Review: New World Symphony Marks Black History Month

In Monday’s (2/10) South Florida Classical Review, Lawrence Budmen writes, “ ‘Transitions and Trailblazers’ formed the theme of the New World Symphony’s annual Black History Month concert and William Grant Still, Julia Perry and William L. Dawson were certainly pioneering African-American composers of classical music. On Sunday afternoon at the New World Center, conductor Jeri Lynne Johnson led excellent performances of a fine sampling of their works. Still’s Festive Overture was the prize winner in a competition for a work celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Cincinnati Symphony in 1944…. New World’s luminous strings and crackling brass gave full thrust to his luxuriant writing…. Julia Perry (1924-1979) had a significant career as a choral conductor and educator. Her 1951 setting of the Stabat Mater is a starkly powerful evocation of the Virgin Mary’s pain and grief at witnessing her son Jesus’ crucifixion…. Premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski in 1934 … Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony … languished in obscurity until three decades later when Stokowski recorded the work with the American Symphony Orchestra. Recently the score has deservedly been receiving an increasing number of performances. Dawson’s three-movement work is a major achievement…. Dawson’s symphony requires an outstanding performance and that is what it received from Johnson and the New World fellows.”