Coleridge-Taylor Violin Concerto (Lugano)

Originally premiered in 1912, just weeks before the composer’s tragic death, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto is a colourful heartfelt showcase for both soloist – tonight Njioma Chinyere Grevious – and orchestra.

The concert opens with Carlos Simon’s Four Black American Dances, an orchestral study of the music that is associated with four styles of dance: the ring shout, waltz, tap dance and holy dance. Through these dances, the work shines a light on the wide range of cultural and social differences within Black American communities.

And we close with Florence Price’s Symphony No.1. Premiered in 1933, the Symphony was the first work by an African American woman to be performed by a major US orchestra.

A piece well known to Chineke! audiences, the work is suffused with spiritual themes, dance music, cross-rhythms, off-beat phrasing and melodic accents that were characteristic of so-called ‘negro-folk’ music.