For the convenience of concertgoers 

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:oo pm.

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 of

the West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

Mailing address

2000b South Club Drive

handover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

The Sixty-sixth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,661st Concert

Celeste Headlee, soprano

Danielle DeSwert, pianist

Presented in honor ofAfrican American History Month

February 27, 2008

Wednesday Afternoon, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Admissionfree
Program

Music by William Grant Still (1895-1978)

Brown Baby (1923)

Lyrics by Paul Henry

Lis’en to do Lams (1937)

Traditional

Winter’s Approach (1926)

Text by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The Breath ofa Rose (1926)

Text by Langston Hughes ‘Tis Sunset in the Garden

From the opera Troubled Island (1938)

Text by Langston Hughes

Songs ofSeparation (1946)

Idolatry

Text by Arna Bontemps

Poeme

Text by Philippe Thoby-Marcelin

Parted

Text by Paul Laurence Dunbar

IfYou Should Go

Text by Countee Cullen A Black Pierrot

Text by Langston Hughes

Bayou Home (1944)

Text by Verna Arvey

Golden Days

From the opera Costaso (1949)

Text by Verna Arvey

Grief{1953)

Text by Leroy V. Brant

Citadel (1956)

Text by Virginia Brasier

Two Loves

From the opera Minette Fontaine (1958)

Text by Verna Arvey

Here’s One (1941)

Traditional
The Musicians

CELESTE HEADLEE

Celeste Headlee was valedictorian ofthe graduating class of 1987 at the

Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts in Greensboro, North Carolina.

She earned a bachelor ofmusic degree in vocal performance at Northern

Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, graduating with honors in 1993,

and a master ofmusic degree in vocal performance from the University

of Michigan, where she studied with Freda Herseth, Leslie Guinn, and 

George Shirley, and took several courses in song interpretation with Martin

Katz. While in Arizona, Headlee was a member ofthe Artist Roster for

the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She has given performances for the

Butler Center for Arkansas Studies (Little Rock), Colorado College (Colorado

Springs, Colorado), the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Distinguished Artist

Series at the Church ofthe Red Rocks (Sedona, Arizona), Wayne State

University (Detroit, Michigan), and Yavapai College (Prescott, Arizona),

among many other locations. She has also performed with tire Great Lakes

Lyric Opera, tire Harlequin Players (Olympia, Washington), the Michigan

Opera Theatre, the Sedona Arts Center, the Sedona Repertory Company, and

many other professional companies.

For more than fifteen years Headlee has performed and lectured on the 

music of her grandfather, William Grant Still, in both concerts and recitals.

She was also the editor ofthe second edition ofthe book, William Grant

Still and the Fusion ofCultures in American Music, for which she compiled the 

first complete thematic catalogue of Still’s works. She also sang his Levee

Land on the CD Music ofAfro-American Composers, produced by the Northern 

Arizona University Wind Symphony.

Since 1999, Headlee has been a journalist for public radio. Her news

reports have aired on the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, National Native

News, n pr, the Pacifica Network, and pri. A winner of numerous awards

for her features and spot reporting, she also serves as a mentor and managing editor for npr’s Next Generation Project, which is aimed at training

young broadcast journalists.

4

DANIELLE DESWERT

Brussels-born pianist Danielle DeSwert is a freelance collaborative pianist and

coach in Washington, DC, and die music program specialist at the National 

Gallery ofArt. She has worked as a pianist and coach with the Ash Lawn

Highland Opera Festival, Chautauqua Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Kentucky 

Opera, the New Orleans Opera Association, Portland (Oregon) Opera, San 

Francisco Opera Center, Sarasota Opera, and the Washington National Opera,

and from 2004-2006 she was the principal repetiteur with the Baltimore

Opera Company and Washington Concert Opera.

She performs regularly in chamber music and in voice and piano recitals, 

including performances at the Arts Club ofWashington, die J ewish Community Center ofGreater Washington, the Kennedy Center, the Mexican Institute

ofCulture, the National Gallery of Art, the Russian Embassy, and at the White

House. She is the principal pianist of die Inscape Chamber Music Project.

DeSwert holds a master ofmusic degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she studied with Martin Katz, and a bachelor of

music degree from the U niversity ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara. Additionally, 

she studied with Warren Jones and Anne Epperson at die Music Academy of

the West, and was an apprentice coach with the Washington Opera, working

with Placido Domingo.

5
Program Notes

William Grant Still is known as the “dean ofAfrican American composers”

and one ofthe country’s most celebrated figures in music, regardless of

ethnic background. He was bom on May 11,1895, in Woodville, Mississippi,

but moved shortly thereafter to Little Rock, Arkansas. He attended Wilberforce 

University and the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music before moving

to New York to launch his musical career. There, he found success as an

arranger and orchestrator, writing for W. C. Handy, Willard Robison, Artie 

Shaw, Sophie Tucker, Don Voorhees, and Paul Whiteman. Still also studied

with George Chadwick and ultra-modemist Edgard Varese. A prolific 

composer, Still wrote more than 150 works, including symphonies, ballets, 

operas, chamber pieces, and vocal works.

Still opened many doors for minorities in the classical music realm. He

was the first African American to have a symphony performed by a major

symphony orchestra in the United States, the first to conduct a major

symphony orchestra in this country, the first to conduct a major symphony

orchestra in the deep South, and the first to conduct a radio orchestra in

New York City, at a time when that industry was divided along racial lines.

He was also the first African American to have an opera produced by a

major company in the United States (in 1949 his Troubled Island was presented at the City Center of Music and Drama in New York City). In 1981

A Bayou Legend was the first opera by an African American to be televised

over a national network.

Program notes by Celeste Headlee

6

Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

Washington National Cathedral Choir of Men and Girls

Music by Allegri, Domenico Scarlatti, and Tallis

March 2, 2008

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Women ofthe National Gallery Vocal Arts Ensemble

Music by Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, Clara Schumann,

Hildegard von Bingen, and others

Presented in honor ofWomen’s History Month

March 5, 2008

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall