What year did the piece that premiered in Israel in 1962 premiere in Africa?
In May 1962 A Child of Our Time received its Israel premiere in Tel Aviv. Tippett says that this performance was delayed because for a while there were local objections to the word "Jesus" in the text. When it came about, among the audience was Herschel Grynszpan's father who, Tippett wrote, was "manifestly touched by the work his son's precipitate action 25 years earlier had inspired." The performance, by the Kol Yisrael Orchestra with the Tel Aviv Chamber Choir, was acclaimed by the audience of 3000, but received mixed reviews from the press. The Times report noted contrasting opinions from two leading Israeli newspapers. The correspondent for Haaretz had expressed disappointment: "Every tone is unoriginal, and the work repeats old effects in a most conventional manner". Conversely, according to the Times report, HaBoker's critic had "found that the composition had moved everyone to the depths of his soul ... no Jewish composer had ever written anything so sublime on the theme of the Holocaust."Despite its successes in Europe A Child of Our Time did not reach the United States until 1965, when it was performed during the Aspen Music Festival, with the composer present. In his memoirs Tippett mentions another performance on that American tour, at a women's college in Baltimore, in which the male chorus and soloists were black Catholic ordinands from a local seminary. The first significant American presentations of the work came a decade later: at Cleveland in 1977 where Prince Charles, who was visiting, delayed his departure so that he could attend, and at Carnegie Hall, New York, where Colin Davis conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Reviewing this performance for The New York Times, Donal Henahan was unconvinced that the work's "sincerity and unimpeachable intentions add[ed] up to important music". The spirituals were sung with passion and fervour, but the rest was "reminiscent of a familiar pious sermon" in which the words were only intermittently intelligible. Meanwhile, the work had achieved its African debut, where in 1975 Tippett observed a performance with an improvised orchestra which incorporated the Zambian Police Band. The Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda, was present, and entertained the composer afterwards.
1975