Celebrating Juneteenth
Overview
Orchestra of New Spain presents
Multiple Venues:
June 9 at 7:00 pm: Zion Lutheran Church, 6121 East Lovers Lane, Dallas, Texas 75214
June 11 at 6:30 pm: St. Paul Lutheran Church and Christian Academy, 5725 S Marsalis Avenue, Dallas, Texas 75241
CDC protocols to be followed for masking and distancing
Details
For our second celebration of the Texas roots of Juneteenth we continue to honor a range of classical music and song by Black composers. Highlighting the rich vocal tradition of the Black community we feature celebrated soprano and versatile local chorus master, Alfrelynn Roberts, in a program of John Carter and Courtney Carey’s arrangement’s of traditional spirituals I Wanna Be Ready and Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel. The exploration includes works of local protégé Quinn Mason in Petite Symphonie de Chambre Contemporaine (après Milhaud), honoring French composer Darius Milhaud, and Florence Price’s rhythmically appealing Adoration. Afro Cuban Jose White Lafitte was a composer with an exceptional career in teaching and performing, starting from the Paris Conservatory and leading to court musician in Brazil, represented in our program with La Bella Cubana. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor is the outlier in our programming, London born and educated he writes in the romantic European style of the 19th C with nary a hint of the Americas heard among the others.
It’s a program of revelation of and honor to composers who have overcome and succeeded.