African Heritage Symphonic Series (Volume 3) (Michael Abels - David Baker - William Banfield)

Album review

African Heritage Symphonic Series Volume III is the third installment in a series devoted to African-American composers on Chicago-based Çedille Records. Conductor Paul Freeman, with the Chicago Sinfonietta, does a splendid job throughout in transmitting these works, carefully constructing and delivering them with a sense of devotion and great care. Michael Abels' Global Warming is both the shortest and most accessible of these pieces. It has already gained some traction in concert circles; it is colorful, evokes the signature gestures of multiple cultures, and never gets dull or long-winded. Abels has stated his preference for writing orchestral music, and based on Global Warming, one is left wanting to hear more of what he has to offer. Though not as immediate as Global Warming, William Banfield's Essay for Orchestra likewise demonstrates a deft handling of orchestral color and interesting ideas. Some of Banfield's preferences in orchestral sound is reminiscent of 1970s television scoring; not a bad place to come from, but it can be overused. Banfield does well to mix it up and keep the level of variety high. David Baker is a long-established name in African-American concert life, and his lengthy tenure at Indiana University in Bloomington, in addition to his large and varied worklist, are well worth admiring. However, his Cello Concerto, the only one of these works that has witnessed a second recording, is a child of its time and place. It was written in 1975 for Janos Starker, and while Baker's admixture of Berg and Webern is not without its moments of lyricism, it is mostly tense and dense, redolent with the serial academicism that was common on university campuses in the '70s. Not so Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson's Generations: Sinfonietta No. 2. Although written 40 years after its predecessor, which is now featured on the Çedille Records release Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson: A Celebration, it shares the same concerns with influences and transformation as the earlier work. Toward the end of the first movement, there is a long section that takes a figure similar to that of I'm in a Dancing Mood and sends it through a series of variations that is like Hindemith meets Bernard Herrmann. It is eminently listenable, and very well done. From both the content, and the comments from the participants included, it is clear that twenty first century African-American composers have much the same concerns that their Caucasian and Asian colleagues have -- performances, techniques, influences, roots, and relevance. Nevertheless, for a culture now largely unfamiliar with even the basics of symphonic music, any kind of contextual placement is welcome as long it brings this music to the attention of listeners.
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