Program

Ruth Crawford Seeger: Suite for Wind Quintet (1952)

Valerie Coleman: Portrait of Langston (2007)
1. Helen Keller
2. Danse Africaine
3. In Time of Silver Rain
4. Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret
5. Summer Night
6. 'Le Grand Duc Mambo'

Francois Poulenc: Sextet for Winds and Piano (1932)
1. Allegro Vivace
2. Divertissement: Andante
3. Finale: Prestissimo

PERFORMERS

Flute: Rosie Gallagher
Oboe: Phoebe Xu
Clarinet: Oliver Shermacher
Bassoon: Ben Hoadley
Piano: Lee Dionne

Listening Guide

To be a composer described as ‘modern’ in one's time is a compliment; it means you’ve moved the dial forward and are doing something that hasn’t yet been done. Ruth Crawford Seeger, against the gender bias of her time, needled at dissonance, contrapuntal ostinati, text and form in such unique ways that she emerged as a leader of ultra-modernist American composers in the early 1900s. Crawford’s Suite for Wind Quintet (1952) was composed in the penultimate year of her life, a return to formal composition after embracing American folk music for the decades before.

Meanwhile in Harlem, African American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright Langston Hughes was leading the cultural change that came to be known as the Harlem Revolution. The poems in Valerie Coleman’s Portraits of Langston tie together his colourful nights out in Harlem and Paris, with compositional influences of big band swing, cabaret music, Mambo, African drumming and traditional spirituals.

At the same time in Paris, Francis Poulenc was enjoying a wave of professional celebrity due to the success of his latest ballet with Diaghilev Les Biches. His Sextet for Piano and Winds (1932) is as entertaining as it comes, full of wit and sentimentality, and melodies that will have you wanting to sing along.