Art song, film and storytelling come together, with music performed on a spinet harpsichord, and a spotlight on composers from the Afro-Caribbean diaspora within the world of Western classical music. That’s the multimedia mix for the concert which takes place March 7 at the Canadian Music Centre.
Allwood’s film Streams of Self-Consciousness, which explores the immigration journey of his parents, incorporating narrative and his musical arrangements, will screen at the event.
The voices of Black composers, while they may have been celebrated during the lifetime of many artists, were often marginalized and forgotten for periods of time. The variety of composers and styles across the centuries that are represented in the program, however, puts the lie to the notion that Black artists have not always been a longstanding part of the classical music world.
The Music
The program includes the work of several composers, and spans centuries from the 18th to the 21st.
Program:
- Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745–1799): Harpsichord Sonata No. 1 in C
- Ignatius Sancho (c. 1729–1780): Four Minuets and Dances
- Scott Joplin (1868–1917): Maple Leaf Rag (1899)
- Harry T. Burleigh (1866–1949): Through the Moanin’ Pines and The Frolic from From the Southland (1907)
- Robert Nathaniel Dett (1882–1943): Desert Interlude from Eight Bible Vignettes (1942)
- Oscar Peterson (1925–2007): Laurentide Waltz from Canadiana Suite (1964)
- James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938), arr. J. Rosalind Johnson (b. 1945: Lift Every Voice and Sing (1900) featuring Nadine Anyan, soprano
- Florence Price (1887–1953); Night, featuring Nadine Anyan, soprano
- H. Leslie Adams (1932–2024); Nightsongs, featuring Nadine Anyan, soprano
- Rashaan Allwood (b. 1994); Streams of Self-Consciousness (2023) featuring Nadine Anyan, soprano
The Performers
Rashaan Rori Allwood
Composer and musician Rashaan Rori Allwood is currently the Composer-in-Residence with Toronto’s New Music Concerts.
After earning a Bachelor’s in Piano Performance from the University of Toronto, he followed with a Master’s degree in Organ Performance at McGill, and recently, earned his PhD in Composition from Western University.
Rashaan has toured Europe and Canada as an organist, and won the 2022 Marilyn Mason Award in Organ Composition from the American Guild of Organists. Part of that prize was a commission for a work for solo organ that premiered in Washington in 2022.
Soprano Nadine Anyan
Canadian born Ghanaian soprano Nadine Anyan holds an Artist Diploma in Voice from the Glenn Gould School at The Royal Conservatory of Music, as well as a Bachelor of Musical Arts degree from Western University.
Her repertoire includes a variety of roles, such as Micaëla in Carmen (with Toronto City Opera), Musetta in La Bohème, Chocholka in The Cunning Little Vixen, A Lady with a cake box in Postcards from Morocco, Oreste in La belle Helène, Una conversa, La sorella infermiera, and Seconda sorella cercatrice in Suor Angelica.
Other performance highlights include a Black History Month Tour sponsored by TD and Joy Bullen (February/March 2020); Chorus in Operetta Theatre’s The Gypsy Baron (December/ January 2019-2020); Concert in Cornwall Ontario celebrating 250 years October 2019. In February 2019, Nadine was selected to perform at the Toronto Reference Library during the week of celebrations for American opera singer Jessye Norman.
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