21 - Classical Trends for Film, Television and Broadway

John Williams, famous American musical composer and conductor

Trends of a classical nature in music for film, television and theater as well as that called New Age 1950 - 2010

20 - The Many Varieties of Music from Around the World (2 of 2)

This is the second of two parts covering music from around the world.

Things to Consider

• Where Western influences are apparent and not apparent
• The common instruments and instrumental ensembles in these regions
• Typical use of rhythms and rhythm patterns
• Use of harmony, scales and aesthetic values
• Melodic content: simple or complex

19 - The Many Varieties of Music from Around the World (1 of 2)

This section and the one that will follow covers a brief overview of World Music - the music that is not a part of Western Classical or American Pop and Folk music varieties. This section is about the music traits of Native Americans and also the types that have developed throughout Latin American and some countries in South America.

What to Listen For:

1. Pitch patterns, particularly pentatonic.
2. Styles in which harmony isn’t valued.
3. Non-Western rhythms or sense of meter.
4. Musical instruments and vocal styles.
5. Functional and ceremonial music not designed to entertain.
6. Music that mixes American styles with cultural styles.

18 - Afri-Classical: Classical Musicians of African Heritage

• A General Assumption

1. Melody and harmony probably originated in Europe (including Russia).
2. Rhythm probably originated in Africa or Central America.
3. The merger of these elements occurred and matured over a vast amount of time.
4. Each was dependent on the other to bring about a meaningful existence for music, one of God’s great gifts, whether simple or complex.

• A Definition of "Classical" Music: Beyond the music of the Classic era

1. Encompasses the Concepts of Music Developed in Italy, Austria, France, Germany, and England.
2. “Classical Music” originates from the Latin classicus, meaning first class, or for the Romans, artistry of the highest order.
3. Differentiated from Folk and Popular styles.
1. Folk: Originated with people and was passed from generation to generation in the oral tradition
2. Popular: Exists in support of or the result of profit-centered mechanisms; is less complex but accessible to more individuals
4. Also known as “art” or “concert” music.
1. Exists in written form
2. Can be studied and analyzed
3. Complex
4. Techniques
5. Forms
6. Applied studies
5. Appeals to people with critical interest and developed musical taste (seriousness of intent in listening or performing).

• Composers of Art Music of African Descent: European beginnings, North American endings.

1. For the Years 1750-1900
1. Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780)
1. Raised as house slave in Greenwich, England. Taught himself to read and educated himself, books owned by aristocratic family who employed him
2. Sixty-two short compositions survive in four self-published volumes
2. Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799)
1. Born on French Caribbean island of Guadalupe to slave-mistress of his father
2. Skilled at playing harpsichord and violin
3. Organized a string quartet, directed orchestras, involved in operas
4. Output - four symphony concert antes, three violin concertos, six string quartets
5. performed music with Queen Marie-Antoinette
3. Edmund Dede (1827-1903)
1. Born in New Orleans to free Creole parents
2. Moved to Bordeaux becoming popular and prolific music composer
3. Output - ballets, operettas, opera-comiques, overtures, more than 250 dances and songs
4. Scott Joplin (1868-1917)
1. Known as the “King of Ragtime”, composed classical works as well
2. Opera “Treemonisha” has been performed by the Gunther Schuller and the Houston Grand Opera.
5. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)
1. An Afro-British composer who only visited the US.
2. Wrote the cantata, Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, in 1898. The composition was performed in concert over 200 times and made his name a household word on both sides of the Atlantic.
3. Sought to do for African music what Johannes Brahms did for Hungarian music and Antonín Dvořák for Bohemian music.
4. Output - chamber music, anthems, and the “African Dances” for violin, among other works totally 82 in all.
2. For the Years 1900-Present
1. William Grant Still (1895-1978) is considered by many as the dean of African American composers
1. Oboist, arranger and composer of jazz and popular music themes.
2. In 1931, Still’s best known composition, Afro-American Symphony, was performed by the Rochester Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Howard Hanson, thus becoming the first work of its kind by a black to be performed by a major symphony orchestra. He incorporated the Blues and Jazz in it. It is still one of the most recognized classical works by a black composer.
3. Excerpts from his “Laredo Suite” were used as background music for the hit television shows Perry Mason, The Three Stooges, Have Gun, Will Travel, and Gunsmoke.
3. Ulysses Simpson Kay, Jr. (1917-1995) was one of the leading black composers in the classical music industry in the 20th Century.
1. Born in Tucson, Arizona, Kay grew up in a musically talented family. 
2. His maternal uncle, of whom Kay was very fond, was the highly acclaimed jazz musician King Oliver.
3. From 1953 to 1968, Kay worked for Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), the major U.S. performing rights organization, as a music consultant.
4. In 1968 he was appointed a distinguished professor at Herbert H. Lehman College of the City University of New York and taught there until 1988.
5. Output of 140 musical compositions - five operas, 20 orchestral works, 30 choral pieces, 15 works for chamber groups.
4. Julia Amanda Perry (1924-1979) was a prolific composer of neoclassical music during her relatively brief life. 
1. Born on March 25, 1924 in Lexington, Kentucky
2. In 1952 and 1954 Perry received two Guggenheim fellowships to study in Florence, Italy under the tutelage of Lugia Dallapiccola and in Paris, France with Nadia Boulanger. After spending nearly a decade in Europe studying with several prominent composers, she returned to the United States in 1959 to become part of the music faculty at Florida A & M College (now University) and later took a teaching position at Atlanta University.
3. By the late 1960s her works had received wide acclaim and were performed by the New York Philharmonic and other major orchestras.
4. Output - 12 symphonies, two concertos, three operas, numerous smaller pieces  
5. Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932-2004) Musician, composer, and conductor, Perkinson began showing an interest in music at a very young age. 
1. Born in Manhattan, New York City
2. Perkinson’s mother, a talented pianist, organist, and theater director in the Bronx, named her son after the Afro-British composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
3. Perkinson had a long and successful career in the music industry. He worked as a music director and arranger for many famous jazz and soul artists including Marvin Gaye, Barbara McNair, Lou Rawls, and Harry Belafonte. Perkinson also composed numerous musical scores for the stage, film, and television. He wrote ballet scores for dance companies like Dance Theater of Harlem and Alvin Ailey. He also wrote and conducted the scores for award winning films such as Montgomery to Memphis, a documentary about Martin Luther King Jr., and A Warm December, a film both starring and directed by Sidney Poitier. Perkinson also wrote the theme songs for several hit network television shows.

• An Overview of Classical Performers of African Heritage

1. George Bridgetower (1780-1860)
1. Child prodigy of African American father and German mother
2. Prince of Wales (later George IV) arranged music studies with established musicians.
3. Met Beethoven in Spring 1803, wrote “Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 47” for him. Beethoven played piano and Bridgetower played violin at premiere Before the work was published, the two men had disagreement, Beethoven replaced Bridgetower's name with that of Rodolphe Kreutzer.
2. Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897 – April 8, 1993)
1. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Anderson was an African American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century. Music critic Alan Blyth said "Her voice was a rich, vibrant contralto of intrinsic beauty."
2. The life and art of Marian Anderson has inspired several writers and artists. She was an example and an inspiration to both Leontyne Price and Jessye Norman. In 1999 a one-act musical play entitled My Lord, What a Morning: The Marian Anderson Story was produced by the Kennedy Center.
3. Anderson was an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid-twentieth century.
3. Paul Leroy Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976)
1. African-American singer and actor who became involved with the Civil Rights Movement.
2. Graduated from Rutgers University where he was an outstanding football player. Graduated from Columbia University Law School in 1922. Had an international career in singing, as well as acting in theater and cinema.
3. While living in Harlem he became well known as a Shakespearean actor as well as singer.
4. He became politically with regard to social injustices. Ill health forced him into retirement from his career. He remained an advocate of the unpopular political stances he took until his death.
4. William Caesar Warfield (January 22, 1920 – August 26, 2002), 
1. Born in West Helena, Arkansas and grew up in Rochester, New York.
2. An African American concert bass-baritone singer and actor.
3. Warfield gained notoriety for singing “Ol’ Man River” in the 1951 film production of Show Boat. In 1952, Warfield performed in Porgy and Bess during a tour of Europe for the US State Department.
5. McFerrin, Robert Keith, Sr. (1921–2006) in Marianna, Arkansaa
1. In 1953 baritone Robert McFerrin Sr. made history as the first African American to win the Metropolitan Opera House’s Auditions of the Air radio contest.  On January 27, 1955, in the role of Ethiopian King Amonasro in Verdi’s Aida, McFerrin made history again by becoming the first African American male to perform as a member of the Met (and the second black American to do so, less than three weeks after contralto Marian Anderson broke the Met’s color barrier).
2. McFerrin’s voice stood in for Sidney Poitier’s in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, a 1958 musical film directed by Otto Preminger.
3. A stroke McFerrin suffered in 1989 affected his speech, but not his singing. Four years later McFerrin sang with the St. Louis Symphony where his Grammy-winning vocalist son, Bobby, conducted.
6. Mary Violet Leontyne Price (born February 10, 1927)
1. An African American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South (Laurel, Mississippi).
2. She was a graduate of Wilberforce College and Julliard School of Music.
3. She rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s.
4. Though other African Americans had leading rolls at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Price was, perhaps, the first to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera by singing lead rolls season after season.
7. Jessye Mae Norman (born September 15, 1945), Augusta, Georgia
1. American Grammy award-winning contemporary opera singer and recitalist, and is a successful performer of classical music.
2. At the age of nine, Norman heard opera for the first time on the radio and was immediately an opera fan. She started listening to recordings of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price whom Norman credits as being inspiring figures in her career.
3. A dramatic soprano, Norman is associated in particular with the Wagnerian repertoire, and with the roles of Sieglinde, Ariadne, Alceste, and Leonore.
8. Kathleen Deanna Battle (born August 13, 1948, Portsmouth, Ohio)
1. American operatic light lyric-coloratura soprano known for her agile and light voice and her silvery, pure tone.
2. Battle initially became known for her work within the concert repertoire through performances with major orchestras during the early and mid-1970s. She made her opera debut in 1975. Battle expanded her repertoire into lyric soprano and coloratura soprano roles during the 1980s and early 1990s. Although she no longer appears in operas, she remains active in concert and recital performances.

Significant sources of information on the above come from the following locations on the web.

Widipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.

(en.wikipedia.org)

BlackPast.org - Remembered and Reclaimed.

(www.blackpast.org/blacks-classical-music)

AfriClassical.com: African Heritage in Classical Music

(chevalierdesaintgeorges.homestead.com)

Exploring Music's "Portraits in Black, Brown and Beige: Celebrating African-American Composition and Performance" is a series of programs broadcast on public radio stations. There are ten programs of one hour length. The programs are archived though they are fresh since they were produced this year (2014).

Prof. Songer

JCTC - Downtown

17 - 20th Century Classical Music (1890 - 1965)

NOTE that this is part one of two parts covering Classical music of the 20th Century.

Characteristics of “Modern” Classical Music (1900-1965)

1. Diverse
2. Conventional instruments
   1. Traditional techniques
   2. Unconventional techniques
3. Unconventional instruments
4. Often complex
   1. Blurred tonality
   2. Longer melodies
   3. Difficult, puzzling forms
5. Timbre and rhythm over melody and harmony

16 - Jazz, America's Classical Music

Historical Events of 1910 to 1955

1. World War I
2. Increase in Immigration from Eastern Europe
3. Women’s Suffrage (right to vote)
4. Prohibition and It's Repeal
5. Radio, offers access to entertainment in the home
6. Broadway Musicals (musical theater)
7. Stock Market Crash and Great Depression
8. New Deal (Franklin Roosevelt, President)
9. Industrialization and Return of Prosperity
10. World War II on Two Fronts, Europe and Pacific
11. Peacetime Prosperity
12. Korean Conflict
13. Nuclear Arms Raise and Cold War
14. Birth of Rock-n-Roll