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Spirituals highlight DSO's bill

For the past 20 years, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra has performed a series of annual "Classical Roots" concerts that feature works by African American composers and musicians.

This year's installment features the U.S. premieres of works by Leslie B. Dunner, the DSO's Resident Conductor, and Carlo Franci, as well as traditional spirituals. Also included, strangely enough, is a composer who is as white as they come: Beethoven.

The inspiration for Dunner's "Memoirs of a Shattering Glass Building" should strike a familiar chord with any University student who ever walked by the Undergraduate Library before its recent renovation. Dunner says: "During my student days, a very ugly student union building comprised essentially of glass and mud-colored brick was erected adjacent to the academic quadrangle. It obstructed all direct paths to and from classes. In honor of its dedication ceremony, I dreamt up a short ditty representing my dreams (and every other student's as well) of the building's total demolition, complete with wrecking ball. Needless to say, it was not performed on that `auspicious occasion.'

"As my career began to develop, that short work did mature and represent the `glass ceiling' felt by many as an obstruction of the realization of their dreams and goals ... I hope that my `Memoirs' will serve as an aural reminder that all barriers can be shattered when we find within ourselves a true belief in our strength and potential."

The inclusion of Beethoven in a concert dedicated to African American music is no doubt due to the presence of Awadagin Pratt, a talented pianist who has also studied violin and conducting. He was the first student in the history of the Peabody Conservatory of Music's history to receive diplomas in three performance areas. He also won the 1992 Naumburg International Piano Competition.

Pratt has just released a collection of Beethoven piano sonatas on EMI Classics, which helps to explain why his performances are so well regarded. This recording easily compares to an earlier Telarc release featuring pianist John O'Connor, both of which include Sonatas No. 30 and 31.

Although they are both excellent performers, Pratt's renditions of these works tend to have a much more dynamic character, both in timing and intonation. While O'Connor keeps a fairly consistent metronome throughout each section, Pratt, when appropriate, gently bends the pulse for emotional effect. He also gives some passages which O'Connor plays in exact time an almost syncopated feel, and his use of volume was more varied.

Occasionally, Pratt's timing shifts and unexpected forte notes are a little jarring, and in these instances I appreciate O'Connor's restraint. But for the most part, Pratt's renditions are more emotionally compelling. It will be interesting to see him perform with an orchestra.

Having premiered in 1994 at the Johannesburg City Hall in South Africa, Carlo Franci's "African Oratorio" is a work for solo soprano, speaker, mixed choirs, electronic tape and a percussion-laden orchestra that includes both Western and African instruments. Synthesizing the music of Africa with American Jazz, the work alternates a cappella choruses, sung in Zulu, with instrumental dance movements. This performance will feature American mezzo-soprano Tichina Vaughn, a North Carolina native who has performed numerous times in the United States, Europe and South America.

The program will also mark the annual collaboration between the Brazeal Dennard Chorale, a Detroit ensemble dedicated to the performance of choral works by African American composers, and the DSO. This weekend's performance includes two traditional spirituals, "Lord I Want to be a Christian" and "Fare Ye Well," arranged by Brazeal Dennard, Artistic Director of the Chorale and an adjunct professor of music at Wayne State University.

Also on the program is "Lift Every Voice and Sing," written at the turn-of-the-century by James and John Johnson. It was arranged 50 years later by Hale Smith for a national meeting of the NAACP in Minneapolis and became intensely popular; the songwriters soon found success.