The use of cameras or recording equipment during the

performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones,

pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

Please note that late entry or reentry ofthe

East Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

www.nga.gov

COVER: Paul Stevenson Oles, Sketch ofthe East Building Exterior, 1971,

National Gallery ofArt Archives, Gift of I. M. Pei and Partners

The Seventy-second Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,981st Concert

Louise Toppin, soprano

Leon Bates, pianist

In honor ofAfrican American History Month and

the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of Marian Anderson’s

historic concert at the Lincoln Memorial

February 23, 2014

Sunday, 6:30 pm

East Building Auditorium

Admissionfree
Program

Samuel F. Smith (1808-1895), arranged by Leon Bates

My Country ‘Tis ofThee

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)

O luce quest’ anima

From Linda di Chamounix

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Ave Maria

Gott im Fruhling

Schubert

Impromptu in G-jlat Major, op. 90

Leslie Adams (b. 1932)

Etude in G Minor

Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949)

The Grey Wolf

Adams

Sence You Went Away

Margaret Bonds (1913-1972)

The Pasture

Stopping by Woods

Traditional, arranged by Bates 

There Is a Balm in Gilead

Thomas Kerr Jr. (1915-1988)

Gospel Train

Edward Boatner (1898-1981)

Trampin’

Jacqui Hairston

Guide My Feet

Florence Price (1887-1953)

My Soul is Anchored in the Lord

George Walker (b. 1922)

Theme and Variations from Sonata no. 1

Joshua Uzoiqwe (1946-2005)

Eriri Ngeringe

From Six Igbo Songs

Nkeiru Okoye (b. 1972)

I am Harriet Tubman

From Songs ofHarriet Tubman

Walker

Allegro con brio, from Sonata no. 1
The Musicians

LOUISE TOPPIN

A finalist in the Munich International Competition and a winner ofthe Metropolitan Opera regional auditions, Louise Toppin has received critical acclaim 

for her operatic, orchestral, and oratorio performances in Bermuda, the Caribbean, China, Czech Republic, England, Japan, New Zealand, Scotland, Spain,

Sweden, the United States, and Uruguay. She has appeared in recital at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Lincoln Center, Merkin Concert Hall, as well

as the Licieu Theatre in Barcelona and the International Albeniz Festival in

Camprodon, Spain.

In demand as a soloist, Toppin has performed with the Chicago Sinfonietta and Manhattan Chamber orchestras as well as the Montevideo

Philharmonic, Scotland Festival, Tokyo City, and Czech National symphony

orchestras. A favorite guest ofregional orchestras in the United States, 

she has sung with the symphony orchestras ofCanton, Ohio; Charlotte,

North Carolina; Fairfield, Connecticut; Fayetteville, North Carolina; Honolulu, Hawaii; Petersburg, Virginia; Toledo, Ohio as well as the Erie, Pennsylvania and Raleigh, North Carolina chamber orchestras. Known for her

interpretation ofthe music ofJ. S. Bach, she has been featured with the

Bach Aria Group and the Phoenix and Washington Bach consorts.

In addition to the title role in the world premiere of Luyala by William 

Banfield and Maria in the world premiere ofJoel Feigin’s Twelfth Night, Toppin 

has sung the title role in Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha, Mary in William Grant

Still’s Highway One, and both Clara and Bess in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

No stranger to Mozart’s opera masterworks, she has sung Goldentrill in The

Impresario, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Elisa in II Re Pastore, and the Queen

ofthe Night in The Magic Flute.

A graduate ofthe University of Michigan, Peabody Conservatory, and

the University of North Carolina, Toppin has studied with Mattiwilda Dobbs, 

Reri Grist, Charlotte Holloman, Sylvia Olden Lee, and George Shirley. A

professor of voice at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina,

Louise Toppin appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with Joanne

Rile Artist Management, www.rile.com.

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LEON BATES

A veteran ofrecitals in major concert halls on five continents, Leon Bates

appears tonight for the fourth time at the National Gallery ofArt, having

first performed here in 1972. For his brilliant musicianship and untiring

work with young people, he received the Raoul Wallenberg Humanitarian

Award from the Greater New York Wallenberg Committee and a lifetime

achievement award from the National Association of Negro Musicians.

Recent highlights of his career include a performance with Lorin Maazel 

and the Orchestra of France, participating in the Steinway Foundation’s

Carnegie Hall celebration ofthe production oftheir 500,000th piano, and

a televised performance at La Scala in Milan, for which he received numerous ovations from a jubilant audience.

With a repertoire that includes more than thirty piano concertos, Bates

has appeared with the American, Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit,

and National symphony orchestras as well as the Los Angeles Philharmonic,

the New York Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Outside the

United States, he has been a concerto soloist with the Czech National,

Prague, Strasbourg, Quebec, and Vienna symphony orchestras as well as

the Sinfonia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.

A native of Philadelphia, Leon Bates began formal study ofmusic at age 

six on both piano and violin. A pupil ofIrene Beck at Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School, he went on to advanced study under Natalie Hinderas

at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music. Holder of an honorary

doctorate from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, Leon

Bates appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with Joanne Rile Artist

Management, www.rile.com.

5
Program Notes

Concert presenters throughout the Washington, DC, area are noting the

seventy-fifth anniversary ofthe concert that Marian Anderson sang on

Easter Sunday 1939 on the steps ofthe Lincoln Memorial. Blocked by the

Daughters ofthe American Revolution from singing in Constitution Hall, 

Anderson staged the concert on the grounds ofthe memorial to the Great

Emancipator, an unprecedented move that drew international attention. In

tonight’s celebration, Leon Bates will play the same piano that was used

on that historic occasion. Built in 1928, this Steinway D was, throughout the

1930s and 1940s, the only concert grand that could be rented from the Kitt

Piano Company ofWashington. In 1948, after having rented the piano for

the first six years ofits weekly concerts, the National Gallery music department was able to raise funds to purchase the instrument, and it has served

the Gallery dependably ever since.

In addition to some ofthe songs Anderson sang on that occasion,

Louise Toppin presents a sampling ofher own favorite spirituals and songs

by African American composers. In the 1939 recital, the piano was not

featured as a solo instrument, but on this occasion it steps forth in full glory

in solo selections by Leon Bates, drawn from his extensive repertoire of

standard classics and music by African American composers.

Leslie Adams studied at Long Beach State University, Oberlin College,

and Ohio State University. A resident of Cleveland, Ohio, he continues a

busy schedule of composition and appearances throughout the country. 

Composer, arranger, and professional singer Harry T. Burleigh was the first

black composer to arrange traditional melodies in sophisticated classical 

style, bringing together the worlds ofAfrican American tradition and

mainstream concert artistry. One ofthe first black women to gain recognition as a composer, Margaret Bonds is best remembered for her frequent

collaborations with Langston Hughes.

A native of Baltimore, Thomas Kerr Jr. graduated from the Eastman

School of Music and taught at Howard University. Although primarily a

pianist, he composed a number ofsignificant works for the organ and

6

served as organist ofWashington, dc’s Plymouth Congregational Church.

Educated at Western University in Quindaro, Kansas, the Boston Conservatory, and Roosevelt University, Edward Boatner taught at Samuel Huston

and Wiley colleges in Texas and sang with and composed songs for Roland

Hayes (1887-1977) and R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943).

San Francisco Bay Area pianist and composer Jacqui Hairston studied

at the Juilliard School of Music and Howard and Columbia universities.

Author of a documentary about her cousin, songwriter and actor Jester

Hairston (1901-2000), she has published more than thirty original spirituals and numerous spiritual arrangements. The first black woman in the

United States to be recognized as a symphonic composer, Florence Price

wrote music in the American idiom, with special emphasis on her Southern

roots. In 1907 she was one ofthe first African American women graduates

ofthe New England Conservatory of Music, where she majored in piano,

organ, and music education.

One ofthe most frequently performed composers in the roster ofAmerican composers whose works have been heard at the National Gallery, George

Walker was the first African American composer to win a Pulitzer Prize.

A graduate of Oberlin College and the Curtis Institute of Music, he has

published nearly one hundred works, including five piano sonatas; sonatas

for violin, viola, cello, and piano; a mass; and numerous other choral works.

Until his retirement in 1992, he taught at Rutgers University.

Nigerian composer and ethnomusicologist Joshua Uzoiqwe was a member ofthe Igbo ethnic group, and many ofhis works draw on the traditional

music ofthat people. He completed his undergraduate degree at London’s

Guildhall College ofMusic and completed doctoral studies at Queen’s University in Belfast Northern Ireland. During the three-year Biafran Civil War, he

was a member ofthe Odunke Community ofArtists, which strove to sustain

cultural life during the conflict. Songs ofHarriot Tubman is the major work to

date by Nkeiru Olcoye, whose music combines African American, contemporary classical, popular, and West African influences. A graduate ofOberlin

College and Rutgers University, she was an assistant professor ofmusic at

Morgan State University in Baltimore from 2001-2005.

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Texts and Translations

O luce di quest’ anima / O Light ofMy Soul

(Gaetano Rossi)

Ah! I’m too late, and at our favorite rendezvous,

I have not found my dear Carlo.... and who

knows how much he will have suffered!

But not as much as me. He’s left me these flowers

as a token ofhis love! Tender heart!

And for that heart I dearly love only him.

We are both poor, we live on love, on hope:

an unknown painter, he will rise by his talents!

I will be his wife then... O how happy we will be!

O light ofmy soul, delight, love and life,

our fate will be united on earth, in heaven.

Come to me, rest on this heart that loves you,

that sighs and longs for you, that lives for you alone.

Ave Maria / Hail, Mary

Hail Mary, full of grace, The Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou among women, and blessed Is the fruit ofthy womb, Jesus.

Ave Maria! Holy Mary, Mother of God,

Pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.

Gott im Friihling / God in Spring

Thou hast sent Spring to us 

In his gleaming robe,

Bound roses round his head,

Here he comes, sweetly smiling!

The Hours attend him,

O God, on his flowery throne.

He goes to the groves, and they blossom;

The fresh green ofthe meadows returns,

And in the woods shadows reappear.

The west wind, softly murmuring,

Swings his dewy pinions;

And all the birds sing with joy.

Together with your sweet-sounding song,

Ye birds, my song also will

Soar to the Father of all Nature.

Rapture transports me!

I will sing praises to the Lord

To Whom I owe my being!
The Grey Wolf

Arthur Symons

The grey wolf comes again! I had made fast the door with chains;

How has the grey wolf pass’d my threshold? I have nothing left to give,

Go from me now, grey wolf and let me live! I have fed you once given all you would

Given all

I had to give,

I have been prodigal

Go from me now grey wolf and let me live. I am poor now; on my table is but water

Anda little wheaten bread,

You have taken allI ever had from me

Go from me now grey wolf and let me be.

This timeI have no more meat to throw

He waits butI have nothing left,

AndI stand helpless, his eyes fasten on my hand

O grey wolf, will you not depart,

UnlessI feed you with my heart?

The grey wolf crouching by the bolted door,

Waits, watching for his food upon the floor.

He waits,I see the old hunger the thirst for blood

Rise up under his eyeballs likea flood;

What shallI do that the grey wolfmay go?

10

Sence You Went Away

Seems lak to me de stars don’t shine so bright,

Seems lak to me de sun done loss his light,

Seems lak to me der’s nothin’ goin’ right,

Sence you went away.

Seems lak to me de sky ain’t halfso blue,

Seems lak to me dat ev’ything wants you,

Seems lak to meI don’t know what to do,

Sence you went away.

Seems lak to me dat ev’ything is wrong,

Seems lak to me de day’s jes twice as long,

Seems lak to me de bird’s forgot his song,

Sence you went away.

Seems lak to meI jes cant he’p but sigh,

Seems lak to me ma th’oat keeps gittin’ dry,

Seems lak to mea tear stays in ma eye,

Sence you went away.

The Pasture

Robert Frost I’m going out to clean the pasture spring; I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away

(And wait to watch the water clearI may): I shan’t be gone long—

You come too. I’m going out to fetch the little calf

That’s standing by the mother.

It’s so young it totters when she licks it 

with her tongue. I shan’t be gone long

—

You come too.

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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Robert Frost

Whose woods are these I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening ofthe year.

He gives his harness bells a shake 

To ask ifthere is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

12

The Gospel Train

Refrain: O Git on board little children

There’s room for plenty a more.

The gospel trains a’comin’

I hear it close at han’

I hear the car wheels a’rumblin’

And rolling through the land.

The fare is cheap and all can go

The rich and poor are there,

No second class upon this train,

No difference in the fare.

The gospel train’s a-comin'

She’s speeding round the curve,

She’s loosened all her steam and brakes

And strainin’ every nerve.

Trampin’

I’m trampin’ try’n a make heaven my home. 

I’ve never been to heave but I’ve been told

That the streets up there are paved with gold.

Guide my Feet

Guide my feet Lord while I run this race.

For I don’t want to run this race in vain.

Hold my hand Lord...

Stand by me, Lord...
My Soul’s Been Anchored in de Lord

My Soul’s been anchored in de Lord,

My soul’s been anchored in de Lord.

Befo’ I’d stay in hell one day,

I’d sing an’ pray myself away.

I’m goin’ to pray an’ never stop

Until I’ve reached de mountain top.

I Am Harriet Tubman

I am Harriet Tubman.

And I am a free woman.

I escaped my slavery from Maryland.

I traveled her on foot through the winter

Running from can’t to can.

And I have hidden in holes,

Trekked through swamps.

Half-starved, half-crazed,

With patter rollers and dogs that chased me,

Thought I would never make it!

My, my, my!

But then I looked at my hands

To see if I was the same person.

There was glory over everything.

And the sun came like gold through the trees,

And I felt like I was in heaven.

I’d crossed the line, I was free

When I crossed that line, into freedom,

I was finally free.

H

Eriringe ringe (A Riddle)

Let it be, let it be

Let be the thin thread that lengthened the snake’s tail 

The thin thread

That caused the bird to balance [in the air]

Let be the flight: Listen to the cry,

The cry of a bird

Poor little bird has red eyes

Let’s help it out

Ah! thank God

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