Featuring:  Lance Bryant, Saxophone

Celebrate bold voices with Valerie Coleman’s Umoja Unbound, featuring lively rhythms and a spirit of unity that pulses with contemporary energy. Saxophonist Lance Bryant joins us for Duke Ellington’s Three Black Kings. Critics enjoy his “rich, expressive sound that blends jazz authenticity with symphonic elegance.” The program culminates in Dvořák’s beloved New World Symphony, a sweeping masterpiece inspired by the promise and folk spirit of America.

Program:

Umoja Unbound (Anthem of Unity) (8 minutes)

By Valerie Coleman
Arranged by Sam Hyken, Aaron Lebos, Armando Lopez, Jason Matthews

Watch Nu Deco Ensemble play Umoja Unbound. (The full orchestra version we’re playing is just a little different.)

Read about Valerie Coleman’s Umoja – Anthem of Unity. Our concert features one version of Umoja, about which Coleman says, “Umoja has seen the creation of many versions, that are like siblings to one another, similar in many ways, but each with a unique voice that is informed by Coleman’s ever-evolving creativity and perspective.”

Three Black Kings (“Les Trois Rois Noirs”) (18 minutes)

  1. Part 1 – King of the Magi
  2. Part 2 – King Solomon
  3. Part 3 – Martin Luther King

By Duke Ellington & Mercer Ellington
Arranged by Luther Henderson
Orchestrated by Maurice Peress

Three Black Kings was the last major work by jazz legend Duke Ellington. As he reached the end of his life in 1974, he left his son, Mercer, detailed instructions on how to finish the piece. It is a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., connecting him with two biblical Black kings. The first movement, King of the Magi, depicts King Balthazar with lush African and Eastern musical motifs. The next movement, King Solomon, evokes luxury and splendor with a lighter jazz sound. The final movement, Martin Luther King, opens bittersweetly, then becomes exultant and powerfully hopeful.

Intermission (20 minutes)

Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World” (40 minutes)

  1. I. Adagio – Allegro molto
  2. II. Largo
  3. III. Scherzo. Molto vivace
  4. IV. Finale. Allegro con fuoco

By Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Dvořák composed this popular piece, also known as New World Symphony, in 1893 while he was the director of the National Conservatory of Music of America. He was inspired by folk music, which he felt was the future of American music. The second and the third movements were also inspired by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha. While European audiences of Dvořák’s time would have still recognized his distinct Bohemian style, no one can deny it has distinctly American elements. There is a flute solo in the first movement that resembles “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” There is an English horn melody in the second movement that sounds so much like an African-American spiritual that someone later wrote words as if it were one (“Goin’ Home”). The third movement blends older, more European ideas into the piece, then the finale ties everything together, unifying the sounds of the “Old” and “New” worlds into one profound symphony.