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.

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 Sixty-ninth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,825th Concert

William Chapman Nyaho, piano

“Music ofthe African Diaspora”

Presented in honor ofAfrican-American History Month

February 16, 2011

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

East Building Auditorium

Admissionfree
Program

Performed without intermission

Florence Price (1887-1953)

Dances in the Canebrakes

Nimble Feet

Tropical Noon

Silk Hat and Walking Cane

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)

From Twenty-Four Negro Melodies, op. 59

No. 10“Deep River”

Margaret Bonds (1913-1972)

Troubled Water

Fred Onovwerosuoke (b. i960)

Four Studies in African Rhythm

Udje 

Okoye

Iroro

Agbadza

Bongani Ndodana-Breen (b. 1975)

Flowers in Sand

Part 1:“After the First Rain”

Part 2:“Colours in the Dunes”

Oswald Russell (b. 1933)

Three Jamaican Dances

Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)

Sonata no. 1, op. 22

Allegro marcato

Presto misterioso

Adagio molto appassionato

Ruvido ed ostinato
The Musician

William Chapman Nyaho studied at Saint Peter’s College, Oxford University, where he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree. He continued his

piano studies at the Conservatoire de Musique de Geneve, Switzerland, the

Eastman School of Music, and the University ofTexas at Austin, where

he received master ofmusic and doctor ofmusical arts degrees, respectively. 

A North Carolina visiting artist for four years, Chapman Nyaho has taught

at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he was the recipient of

the Distinguished Professor Award and held the Heymann Endowed

Professorship. He was the recipient ofthe Acadiana Arts Council Distinguished Artist Award, and served as visiting professor ofmusic at Colby

College in Maine and visiting artist at Willamette University in Oregon.

His summer teaching appointments include Adamant Music School and

Interlochen Summer Arts Camp. He has compiled and edited Piano Music

ofAfrica and the African Diaspora, a five-volume graded anthology published

by Oxford University Press.

Chapman Nyaho’s performances have taken him to Africa, Asia, the

Caribbean, Europe, and North America. He has performed as a soloist with

various orchestras, including the chamber orchestras ofMoscow and San

Francisco. Chapman Nyaho has been featured on radio and television broadcasts in Ghana, Switzerland, and on American Public Media’s Performance

Today. He also developed and hosted “The Bach Show” for classical radio

station krvs in Louisiana. The Nyaho/Garcia Duo has released the critically

acclaimed CD Aaron Copland: Musicfor Two Pianos on the Centaur Label.

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Music from Chapman Nyaho’s solo cd, senku: Piano Music by Composers

ofAfrican Descent, a groundbreaking compilation ofmusic ofthe African 

Diaspora, was recently choreographed by Tony Award winner Garth Fagan.

senku was named one ofthe “Best ofthe Year” by the Cleveland Plain Dealer,

which called it “altogether enthralling,” and claimed, “this music deserves a

regular place on concert programs.” A companion cd, asa: Piano Music by

Composers ofAfrican Descent, released in 2008 on the msr Classics Label, has

also received critical acclaim. William Chapman Nyaho appears at the National 

Gallery by arrangement with Lisa SapinkopfArtists of Emeryville, California.

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Program Notes

The first African-American composer, concert pianist, and organist to reach 

national recognition, Florence Price earned an artist degree in organ music

and a teacher’s diploma in piano from the New England Conservatory of

Music. She taught at the Cotton-Plant Arkadelphia Academy and Shorter 

College in Little Rock before becoming head ofthe music department at

Clark University in Atlanta. Price returned to Arkansas where she taught

privately and wrote several teaching pieces for piano. She later moved

to Chicago where she became known nationally and internationally as a

composer and concert pianist. In 1933 she became the first African American to have her work performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She

also gained international recognition for her art songs and arrangements

of Negro spirituals that were premiered by Leontyne Price. Dances in the

Canebrakes is one ofthree hundred compositions by Florence Price, a body

ofwork that includes shorter pieces for piano, symphonies, concertos,

chamber works, art songs, and settings ofspirituals for voice and piano.

Born to parents from Sierra Leone and Britain, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

studied at the Royal College of Music in London and held prestigious music

posts in that city. Early in his career, he met African-American poet Paul

Lawrence Dunbar, with whom he collaborated on several songs. Dunbar

encouraged Coleridge-Taylor to promote his African heritage in his compositions. The composer took the poet’s advice to heart, using African elements

in his subsequent compositions to such an extent that it earned him the title

“the African Mahler.” In his notes for the collection Twenty-Four Negro

Melodies, op. 59, Coleridge-Taylor wrote, “What Brahms has done for the 

Flungarian folk-music, Dvorak for the Bohemian, and Grieg for the Norwegian, I have tried to do for these Negro Melodies.”

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A pupil of Florence Price, composer, pianist, and teacher Margaret 

Bonds received the bachelor and master ofmusic degrees from Northwestern University. In 1933, while still a student, she became the first

African American to perform as guest soloist with the Chicago Symphony 

Orchestra. Upon graduation, Bonds worked in Chicago, collaborating 

with writer Langston Hughes and other poets and musicians in cantatas, 

musicals, and song cycles. She later moved to New York and continued

her studies in composition at the Juilliard School. A highly successful 

composer, Bonds wrote orchestral and choral music, chamber music, 

art songs, and popular songs and often included her own works and improvisations in her recitals. Like her teacher Florence Price, Bond received

encouragement and commissions from Leontyne Price, who sang many

ofher songs in concert. Bonds received numerous awards during her

lifetime for her contributions to African-American music. “Troubled

Water” comes from a multi-movement work, Spiritual Suite, which also

includes “Valley ofthe Bones,” “The Bells,” and “He’s Got the Whole

World in His Hands.”

Fred Onovwerosuoke was born in Ghana to Nigerian parents. Although 

he received his first degrees in electrical and electronic engineering, he was

self-taught in piano and violin and became a professional musician after his 

undergraduate studies were finished. He turned to composition in 1984,

when he was invited to conduct the Terra Choral Group and Chamber

Orchestra at the University of Ife in Ife-Ife, Nigeria. Much of his music is

influenced by his research in traditional African instruments, such as gonje,

kontingu, kora, and kraar. A devoted student of Africa’s many harmonic

languages and rhythm traditions, especially the music ofthe Forest and

Sand peoples of central and northern South African regions, Onovwerosuoke writes, “My compositions are informed by my travels around the

world, and each piece is harnessed and nurtured by an African sensibility 

that is unmistakable and genuine.... I see hidden across Africa a gold mine

ofunlimited musical scales and modes, melodic and harmonic traditions,

and, yes, rhythms—abundant, yet largely untapped.” His Four Studies in

African Rhythms for piano is from a collection oftwenty-four such pieces.

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Bongani Ndodana-Breen grew up in Queenstown, South Africa. He 

studied music at Rhodes University and composition with RoelofTemmingh at the Conservatory in Stellenbosch. The recipient in 1988 ofthe

Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music, one of South Africa’s most

prestigious arts prizes, Ndodana-Breen has received commissions from

the African Music Rights Organization (samro), the Cape Town City

Ballet, the Emancipation Festival in Trinidad and Tobago, the Kazbah

Project in New York City, the Madam Walker Theater in Indianapolis,

Playhouse Company Durban, the unisa International Violin Competition, 

and the Vancouver Recital Society. His multimedia works have been performed by orchestras and chamber groups worldwide. He is presently the

artistic director ofToronto’s MusicaNoir/Ensemble Noir. Influenced by

the lyricism and rhythms ofAfrica, Ndodana-Breen’s music blends African

elements with an eclectic, post-modern approach to contemporary music.

He draws from the sounds of his childhood, reinterpreting and altering

them, sometimes beyond recognition. His musical landscapes contain

many layered voices, some ofwhich are invented, and some ofwhich are

genuine African folk motifs.

Jamaican pianist and composer Oswald Russell studied at the Royal

Academy of Music in London, the Juilliard School of Music in New York,

and at the music conservatories of Geneva and Paris. He holds the distinction oftaking first prize in both the classical and jazz categories at the

first International Improvisation Contest in Lyon, France. A versatile composer, concert pianist and improviser, Russell creates innovative concert 

programs that usually include his own works, music from Western classical

repertoire, and jazz improvisations. His style is a subtle blend ofCaribbean 

and European musical idioms, and his gift for melody is characterized by

long, beautifully balanced phrases. Utilizing harmonic language that ranges

from simple diatonic to complex jazz harmonies to atonality, his music

is marked by frequent and startling tonal shifts. Russell has held teaching

positions in Jamaica and Switzerland and has been visiting professor of

music in Kinshasa, Zaire.

Although he has no known African roots, Argentine composer Alberto

Ginastera enjoys a place of honor in today’s program because of his lifelong

interest in music ofAfrican origin, particularly the Creole tradition. He

borrowed from and made explicit references to dance and song styles from

the folk traditions of his native Argentina, other parts of Latin America,

and Africa. Written in 1952, his Piano Sonata no. 1, op. 22, exemplifies the 

stylistic traits associated with earlier works, such as the Creole Faust Overture

from 1943. The sonata fuses lively dance-derived rhythmic figurations, 

evocative textures, and modern musical forms and idioms. The dramatic

first movement ofthe sonata, marked Allegro marcato, begins with aggressive chordal gestures emphasizing the extremes ofthe piano’s range. The 

subsequent lyrical theme undergoes a series oftransformations organized 

in carefully paced arcs ofintensity and repose. When the opening material

returns at the end ofthe movement, it is intensified by a subtle shift upwards in its tonal orientation. The second movement, Presto misteiioso,

conveys a palpably nervous energy, not only through its striking melodic 

material—a slithering line constituting a twelve-tone row—but also

through its unique texture. Both hands play the same line in octaves at

opposite ends ofthe keyboard, occasionally diverging for chromatic runs

in contrary motion. The busy angst and relentless rhythmic drive ofthe

second movement is sharply contrasted by the dreamy languor ofthe third,

marked Adagio molto appassionato. The movement begins with arid ascending tonal arcs alternating with lyrical, introspective passages. In the driving

syncopations and stylized bravado ofthe final movement (Ruvido ed ostinato),

the right hand articulates angular repeated figures while the bold octaves

in the bass constantly shift between 6/8 and 3/4, conveying an indelible 

Latin flavor.

Program notes on African Diaspora composers by William Chapman Nyaho

Program notes on Ginastera by Stephen Ackert, head ofthe music department,

National Gallery ofArt

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Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

The Vivaldi Project

Music by Vivaldi and other Venetian composers

Presented in honor of Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals

February 20, 2011

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Sara Stern, flutist

Lisa Emenheiser, pianist

Music by Jongen, Liebermann, and Schoenfeld

February 23, 2011

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

East Building Auditorium

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