Performer, composer, poet, and educator, Frederick Tillis was born in Galveston TX. He was exposed to music early and remembers his mother playing piano and singing to him as a child. Tillis learned to play trumpet and excelled so quickly that at age 12 he was hired to play in an adult jazz band, and became known locally as “Baby Tillis.” As a student at Galveston Central High School he was encouraged to play saxophone, and that is the instrument on which he built his performance career. He also worked as a student assistant for the marching band. He received a scholarship at age 16 that enabled him to attend Wiley College in Marshall TX. By his senior year, he was also teaching in the music department and after graduation at age 19 he remained at the school as director of the band and instructor of music theory. He left Wiley College and earned a M.A. in composition from the University of Iowa. His plans for further study were interrupted by the Korean War, during which he served as a band director in the U.S. Air Forces. After the war, Tillis returned to Iowa and earned a Ph.D. in Composition.  

Tillis continued to perform as a jazz saxophonist and traveled with the Tillis-Holmes Jazz Duo and the Tradewinds Jazz Ensemble to over 20 countries. He also continued to teach and after several short-term teaching positions he was hired in 1970 by the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. Tillis remained at the University as a member of the faculty and administration until his retirement in 1997. A composer of extraordinary expanse, his more than 125 compositions and commissions span the range from traditional jazz and classical to a blending of disparate elements from various musical and cultural traditions. He deliberately focused much of his compositional efforts on advancing the range of representation of spirituals in symphonic and choral programing. His compositions were often a fusion of European classical music and the classical music of other traditions, including Eastern cultures, and American jazz (which he referred to as America’s classical music). His music can be likened to taking a road trip and hearing music from every locale encountered, and all the while recognizing the musical influences of adjacent communities and cultures. Although Bach, Schoenberg, Mussorgsky, and Prokofiev influenced him early, Tillis’ travels around the world equally affected him. He found the reflection and influences of the world’s cultures and subcultures as central, and essential, to his harmonic, melodic and textural compositional pallet. 

Performed widely in the United States and internationally, Tillis’ compositions include jazz, orchestral, choral, vocal works, and chamber music. His Concerto for Piano (1983) for jazz trio and symphony orchestra, written for Billy Taylor, and Ring Shout Concerto (1974) for percussion and symphony orchestra, written for Max Roach, are prime examples of his fondness for mixing genres and non-traditional pairings. He has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including a Rockefeller Grant in 1978, and in 1997, the Commonwealth Award from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. As a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts, Tillis considered his greatest accomplishments to have been the creation of the Jazz and African American Music Studies program and the cultural programs he built as Director of the University Arts Center.  

Tillis’ compositions roughly divide into three periods of music. The first, in the 1950s, shows the influence of Bach and counterpoint. In his second period, from 1958–1968, he experimented with serial technique and dissonance. It is during this period that the two songs on this record- ing were composed. These two short songs include in the piano accompaniment, tone clusters, glissandos, harmonics, knocking on instruments to find different pitches, use of pedal effects, and complex rhythmic gestures. The vocal line employs slides, sprechstimme, trills, repetitions, and extended vocal techniques to depict these two lively, and very colorful texts.  In 1989 while conducting research for her first dissertation recital, Louise Toppin spent time in Amherst MA. A chance meeting with Tillis while in Amherst, led to her introduction to these songs which she subsequently presented on her final dissertation recital. 

His final period of composition, after 1968, represents Tillis’ most well known compositions. They are varied, and reflect his African American heritage. He stated that these works, such as his Spiritual Fantasies, were his way of keeping the spiritual at the forefront of his compositions, along with works that fused jazz masterfully into his musical language.  This album is the premiere commercial recording of Two Songs.

Song Texts

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