Voice of taxi driver: Where to?

Female passenger: Carnegie Hall, please.

[music]

Voice of box office: Here are your tickets. Enjoy the show.

Voice of usher: Your tickets, please. Follow me.

Jeff Spurgeon: In New York City, there are lots of ways to get to Carnegie Hall—a taxi, the subway, a walk down 57th Street. You've just found another way to get to America's most storied concert hall. This is Carnegie Hall Live, the broadcast series that gives you a front row seat to concerts by some of the greatest artists in the world. We are thrilled to bring you the return of a very special ensemble on this broadcast, the is here with a program of music by 19th century composer Antonin Dvořák, 20th-century composer William L. Dawson, and 21st century composer Damien Sneed, who has brought a work with him that will be given its New York premiere in just a few minutes. Sneed is in the hall for the performance as well. Backstage at Carnegie Hall, I'm Jeff Spurgeon alongside John Schaefer.

John Schaefer: It really is a festive event each year when the Gateways Festival comes to Carnegie Hall. Since 1993, the Gateways Festival has brought together world-class musicians of African descent for a one-of-a-kind opportunity for cultural exchange and to share musical excellence. Gateways was founded in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, by the pianist Armenta Hummings Dumisani with the goal of bringing together musicians to celebrate Black classical artistry and to inspire audiences.

Jeff Spurgeon: The Gateways organization moved to Rochester, New York, in the mid-'90s, where Hummings Dumisani joined the faculty of the Eastman School, part of the University of Rochester. Eastman is still the home to the festival, where it is thriving, hosting now a broad range of programming, orchestral and chamber music performances, recitals, artist residencies, community events, and a great deal more. We're very pleased also to be sharing the music that's being made in Carnegie Hall today on this broadcast with Rochester listeners who have tuned in via their local public radio station WXXI.

John Schaefer: Welcome to Carnegie Hall Live. The Gateways Festival Orchestra was for many years led by conductor Michael Morgan, but just before their first historic performance here at Carnegie Hall in 2022, Morgan passed away suddenly. Obviously, a huge loss for the community and the orchestra, particularly. Fortunately, conductor Anthony Parnther has taken up leadership of the orchestra, and Jeff, he is here with us once again today.

Jeff Spurgeon: Yes. In addition to his work with the Gateways Festival Orchestra, Anthony Parnther is also music director of the San Bernardino Symphony. He's worked with orchestras around the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and he has an active career, very busy working on television and film scores in Los Angeles.

John Schaefer: Now, you mentioned, Jeff, that we'd be hearing a work from composer Damien Sneed. Sneed has also conducted the Gateways Festival, and he told us about the effect of seeing all these musicians of African descent on stage together.

Damien Sneed: 92 musicians, all of them are musicians of color. Their roots, their heritage, comes from the African and African American diaspora. That's overwhelming. That's really overwhelming. It really is encouraging because I've invited some of my students from Juilliard School, and also some of my students from Howard University, because they've never seen anything like this before. This will be a first experience to see that people can play on the same level as any other reputable orchestra. They may all be Black and brown, brown and Black. It's going to be wonderful.

John Schaefer: Composer and conductor Damien Sneed, talking about the Gateways Festival Orchestra. We'll hear the New York debut of his work called Reflections of Resilience, based on five spirituals, in the second half of the program. Sneed actually conducted the chamber version of the Gateways Orchestra here at Carnegie Hall back in 2023 in a concert that featured Wynton Marsalis' A Fiddler's Tale, played alongside the work that inspired it, Igor Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale. Familiar plot of a musician making a deal with the devil. As we wait for the audience to take their seats here at Carnegie Hall, let's hear a little bit of that. Here's Damien Sneed conducting the Gateway's Chamber Orchestra from a 2023 performance of Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale.

[MUSIC - Gateways Chamber Orchestra: A Soldier's Tale]

Jeff Spurgeon: Some of the Gateway's Chamber Orchestra performance of Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale with a performance from 2023 that took place here at Carnegie Hall under the direction of Damien Sneed, a composer whose work will receive its New York premiere on the concert we're about to bring you by The Gateways Festival Orchestra making another appearance here at Carnegie Hall. They played a wonderful concert last year, and we're very pleased to bring you their performance once again.

Now, the Gateways Festival Orchestra, all the members are on stage. The house lights are down here at Carnegie Hall. Before the music begins, we are expecting a few words from the director of the Gateways Festival, the President and Artistic Director, Alexander Laing. We are just anticipating Mr. Laing's first moments on stage, and then we'll look forward to a concert featuring Dvořák's symphony and work by William L. Dawson and the New York premier of Damien Sneed's new work that will include mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges. Now out on stage, Alexander Laing, President and Artistic Director of the Gateways Festival.

Alexander Laing: Good afternoon, and welcome to Carnegie Hall. I'm Alex Laing, President and Artistic Director of Gateways Music Festival.

[applause]

Alexander Laing: Today marks an historic return. 90 years ago, William Levi Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony was heard here during its premiere week. Despite standing ovations, it vanished from major stages for decades. In the literally thousands of performances in Carnegie Hall by visiting American orchestras since 1934, none included this masterpiece. The last time this work was heard here, Dawson himself stood on the stage to receive the thunderous applause. Today, we're honored to bring his work to life again here.

[applause]

Alexander Laing: The Gateways' first performance represents a pivotal milestone in our three-decade journey from a volunteer-driven initiative in Rochester, New York, to the only professional organization of our scale dedicated to Black classical artistry and Black classical musicians. We are on this prestigious stage not just to look back, but to declare our vision for the future of classical music. Our program today is about transformation of folk music into symphonies of vibrating air. We begin with Dvořák's Symphony No. 8, a masterpiece by a champion of that approach.

When he wrote it, he didn't know it yet, but he would soon journey to America and meet the Black music and musicians who would shape his final works. He didn't know it then, but we know it now. It increases our connection to him and infuses our performance that you're about to hear. After intermission, we hear that music that Dvořák heard. First, a new contribution to the tradition of Black classical artistry, Damien Sneed's Reflection of Resilience: Five Spirituals sung by the incomparable J'Nai Bridges. Finally, William Levi Dawson's bold symphony, of which he said, "I've not tried to imitate Beethoven or Ravel, but to be simply myself, a Negro."

In so doing, he created a great American symphony built on America's original music, the spirituals. We express our profound gratitude to these incredible artists here on stage. Yes indeed.

[applause]

Alexander Laing: To Carnegie Hall, to our exceptional conductor Anthony Parnther, to mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges, and to our visionary supporters who make this historic moment possible, including the University of Rochester and its Eastman School of Music, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Bay and Paul Foundations, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Rochester Area Community Foundation, the ESL Foundation, the Konar Foundation, the Farash Foundation, and our remarkable board of directors, and all the individuals whose belief in our mission makes this work of these remarkable artists on stage possible.

As we reclaim this masterwork today, Gateways looks ahead to an expansive future, commissioning new works, nurturing young artists, and creating spaces where Black classical artistry continues to thrive and transform. This performance isn't just about history. It's about writing this next chapter together. Today's performance is being broadcast live on WQXR and WXXI in Rochester, extending our celebration beyond these walls. We invite you to visit www.gatewaysmusicfestival.org to learn more about who we are and how you can support this artistry. To listeners near and far, welcome to this pivotal moment in our shared musical heritage. Now, we don't have to talk about it, we can be about it. Please join me in welcoming Anthony Parnther and the Gateways Festival Orchestra to the stage.

[applause]

John Schaefer: You heard Alex Laing, who leads the Gateways Festival, giving us a guided tour of the program we're about to hear. Beginning with the Dvořák Symphony No. 8, Alex referred obliquely to the Dvořák's Ninth Symphony, which was based on Black and Native American melodies. This Symphony No. 8 was built on the rhythms of Czech folk music. Anthony Parnther talked a little bit about the connection between this work and the rest of the program.

Anthony Parnther: Dvořák made it really clear his thoughts on American music and that Negro spirituals were the foundation or one of the strongest foundations of so-called American music. Dvořák was also a proud Bohemian, and the work is rich of Bohemian folk tunes. I think there's a lot of similarities in the construction of both works and how he's taken these folk tunes and expanded it into a full symphonic form.

Jeff Spurgeon: Conductor Anthony Parnther, speaking of the work that we're about to hear, the Dvořák 8th Symphony and the rest of the program, the applause that you heard just a moment ago was for the concertmaster Melissa White as she came out and tuned the Gateways Festival Orchestra. Now the applause you're hearing is for this ensemble and conductor Anthony Parnther, who is walking toward the podium now. All the members of the Gateways Festival Orchestra on their feet here in Carnegie Hall as we get ready to enjoy a performance of the Dvořák's Symphony No. 8, the first work on this program of music from the Gateways Festival Orchestra coming to you from Carnegie Hall live.

[MUSIC - Gateways Festival Orchestra: Dvořák's Symphony No. 8]

[applause]

[MUSIC - Gateways Festival Orchestra: Dvořák's Symphony No. 8]

[applause]

John Schaefer: Dvořák's Symphony No. 8 in G major played live on stage at Carnegie Hall by the Gateways Festival Orchestra conducted by Anthony Parnther on Carnegie Hall Live. The conductor pointing out various members of the orchestra.

Jeff Spurgeon: We haven't seen this before. A conductor using the baton to imitate the instrument whose section he wishes to stand for recognition.

John Schaefer: Fingering the baton as if it were a clarinet, to ask the wind players to stand.

Jeff Spurgeon: Turning it sideways, to tell the flutist to stand up. That's really something.

John Schaefer: John Schaefer here alongside Jeff Spurgeon. Jeff, one of the things we both noticed about Anthony Parnther, and I think we noticed this last time Gateways were here, the clarity of his gestures as a conductor. You feel like you could sit in with the orchestra and know what's going on.

Jeff Spurgeon: He's really something. So much of his work is done in Los Angeles in recording studios for films and televisions. This is work that is done by crack musicians who sight-read scores that have never been played before. They are expert at that kind of work. He does have a really wonderful, clear signal. It's really a pleasure to watch him. That's the only part of the pleasure of this concert that you listening right now are deprived of. We did have a wonderful conversation with Anthony Parnther, and we asked him about playing a piece as familiar as the Dvořák is with a group of musicians from orchestras around the country who know how to play it. How do you get a band like this together in a short amount of time? That's what we asked him.

Anthony Parnther: My job as a conductor, I think, are twofold. The first thing is to hopefully create an atmosphere that will encourage the musicians to play at their utmost. My chief job is to convince. All hundred members of this orchestra have played the Dvořák Symphony, commonly performed work. I have to convince them to all unify under one interpretation. It does take a couple of days to get everybody to really gel and coalesce and work as a team. In fact, yesterday I had them play without me conducting. I had to have really forced them to trust each other because you walk on stage and you have a hundred musical experts. I have to show them that perhaps my way might be the clearest way for us to forge our way forward.

Jeff Spurgeon: Conductor Anthony Parnther, speaking of his work with the Gateways Festival Orchestra performing in Carnegie Hall on this concert that we are bringing you from Carnegie Hall live, the Dvořák's 8th Symphony, what you just heard, first performed at Carnegie in 1896 with the New York Philharmonic. Now it's intermission. In second half of this concert, two works, a symphony by American composer William L. Dawson and a New York premiere by Damien Sneed, a work called Reflections of Resilience: Five Spirituals. This is Carnegie Hall Live.

[music]

Jeff Spurgeon: This is Carnegie Hall Live. I'm Jeff Spurgeon, backstage at Carnegie Hall alongside John Schaefer.

John Schaefer: In a few minutes, we're going to hear the New York premiere of American composer Damien Sneed's piece, Reflections of Resilience, which will feature the mezzo-soprano soloist, J'Nai Bridges. New Yorker magazine praises Bridges' calmly commanding stage presence, she has sung in all the world's great opera houses. She is a two-time Grammy winner and this season made her debut as Maddalena in Verdi's Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera. She's also a fan and friend of New York Public Radio, and we're thrilled that she's joined us at intermission. J'Nai, welcome.

J'Nai Bridges: Hi. Thank you for having me.

Jeff Spurgeon: Tell us about this work by Damien Sneed. Did you get to suggest spirituals? Did he come to you? How did it come together? You guys have been friends for a long time.

J'Nai Bridges: Exactly. Damien and I have now been friends for 20 years. We went to Manhattan School of Music together. He's been such a great supporter of mine and me of him. He knows my voice very well. I never had to worry about whether he was going to orchestrate this well enough because he just knows my voice inside and out. When we thought of the programming, we definitely wanted to encompass the traditional spiritual and also make it a bit modern and accessible, and really just show the journey of the Black American experience through the spiritual.

John Schaefer: It's interesting, both works in the second half are built on that rich tradition of American spirituals.

J'Nai Bridges: Yes.

John Schaefer: Both composers are knee deep in that tradition. What about you? Did you--

J'Nai Bridges: Yes. Absolutely, I'm deep in it. I was raised in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Tacoma, Washington. Spirituals, before I even knew that I had this classical voice in me, we would sing hymns, and the older ladies in the church would have this high, beautiful pitch sound. For me, I just thought that that was what singing was. Then when I matriculated into classical singing and formal training, it really came very naturally and seamlessly. My foundation is the church and the spiritual. I'm grateful because I approach everything that I sing from, I think, a deep place.

John Schaefer: Of course, it's important to say that these spirituals are not just musical tradition, they are also a spiritual one.

J'Nai Bridges: Absolutely. A spiritual and traditional. They've guided Black Americans through a lot of the history that we have.

John Schaefer: Right. What about working with Gateways?

J'Nai Bridges: Oh my gosh. This is my first time actually working with Gateways. I have been following them for years, and it has been such a joy and a pleasure. The first day that I walked into rehearsal with this incredible room of musicians and everyone was smiling and clapping at me, I just thought, "Wow, this feels so incredible." Everyone is a top musician from around the country; from Texas, from Washington, everywhere. It's been really cool getting to know everyone. I'm familiar with some, so it kind of feels like a big family. After this, I just feel like I'm going to see everyone and we'll click just as we have been for the past week. It's really special.

Jeff Spurgeon: That's what everybody says about Gateways, it's a little homecoming and a little family reunion that happens every year.

J'Nai Bridges: Oh, absolutely.

Jeff Spurgeon: Now you're part of that. The radio is a wonderful way to share music. It does fall a little bit deficient in the visual aspect, but, J'Nai, the gown that you have on is absolutely splendid.

J'Nai Bridges: Thank you.

Jeff Spurgeon: Can you please tell us about it and maybe describe it and say who designed it? It's absolutely gorgeous.

J'Nai Bridges: How to describe. I have so many gowns, but this gown is like no other that I have. It is kente print from Ghana, and in fact, I got it shipped straight from Ghana. It arrived on Friday. Thankfully, it came in time. By Epiphany, that is the name of the designer. How can I describe this? It's very form-fitted, like a mermaid form. The arms are a bit fish-like.

Jeff Spurgeon: Well, you have some sort of fin work coming up.

J'Nai Bridges: Exactly-- [crosstalk]

John Schaefer: Almost like a stegosaurus, both arms.

Jeff Spurgeon: Some people would say ruffles, but John would say stegosaurus. That's just how it turns out.

J'Nai Bridges: I thought I want to give them-

John Schaefer: It's your old boy. What can I say?

J'Nai Bridges: I love it. It does give that--

Jeff Spurgeon: The colors are green and orange.

J'Nai Bridges: Red and orange and a little bit of blue with some rhinestone work for the bodice. I really love gowns. Well, the audience sees me before they hear me, so I want to give them that wow effect. We'll see what happens. I think they'll be--

John Schaefer: I think they'll be wowed. For an orchestra in a program that is celebrating African roots in the African diaspora, to have a gown that comes from Ghana--

J'Nai Bridges: Exactly. Well, that's what I was going for. This is my first gown that is directly from Africa with African print, and I just thought, why not reach back to my ancestry and take everybody there visually and audibly. I'm just so excited.

Jeff Spurgeon: Well, we are so looking forward to hearing this new work by Damien Sneed written with you in mind. This is part of your heritage now and will become part of your story as well as the story of Gateways, the festival, and the Festival Orchestra here at Carnegie Hall. Congratulations, J'Nai. We can't wait. You might want to take a deep breath before you go on stage. Thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us.

John Schaefer: Thank you. You all are great.

Jeff Spurgeon: J'Nai Bridges with us here on Carnegie Hall Live in advance of her presentation in just a few minutes as soloist in Damien Sneed's brand new work. You're hearing a little squealing off mic. A couple of people just walked in and saw her gown and were as excited by it, frankly, and by the beauty of it as John and I are backstage.

Jeff Spurgeon here. John Schaefer. We're backstage. Orchestra members are relaxed, audience members relaxed. We do have some time left in this intermission, so let's hear another Gateways Festival Orchestra performance from a previous visit here at Carnegie Hall in 2022 when they played the Brahms Variations on a Theme by Haydn with, again, conductor Anthony Parnther.

[MUSIC - Gateways Festival Orchestra - Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Haydn]

John Schaefer: That's an excerpt of a recording made right here at Carnegie Hall. It's the Gateways Festival Orchestra from 2022 with conductor Anthony Parnther playing the Brahms Variations on a Theme by Haydn. Now we're getting near the end of intermission here at Carnegie Hall.

We have two more works coming from the Gateways Festival Orchestra. The new piece by Damien Sneed, featuring J'Nai Bridges and a symphony from American composer William L. Dawson. L stands for Levi or Levi. There's some controversy over how to say the middle name, but Alex Laing, in introducing his piece earlier, said Levi. Either way, this piece was a huge hit when it was premiered here at Carnegie Hall in the 1930s, and yet it will be unfamiliar to most listeners today. Conductor Anthony Parnther told us his theory about why that might be.

Anthony Parnther: It's a piece that basically has fallen into neglect over a span of 50-plus years. You know, sometimes we as Americans have a little bit of an inferiority complex about our own music. It's quite possible in addition to the struggles that Dawson had to be taken seriously, that as we're moving into the '40s and '50s and '60s, that music that might have been considered a little conservative might not have seemed as appealing to orchestras at a time when, let's just say, works of varying craftsmanship were being pushed to the front of the line.

Jeff Spurgeon: Conductor Anthony Parnther on William Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony, which we will hear in the second part of the second half of this concert by the Gateways Festival Orchestra.

John Schaefer: First we'll get the New York debut of Damien Sneed's work, Reflections of Resilience, subtitled Five Spirituals. Damien Sneed told us about this work.

Damien Sneed: It's somewhat like a song cycle with five spirituals that I tried to carefully weave together to highlight the tradition of the American musical art form, the spiritual. Those spirits were often sung during times of slavery, but they express the powerful expressions of resilience. They demonstrate the enduring power of the human spirit. It shows what happens when a deep faith, hope, and determination allows one to push past adversity.

I intentionally try to incorporate a lot of American musical styles and genres, like the spiritual, of course, as we mentioned, jazz, gospel, Afro-Latin rhythmic grooves, even some African drumming, Ghanaian bell as well in the work. I think with everything going on, not just in our country, but in the world, it's a great time, as apropos, prescient, to highlight triumph in the midst of adversity. This is one highlight of struggle turned into triumph.

Jeff Spurgeon: Composer Damien Sneed on his new work Reflections of Resilience. The world premiere of the piece that we'll hear in just a couple of minutes actually occurred just a couple of days ago in Rochester, which is the home city of the Gateways Music Festival. We talked with conductor Anthony Parnther the day after that very first performance of the work about what it's like to premiere a brand-new work with a living composer.

Anthony Parnther: It's always a lot of pressure to take an orchestra through a piece with the composer sitting 20ft away, but my job as a conductor is to have firm opinions about how things should be, even if the composer is sitting a few feet away. I prefer, and I have a long career as a player, as an orchestral player in a studio musician myself, musicians don't really want to hear the conductor yap on and on. They're there to play their instruments and to make a sound.

I definitely always try to approach any piece, whether it's a Brahms symphony, Tchaikovsky symphony, or concerto, I'm more interested in the forest before worrying about the leaves on the tree, so to speak. We read through the entire piece top to bottom as best we can, and then we'll go back and work on some details.

John Schaefer: That is conductor Anthony Parnther talking about his experience leading the world premiere of this piece by Damien Sneed. We will now get the New York premiere, as members of the Gateways Festival orchestra begin to file back out on stage here at Carnegie Hall. The composer, Damien Sneed, told us that for that Rochester world premiere performance, he was going to listen intently and for the Carnegie concert likely to be more emotional. He said he'll probably shed a few tears throughout the performance. He told us a little bit of his process in composing new works, which involves some divine intervention.

Damien Sneed: Well, I'm labeled as the composer creator, but for me, I'm more of a conduit. It sort of is downloaded to me. It's divinely inspired, so it flows through me in my life experiences, my education, everything Damien Sneed, but at the same point, it's not mine, and it's for someone else. It's a gift. Sometimes it's overwhelming for me to experience that for myself.

John Schaefer: That is composer Damien Sneed, and we are going to hear the New York premiere of his piece called Reflections of Resilience, subtitled Five Spirituals. The spirituals are fairly well known. They include Go Down Moses, There is a Balm in Gilead, A City Called Heaven, Sinner Please Don't Let This Harvest Pass, and I Don't Feel No Ways Tired. There's also a kind of an invocation at the beginning of the piece that appears to be in the Yoruba language, perhaps, so a real connection being made to the African roots of this great Black American musical and spiritual tradition.

Reflections of Resilience, the New York premiere, coming up in just a moment from composer Damien Sneed as the Gateways Festival Orchestra tunes and awaits the return of Composer Damien Sneed to the stage, and then the conductor Anthony Parnther will lead us in this live performance.

Jeff Spurgeon: As you were listening, the orchestra filed back on stage. We're just tuned by Concertmaster Melissa White. Stage door is closed, concert hall lights are down, and so the second half of this concert is just about to begin. We await the opening of the stage door and then a few words from the composer, who will be in the hall for this New York premiere of his new work. There it is. The stage door is open and out goes Damien Sneed wearing a beautiful red robe with a gold collar around it and some African cloth.

Damien Sneed: Five Spirituals is a song cycle I created for voice and orchestra that includes five spirituals carefully woven together in a musical tapestry highlighting the tradition of the African American spiritual often sung during times of the enslaved going through hardship, expressing the powerful expressions of resilience, demonstrating the enduring human spirit, standing in triumph despite immense adversity, while reflecting a deep faith, hope, and determination to overcome challenges by connecting to a higher power and community, even in the face of opposition.

This song cycle for voice and orchestra incorporates many American musical styles. The spiritual, jazz, gospel, Afro-Latin rhythmic grooves, and more. It was birthed from the confluence of European music and the vast development of African American cultural roots. From the record of the White Lion slave ship arriving in Point Comfort, Virginia, to today and beyond to the future.

Go down Moses. I decided to use a motif, a theme that the great Nathaniel Dett incorporated in his oratorio, The Ordering of Moses, and William Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony. There's a Bomb in Gilead. It deals with the enslaved coming into Christianity. A City Called Heaven highlights the use of the double entendre in the African American spiritual. Heaven and home could mean both escaping to the north out of slavery and our returning home to the motherland, Africa.

Sinner Please Don't Let This Harvest Pass. It was set by so many other great composers such as Florence Price. And finally, I Don't Feel no Ways Tired. It's a combination of the spiritual and gospel music, as we've heard from Harry T. Burleigh, James Cleveland, and even Jacqueline Hairston. Please enjoy my composition Reflections of Resilience: Five Spirituals.

[applause]

Jeff Spurgeon: The composer, Damien Sneed, setting the stage for you as a listener and for all of the concert goers here at Carnegie Hall to hear the New York premiere of his Reflections of Resilience: Five Spirituals, an invocation of African American spiritual heritage and the heritage of many composers, colleagues of Damien Sneed, if not from this generation, from generations before.

John Schaefer: Once again, this work featuring the voice of the mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges, who will be on stage momentarily along with conductor Anthony Parnther to give us the New York premiere of this work. Very interesting to hear the composer Damien Sneed mention in passing the William Dawson Symphony, which will be the work that concludes this concert from Carnegie Hall Live. A direct connection between the two works on the second half of this program from the Gateways Festival Orchestra.

[applause]

Jeff Spurgeon: You're hearing applause, but you're hearing something beyond that. That's for J'Nai Bridges' gown, I'm telling you, they're glad to see her and eager to hear her sing, but it's also for what she's wearing. It is quite spectacular. Behind her, Conductor Anthony Parnther. Now all on stage for Damien Sneed's Reflections of Resilience from Carnegie Hall live.

[MUSIC - Reflections of Resilience: Five Spirituals - by J'Nai Bridges and Gateways Festival Orchestra, composed by Damien Sneed]

[applause]

Jeff Spurgeon: You've just heard the New York premiere performance of Reflections of Resilience: Five Spirituals, a new composition by Damien Sneed, first time it's ever been performed at Carnegie Hall. The soloist, mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges, and the Gateways Festival Orchestra, conducted by Anthony Parnther. The performance coming to you from Carnegie Hall Live in this special presentation of concert by the Gateways Festival Orchestra, a group of Black classical musicians from around the United States and North America who gather once a year in Rochester, New York for several days of festival and then come to New York for a concert at Carnegie Hall. This one. Backstage at Carnegie Hall, I'm Jeff Spurgeon beside John Schaefer.

John Schaefer: Standing just a few feet away from us, the composer, Damien Sneed. Now he is walking out, and you'll hear another roar of applause from the audience here at Carnegie Hall as he makes his way to center stage and embraces J'Nai Bridges and takes a bow.

Jeff Spurgeon: A work by two good friends, as J'Nai Bridges told us that intermission. She's known Damien Sneed for 20 years. They spent some time at school in New York City together. She said he knows her voice as well as anyone does.

John Schaefer: Anthony Parnther now motioning to the members of the Gateways Festival Orchestra to rise and bask in the applause, along with the composer and the soloist, J'Nai Bridges. Boy, the Orchestra, they had a lot to do in that piece. They had to sing at the beginning and chant and they had to clap rhythmically at moments towards the end. It was as much a celebration and a party as it was a composition.

Jeff Spurgeon: Yes, that's right. That's right. I'm sure that was quite intentional. Damien Sneed not only comfortable in the orchestral world, he's worked with great pop stars in lots of different musical fields. Incredibly versatile musician producing here a brand new composition for orchestra and soloist that we are bringing you from Carnegie Hall live.

John Schaefer: The final piece on the program is one that Damien actually referenced in his opening remarks before we heard his Reflections of Resilience, and that is the Negro Folk Symphony by William L Dawson. Dawson was a choral director and arranger and longtime professor at the Tuskegee institute in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s.

Jeff Spurgeon: We asked conductor Anthony Parnther to set this piece up for us because lots of us don't know it.

Anthony Parnther: The Dawson is set in three movements. It opens up with this absolutely glorious solo horn, but the solo horn will remind you a little bit of Go Down Moses, which is something that I used to sing back in the day when I was doing my Paul Robeson impression.

Jeff Spurgeon: It's still pretty good today.

Anthony Parnther: Not unlike Tchaikovsky or Brahms, and certainly Dvořák, he has leaned into African American folks folk idioms in order to create this very American-soil-born work. The craftsmanship is unbelievable. The way he's able to take one little melodic fragment, for instance, in the third movement, and turn it into one of the most sophisticated sequences I've ever seen in any piece of music, to me is indicative of genius.

Jeff Spurgeon: Conductor Anthony Parnther, speaking of the work we're about to hear by William L Dawson, his Negro Folk Symphony. I think it's so worth mentioning, John, that the first performance of this was given by Stokowski in Philadelphia in Carnegie Hall. Stokowski was quite a progressive conductor, interested not only in new composers, new compositions, but in new sounds too. This is the 100th anniversary of the electric microphone.

John Schaefer: Yes.

Jeff Spurgeon: Stokowski was a great advocate of it and is responsible in some ways, perhaps, even for the quality of sound you're hearing in this broadcast today because of his influence.

John Schaefer: Very interested in opening this music up to a wider audience and to a wider cast of creators, including William L Dawson. And we are now going to hear his Negro Folk Symphony, a work that includes a very loud bell that will be played right near our position here at Carnegie Hall. This is William L Dawson from Carnegie Hall Live and the Negro Folk Symphony.

[MUSIC - Negro Folk Symphony - Gateways Festival Orchestra, composed by William Dawson]

[applause]

[silence]

[MUSIC - Negro Folk Symphony - Gateways Festival Orchestra, composed by William Dawson] [applause]

[MUSIC - Gateways Festival Orchestra: Negro Folk Symphony]

[applause]

John Schaefer: That is the Gateways Festival Orchestra conducted by Anthony Parnther from Carnegie Hall Live, and a performance of the Negro Folk Symphony. A work from 1934 by American composer William Dawson. A three-movement work based on African American Spirituals. Well-received performance here at Carnegie Hall, and Anthony Parnther, as he did in the first half of the program using fingers on the baton to signal the different sections of the orchestra to rise.

All right, flute players, time to stand and take a bow. I'm John Schaefer alongside Jeff Spurgeon. A very colorful piece in three movements. The Bond of Africa, Movement I. Movement II, Hope in the Night, and Movement III, O, Le' Me Shine, Shine Like a Morning Star, based on the spiritual of that name.

Jeff Spurgeon: William L. Dawson was in his 30s when he completed this symphony. Started writing it in his late 20s. I think he was 34, 35 years old when the premiere performance happened at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia in 1934. Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski. They played it a couple of times in Philly and then brought it to Carnegie Hall, where it was very, very well received.

Yet the work has in many ways disappeared. It is filled with some really wonderful rhythmic exercises for the orchestra that seem to me not to be very much of orchestral music of that time. They seem to have gained prominence, actually, in later years. That's my sense of it anyway.

John Schaefer: Well, and also, even the slower movement, Hope in the Night, was colored by the sound of the bell, which was kind of leading the orchestra even though it was actually off stage, not just a couple of feet from where we are sitting. Hugely--

Anthony Parnther: I'm Anthony Parnther, and this is your Gateways Festival Orchestra. One more for them.

[applause]

Anthony Parnther: If you don't mind, the orchestra and I would like to treat you to just one more tune.

[applause]

Anthony Parnther: Is that okay? I think that you have all found this program to be one of great beauty, resilience.

[applause]

Anthony Parnther: One of my favorite quotes comes from Kahlil Gibran, and he once said the following, "The heart in which grief and sorrow has carved the greatest valley is the heart that can contain the most joy." I'll repeat that to you. "The heart in which grief and sorrow has carved the greatest valley is the heart that can contain the most joy. I think that's a lot about what this program has been about today.

[applause]

Anthony Parnther: Now, Carnegie Hall made some announcements that you should leave your cell phones off and in your pocket, but I invite you to bring them out, and I'll tell you why. I hear that New York City is a singing city, and I want to invite all of you to join us on something very special. It is a song that is very meaningful to me, and I think meaningful to the vast majority of the people in this room. It is called Lift Every Voice and Sing.

[applause]

Anthony Parnther: If you're a little rusty on the lyrics--

[laughter]

Anthony Parnther: In church, Bank Street Baptist Church in Norfolk, Virginia, some many years ago, and once we got to that third verse, people started to really slur the words and so forth.

[laughter]

Anthony Parnther: Tonight, we will do the first verse. We will invite back to the stage the great J’Nai Bridges-

[applause]

Anthony Parnther: -to lead us through the song. That's your chance to get this beautiful song in your ear. Then we'll play a little interlude, then you'll hear the timpani, and then I will invite all of you to stand and sing back to us. It has been such a profound honor for us to join you here this afternoon at Carnegie Hall, and I look forward to the next time.

[applause]

Anthony Parnther: With that, let's give an appropriate Carnegie Hall welcome to the great J’Nai Bridges.

[applause]

John Schaefer: Anthony Parnther, our conductor, introducing an encore performance of Lift Every Voice and Sing. Yes, J’Nai Bridges, resplendent in her Ghanaian gown, back out on stage at Carnegie Hall.

Anthony Parnther: I'm going to end this just a little differently. The last words are, "Let us march on 'til victory is won." I think in today's climate we deserve to sing it three times to get the point across.

[applause]

Anthony Parnther: Let us march on 'til victory is won. Amen.

[MUSIC - J'Nai Bridges: Lift Every Voice and Sing]

Lift every voice and sing,

'Til earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the list'ning skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on 'til victory is won.

Anthony Parnther: Rise. I want to hear every single one of you.

J'Nai Bridges: Wow.

[MUSIC - J'Nai Bridges: Lift Every Voice and Sing]

Lift every voice and sing,

'Til earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the list'ning skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on 'til victory is won.

Let us march on 'til victory is won.

Let us march on 'til victory is won.

[applause]

Jeff Spurgeon: Lift Every Voice and Sing. You heard mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges, the Gateway Festival Orchestra conducted by Anthony Parnther, and the audience of this concert at Carnegie Hall. A celebration of the Gateways Festival in its 33rd season. The orchestra, returning to Carnegie Hall again this year for a concert just a few days following an earlier performance in Rochester.

Bringing with them this time Antonín Dvořák's Symphony Number 8, a brand new work by Damien Sneed written for J'Nai Bridges and William L. Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony, and Lift Every Voice and Sing, written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson in 1900 who at that time was leading the NAACP, and his brother composed the music that you heard sang, again, by everyone in Carnegie Hall today? Backstage, I'm Jeff Spurgeon with John Schaefer.

John Scaefer: The song Lift Every Voice and Sing, commonly referred to as the Black national anthem. It's a great way to guarantee yourself a standing ovation at the end of a concert is to have the audience already on their feet singing along.

Jeff Spurgeon: Well, they were commanded to rise, and Anthony Parnther's voice is not one that you would easily refuse, I think.

John Schaefer: Yes. Yes. There is something commanding about that. J'Nai Bridges, back out center stage, bowing to the audience on their feet, applauding the orchestra, who, by the way, many of the orchestra musicians were also singing-

Jeff Spurgeon: Yes, they were.

John Schaefer: -while they were playing. Anthony Parnther, with his hands full, conducting a soloist, a full orchestra, and an entire audience here at Carnegie Hall in that encore performance of Lift Every Voice and Sing.

Jeff Spurgeon: We saw the concert master, Melissa White, with a beaming smile, singing along and playing along as that encore performance took place. Now, the Gateways Festival Orchestra, seated off stage for a moment, but the house lights have come up, and the players now congratulating each other on another, well, what is described to us again and again as a family reunion of these musicians. This orchestra composed of orchestral musicians from around North America and a few areas beyond as well, all of African descent, and all who come to enjoy the experience of playing in the Gateways Festival Orchestra. Now with us at the microphone of Carnegie Hall Live is conductor Anthony Parnther. Congratulations on a great concert.

Anthony Parnther: Oh, it was wonderful to come back to Carnegie Hall three years after our debut and perform this wonderful program and share it with New York City.

John Schaefer: I would like to ask about the way you put this program together, because there are conventions that many orchestras follow. You have a short modern piece, you start with that, then you have your big war horse, you finish with that, and then you put the other thing in the middle. You also could have gone the conventional chronological route. The 19th century piece, then the 20th century piece, then the 21st century piece, with the star mezzo-soprano. You chose neither of those. Explain how you kind of took us on this journey here.

Anthony Parnther: Well, the Dvořák is definitely something that audiences know. We definitely wanted to begin the program with something that had some familiarity, and also display that our orchestra takes the canonical works and the cornerstone pieces of the repertoire very seriously, in addition to the works by people from our own community. We really did two warhorses on the same program as bookends, and as you can see, it takes quite a lot of effort and energy to sustain that.

John Schaefer: The Dawson piece was extremely well received by all accounts here at Carnegie Hall in the 1930s, and yet it has kind of fallen off the musical map. Do you think that performances like this will make this, you know, a more commonly heard piece?

Anthony Parnther: Absolutely. It's just a great work, a great American work. Sometimes, as Americans, we have a little bit of an inferiority complex about our own soil-grown music. All it needs is a few really strong champions and advocates to make sure that this work gets the amount of play that it deserves.

John Schaefer: So you're a gardener?

[laughter]

Anthony Parnther: Absolutely. I definitely look forward to championing this work as much as I can.

Jeff Spurgeon: What does it mean for Gateways to be at Carnegie Hall?

Anthony Parnther: I think it's been a long path. I remember when the announcement that Carnegie Hall had invited the Gateways Festival Orchestra here, I bought tickets to come and see it. In fact, I did, along with about 11 or 12 of my colleagues from all over the country to come here and be a part of the celebration because, of course, we wanted to see Maestro Michael Morgan lead the orchestra and just be reunited with so many musicians that I've grown up with over the last however many years.

It was quite a shock when Michael unexpectedly passed shortly before the first rehearsal for this. I can't even mention what an honor it was to step in for Maestro and then to come back and lead the orphan orchestra here again. I think it was a long pathway for the orchestra to get here and then to return.

John Schaefer: It shows that there is not only a need, but a desire on the community's part to have the orchestra here, to have you come back on a regular basis. What a communal experience it is, as opposed to a kind of proper concert, you know, where people sit and applaud politely at the end.

Anthony Parnther: Absolutely. Well, as you notice, this is an informed crowd, but they loudly applauded in between every single movement of-

John Schaefer: Oh, yes.

Anthony Parnther: -everything that we played this afternoon. It just goes to show that the spirit of this orchestra resounded brilliantly throughout the hallway tonight.

Jeff Spurgeon: So it did. So it did. Anthony Parnther, thank you so much for the performance and for your time with us at Carnegie Hall.

Anthony Parnther: Oh, thank you.

Jeff Spurgeon: You have lots of people who want to say hello to you, I know. Thank you for the time.

Anthony Parnther: Absolutely. Thank you all so much for being here with us.

Jeff Spurgeon: All right. Well, we'll hope to see you in another season with another performance. Thus, I believe. John, we are about ready to wrap up this broadcast of Carnegie Hall Live, with thanks to Clive Gillinson and the staff of Carnegie Hall. WQXR's team includes engineers George Wellington, Duke Marcos, Irene Trudel, Neal Shaw, and Noriko Okabe.

John Schaefer: Our production team is Eileen Delahunty and Dominic Hall-Thomas. Our project director is Christine Herskovits. I'm John Schaeffer.

Jeff Spurgeon: I'm Jeff Spurgeon. We're grateful to those of you listening from Rochester today on WXXI. Carnegie Hall Live is a co-production of Carnegie Hall and WQXR in New York.

 

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