Harlem Renaissance Festival Radiates Nostalgia

Miami FL

26 January, 2022

3:57 PM

Description

By Bianca Marcof, Miami Times Staff Writer New World Symphony's Miami Beach concert hall will open its doors next week for "I Dream A World: The Harlem Renaissance and Beyond," a five-day celebration of the history and influence of that golden age of Black culture spanning the 1920s and '30s, happening Feb. 1-5. Named after Langston Hughes' moving poem about achieving equality, the inaugural festival at the New World Center will spotlight the music, poetry, visual art and overall impact of the era, which extended far beyond the movement's birthplace of New York. The event kicks off next Tuesday with a night of music and poetry. Kevin Young, an established poet and director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History & Culture, and Tammy Kernodle, Ph.D., an award-winning musicologist at Miami University in Ohio who played an active role in guiding the New World Symphony with putting together the festival, will be exploring the themes of the time period. Argarita N. Johnson-Palavicini, Ph.D., (center) is the director of the Ambassador Chorale of Florida Memorial University. (Courtesy of New World Symphony) South Florida's only HBCU will also take the stage, with Florida Memorial University's Ambassador Chorale performing works by William Dawson and Moses Hogan, as well as traditional gospel songs. "We're taking (the audience) through a little bit of a musical journey, starting with spirituals and ending with gospel," said Ambassador's director, Argarita N. Johnson-Palavicini, Ph.D. "I love making music and I love being able to do it with my students. The joy of working with New World is that it will expose my students to a world that they may not know of, so that's what makes me the most excited. … We put it all together with the band and the choir and the soloist, and it all went so well. It's going to be so good!" Christopher Norwood is the founder of Hampton Art Lovers and curates Black art at the Historic Ward Rooming House. (Courtesy of Christopher Norwood) The chorale's performance will be followed by lauded soprano Michelle Bradley singing works by composers William Grant Still, Florence Price and Margaret Bonds. A reading by local poets and poetry students curated by the O, Miami Poetry Festival is also part of the evening's lineup. Wednesday's schedule includes pianists performing works by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Florence Price, Jelly Roll Morton, Hazel Scott and Irene Britton Smith. Featured will be piano fellows from New World and Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music, as well as pianist Michelle Cann and New World founder, artistic director and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. Pages from Jacob Lawrence and Langston Hughes' "One-Way Ticket," a book of poetry and illustrations, hang on the wall of the Historic Ward Rooming House gallery. (Bianca Marcof for The Miami Times) A reference website tied to the performances of the night, created by pianist and Oxford-educated musicologist Samantha Ege, Ph.D., will feature biographical information and other works by each of the Black composers being featured. And while the composers included in this concert are from the Harlem Renaissance, site content will expand to composers from other historical eras. On Thursday, a number of New World fellows will present an evening of chamber music connecting Harlem's artistic legacy to today, followed by a special screening of Netflix's award-winning "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" on Friday, presented by the American Black Film Festival. The movie, featuring Viola Davis in the title role and the late Chadwick Boseman, follows a fiery blues singer who joins her band for a turbulent recording session in 1920s Chicago. A collection of books by Jacob Lawrence on view in "One-Was Ticket: Movement, Migrations and Liberty" at the Historic Ward Rooming House. (Bianca Marcof for The Miami Times) Saturday concludes the series of events with an orchestral and chamber music concert featuring Duke Ellington's all-encompassing jazz composition, "Harlem." Thomas will return alongside Wilkins to conduct the New World Symphony; the performance will be streamed on Quincy Jones' online platform, Qwest TV. The concert will be preceded by a presentation curated by Florida International University professors informed by books, magazines, photographs and ephemera that explore how artists and authors of the time created a vision of Black modernity that became a global movement. In between the shows, New World Center will display "Interludes of Harlem: Illustrations of Langston Hughes featuring Jacob Lawrence," an exhibition curated by Christopher Norwood, founder of Hampton Art Lovers at the Historic Ward Rooming House. The series of artworks contextualizes America's Great Migration, which ushered in the first Black arts movement. Chadwick Boseman as Levee, Viola Davis as Ma Rainey, and Colman Domingo as Cutler in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom." (Netflix) "It's going to be such a learning experience for the people who attend," he said. "I believe the Harlem Renaissance is the most impactful art movement in the history of America. (It) was a combination of so many different forces, and at the forefront of that was a search for freedom and a search for liberty. … It wasn't just about art, it wasn't just about music, it wasn't just about literature; it was about fundamental freedom." Funded in part by the New World Symphony Collaborations Fund, the New World Symphony Fund for New Ventures and Bank of America, the creation of the festival stemmed from a commitment to inclusion by the orchestral academy. Tickets may be purchased at the New World website at NWS.edu. Musicologist Tammy L. Kernodle, Ph.D. (Courtesy of New World Symphony) "With the murder of George Floyd, the classical music world realized that it had to respond, and one of our responses was to imagine a year of concerts," said Howard Herring, president and CEO of New World Symphony. "We would broaden our understanding, we would cast our net further, we would identify the composers of color who are contemporary – those who are living now but also those historical who had a good bit to say during their own time – and that we would bring those voices forward in the season this year, the 21-22 season." Conductor Thomas Wilkins (Courtesy of New World Symphony) Since the 1990s, New World Symphony has partnered with the Detroit-based Sphinx Organization, a social justice group dedicated to diversity and inclusion in the arts, which found that the overwhelming majority of classical musicians across the field are non-Latinx white, even in cities that are largely Black and Hispanic. With New World going into its 34th year, Herring says that lack of diversity among its fellows remains a major challenge. After the social justice-charged events of 2020, the institution sought to recruit more players of color by casting a wider net through its auditions. For its 30 open slots each year, it receives around 1,000 applicants. Musicologist and Pianist Samantha Ege, Ph.D. (Courtesy of New World Symphony) "We went from 2014 – when we had two or three players of color in the orchestra – to this year, with 15 players of color out of 87 total players in the orchestra," Herring said. "Based on our continued recruiting and the relationships that we've built across the United States, we don't see that changing in any significant way. Perhaps it will go up a little bit, but we see tremendous talent coming to us from players who in prior years just didn't audition. Either because they didn't know the auditions were there (or) because, as often happens, when you're applying for something, you're not sure whether you can make it or not." He says he cannot stress the importance of auditioning enough. "You won't know if you can be successful in an audition unless you take the audition, so we encourage everyone to do so," emphasized Herring. In highlighting the Harlem Renaissance's music, Herring says the festival – which will be streamed online – seeks to call attention to the organization, not just at a local level but nationwide. Close 1 of 4 Harlem Renaissance Festival 11 Duke Ellington (Getty Images via New World Symphony) Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Save Harlem Renaissance Festival 12 Margaret Bonds (Courtesy of New World Symphony) Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Save Harlem Renaissance Festival13 William Dawson (Courtesy of New World Symphony_ Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Save Harlem Renaissance Festival 14 William Grant Still (Courtesy of New World Symphony) Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Save Legends of the Harlem Renaissance 1 of 4 Harlem Renaissance Festival 11 Duke Ellington (Getty Images via New World Symphony) Harlem Renaissance Festival 12 Margaret Bonds (Courtesy of New World Symphony) Harlem Renaissance Festival13 William Dawson (Courtesy of New World Symphony_ Harlem Renaissance Festival 14 William Grant Still (Courtesy of New World Symphony) "This will be a pattern going forward. We will continue to bring forward the voices of underrepresented composers and guest conductors. We will do that across the season, but there will be one moment (in February) when we will have a tight focus and the entire week will be about a specific moment; for us this year it will be the Harlem Renaissance," he said. "I think if you could listen to it all, five days in a row, you would discover just how rich and deep and wide this music is and how it has influenced American life over the years and will continue to do so." The Miami Times is the largest Black-owned newspaper in the south serving Miami's Black community since 1923. The award-winning weekly is frequently recognized as the best Black newspaper in the country by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.