Dec 6: Experiential Orchestra in Transfigured Night Reimagined at the Library of Congress featuring the D.C. Premiere of Julia Perry’s Violin Concerto
Dec 6: Experiential Orchestra in Transfigured Night Reimagined at the Library of Congress featuring the D.C. Premiere of Julia Perry’s Violin Concerto
Photo of James Blachly and Experiential Orchestra by Allison Stock. High resolution images available here.
Experiential Orchestra in Transfigured Night Reimagined
Presented by the Library of Congress
Featuring the D.C. Premiere of Julia Perry’s Concerto for Violin
with Soloist Curtis Stewart
Plus Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht
Reimagined with Narration by Ling Ling Huang
Friday, December 6, 2024 at 8pm
Pre-Concert Conversation at 6:30pm, Whittall Pavilion
Library of Congress | Thomas Jefferson Building | Coolidge Auditorium
10 1st Street SE, Washington, DC
Ticket Information: Free with RSVP
Note: This event is currently at capacity, but additional tickets will be released. You can join the waitlist here, and you will be notified when tickets become available. RUSH passes will also be available to walk-up patrons who do not have tickets.
Washington, D.C. – On Friday, December 6, 2024 at 8pm, the GRAMMY Award-winning, New York-based Experiential Orchestra (EXO) led by Music Director James Blachly brings one of its signature, immersive performances to the Library of Congress’s Coolidge Auditorium (Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 1st Street SE) to mark a trilogy of milestones – the Library’s 100th Anniversary, and two significant birth anniversaries for transformative composers Arnold Schoenberg (his 150th) and Julia Perry (her 100th). A pre-concert conversation with the artists will be held at 6:30pm in Whittall Pavilion. Tickets are free but an RSVP is required.
EXO's performances have been described as “strikingly persuasive” by the San Francisco Chronicle and “immaculate” by Musical America, and bring listeners close to the music through imaginative and interactive experiences. At the Library of Congress, EXO gives the D.C. premiere of African-American composer Julia Perry’s Concerto for Violin with four-time GRAMMY nominee Curtis Stewart, who made the first commercial recording of this landmark 1965 work with EXO as part of their recently released album, American Counterpoints (Bright Shiny Things). In March, EXO, Blachly, and Stewart performed Perry’s Concerto for Violin at Lincoln Center as part of the 2024 Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival, co-presented by EXO and Videmus. For this concert, Stewart will play legendary violinist Fritz Kreisler’s Guarneri instrument from 1730, part of the Library of Congress’s collection.
The New York Times reported of EXO, Blachly, and Stewart’s world premiere recording of Perry’s Concerto for Violin:
“Julia Perry, who would have turned 100 this month, achieved some real recognition during her lifetime, but – in a tale all too common for composers who aren’t white men – fell into obscurity after her death in 1979. There have been recent efforts to revive her works, including her Violin Concerto, written in the 1960s and now recorded by the Experiential Orchestra under James Blachly, with Curtis Stewart as the soloist. This brooding, 25-minute piece begins with a passionate violin cadenza, played like the rest of the concerto with heated commitment from Stewart, and then evolves frequently, without defined section breaks. It is a fine example of the sober yet seething angularity of its era, leavened with warm strings and hints of Coplandesque expansiveness. It’s a vigorous work of mid-20th-century Neo-Classicism . . .”
To mark Arnold Schoenberg’s 150th birth anniversary, violinist and author Ling Ling Huang (Natural Beauty, Dutton 2023) reimagines his Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) from 1899 for a modern audience, with new narration that expands the concept of the poem by Richard Dehmel that inspired Schoenberg to write this piece.
In celebration of the Library’s 100th anniversary, other works from the Library’s collections will be highlighted, including Irving Fine’s lush Serious Song: A Lament for String Orchestra and Alan Hovhaness’ touching tribute, In Memory of an Artist.
This concert is presented through the generosity of the Verna and Irving Fine Endowment in the Library of Congress, with thanks to the EXO Creative Team and Pauline Kim Harris, Henry Wang, Ling Ling Huang, and Lady Jess for concept development.
About the Featured Artists:
James Blachly: www.jamesblachly.com
Curtis Stewart: www.curtisjstewart.com
Ling Ling Huang: www.linglinghuang.com
About Experiential Orchestra:
The GRAMMY®️-winning Experiential Orchestra (EXO) brings audiences close to the music by engaging listeners through imaginative, immersive, and interactive concert experiences. Founded by Music Director James Blachly in 2009, EXO’s performances and recordings have been described as “strikingly persuasive” by the San Francisco Chronicle and “immaculate” by Musical America, and have been praised for having “luscious tone and poise” by Classics Today.
EXO was founded on collaboration and co-creation, and each curated performance is imbued with a generous spirit of celebration, facilitating the exploration of what Blachly calls, “a new experience of sound” by audiences. The orchestra’s performances take place in and outside the concert hall with audiences invited to participate in unorthodox ways. EXO has performed the music of Arvo Pärt in the Temple of Dendur at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, invited audiences to dance during Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker at National Sawdust, enveloped the audience in concerts at Lincoln Center with audience and orchestra members sitting together, and presented Symphonie fantastique and Petrushka with circus choreography at The Muse in Brooklyn.
Recent highlights have included a subscription concert at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, an immersive performance of Strauss’s Four Last Songs with cellist Andrew Yee and soprano Sarah Brailey, and the New York premiere of Julia Perry’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra with soloist Curtis Stewart. In January 2024, EXO performed Pärt’s masterwork Passio at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, offering audiences the opportunity to experience the concert while reclining on yoga mats. In March 2024, the orchestra co-presented a four-day Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in New York, coinciding with Perry’s 100th birthday that month.
EXO is known for imaginative and groundbreaking programming that frequently advocates for under-celebrated masterpieces and composers. The orchestra’s world premiere recording of Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison (1930) was released on Chandos Records in 2020 to international critical acclaim in The New York Times, Gramophone, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and many other publications. The album won the Grammy®️ for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album in 2021 – the first Grammy ever awarded for Smyth’s music. EXO’s world premiere recording of Julia Perry’s Violin Concerto, with soloist Curtis Stewart, was released on the Bright Shiny Things label in March 2024.
EXO is led by Music Director James Blachly, General Manager Raphaele de Boisblanc, and Director of Artistic Planning Pauline Kim Harris. EXO:Chamber, a series of chamber concerts, was inaugurated in 2023, curated by EXO’s Creative Team directed by Pauline Kim Harris. The Creative Team includes Henry Wang, concertmaster; Michelle Ross, co-concertmaster; Alexander Fortes, co-concertmaster; Lady Jess, principal; and Sami Merdinian, principal. EXO’s Artistic Advisors are Patrick Castillo, Brad Balliett, and Doug Balliett.
The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration & Festival in New York City - Full Schedule Announced
Experiential Orchestra and Videmus Present
The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in New York City March 13-16, 2024
Experiential Orchestra and Videmus Present
The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in New York City
March 13-16, 2024
New York, NY – From March 13-16, 2024, Experiential Orchestra (EXO) and Videmus will present the Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in New York City, celebrating Perry’s brilliance and legacy and illustrating the vibrance and importance of her music historically, today, and tomorrow. The four-day celebration takes place at venues across the city including Le Poisson Rouge, Mannes School of Music at The New School College of Performing Arts, the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. In addition to EXO and Videmus, presenting partners include the Mannes School of Music at The New School College of Performing Arts and National Concerts. WQXR is the official media partner. The festival also marks the release of American Counterpoints, a new album from Experiential Orchestra and Curtis Stewart, conducted by EXO Music Director James Blachly, which includes the first-ever recording of Perry's Violin Concerto plus music by Stewart and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson. American Counterpoints will be released by Bright Shiny Things on March 1, 2024.
The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival will include performances of Julia Perry's chamber, choral, and orchestral music, as well as a series of talks and discussions organized by Dr. Louise Toppin, founder of the African Diaspora Music Project and Artistic Director of Videmus, illustrating the resurgence of scholarly interest in Perry’s work. Festival performers include the Experiential Orchestra led by Music Director James Blachly, bass-baritone Donnie Ray Albert, pianist Samantha Ege, flutist Brandon Patrick George, baritone Will Liverman (released courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera), soprano Laquita Mitchell, PUBLIQuartet, violinist and composer Curtis Stewart, and soprano Louise Toppin. Students from New York City conservatories and music schools will participate in a side-by-side rehearsal and reading of Perry's music with EXO. A shared performance by Experiential Orchestra and youth ensembles led by EXO Music Director James Blachly and presented by National Concerts on March 16 at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall passes Perry’s musical legacy to the next generation. The concert culminates in four-time-Grammy nominee Curtis Stewart performing Perry's virtuosic Violin Concerto, with young musicians sitting side-by-side the EXO professionals in the orchestra.
Julia Perry (1924-1979) was an African-American composer, born in Lexington, Kentucky and raised in Akron, Ohio. Her early career was filled with promise: she spent two summers at the Berkshire Music Center, studied with Luigi Dallapiccola and briefly with Nadia Boulanger, won the Prix Fontainebleau and two Guggenheim Fellowships, and her Study for Orchestra was performed by the New York Philharmonic in 1965. But tragically, many of her roughly 100 compositions remain unknown. As J. Michele Edwards writes, “Her career was curtailed because of health problems, especially a paralytic stroke affecting her right side in 1971. Her letters reveal her effort to walk, talk, and conduct again. She did learn to write with her left hand and resumed composing; however, she endured tragic emotional and financial difficulties.”
Louise Toppin says, “Julia Perry’s prominence in music history as an African American woman composer has been erased for too long. Her story as a rising star in the world of composition and conducting during the years of extreme segregation in the United States is both compelling and astonishing. Her compositions (although to date her known output is small) show craftsmanship of the highest caliber that appeal to performers and audiences alike. With this festival, we are presenting for consideration her compositions (several world premieres) and current research on her life and work. There is much continued excavation that needs to take place to present a more complete biography and to locate/uncover her missing compositions. Our celebration (and others held during 2024 in England, Michigan and Missouri) are but the beginning of unveiling this extraordinary composer – Julia Perry.”
"Since I first encountered Julia Perry's music in 2014, I have been inspired by her work, life, and career. As I studied her music in depth, it became clear to me what a true master and genius musician she was, and how important it is to have her music performed more broadly," says James Blachly. “In 2020, Dr. Louise Toppin invited me to serve as the Orchestra Liaison for the African Diaspora Music Project, and for the past three years, she and I have worked with our colleague, conductor Christopher Wilkins, to explore Perry's many unpublished works. During this time Louise also formed an international working group to advocate for Perry's music and legacy. The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival is an outgrowth of this rich collaboration, and brings together in one place many of the foremost scholars and performers working to promote Perry, all timed to celebrate Perry's centenary. I firmly believe that Perry's music is an essential part of our American cultural and musical history. All of her music deserves to be heard, and much of it should become a part of our most frequently performed repertoire."
Read more about Julia Perry in The New York Times and The Marginalian.
The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival Opening Night on Wednesday, March 13, 2024 at 8pm (doors at 7pm) at Le Poisson Rouge features the multi-GRAMMY-nominated PUBLIQuartet, applauded by The Washington Post as “a perfect encapsulation of today’s trends in chamber music;” soprano Laquita Mitchell, praised in The New York Times for her “smooth-voiced and soothing presence;” and pianist and musicologist Samantha Ege, known for her "vivid, revelatory" performances (iNews). PUBLIQuartet will bring a creative re-imagining to the music of Julia Perry, performing world premieres of rediscovered works by Perry in arrangements by members of the quartet Jannina Norpoth, Hamilton Berry and Curtis Stewart, including Perry’s Prelude for Piano and Miniature for Piano and Stewart’s We Who Seek, which draws on Perry’s choral work Ye, Who Seek the Truth in a new version for quartet, electronics, and spoken word to be performed by Stewart. Soprano Laquita Mitchell will perform two rediscovered songs by Perry, How Beautiful are the Feet and By the Sea. Samantha Ege performs Perry’s Miniature for Piano and Prelude for Piano. The evening also celebrates the release of Experiential Orchestra’s album American Counterpoints, which features contributions from all of the PUBLIQuartet members.
On Thursday, March 14, 2024 from 9:30am-6pm, the festival in partnership with the Mannes School of Music at The New School College of Performing Arts will present a day of Discovery and Discussion around Perry’s works, curated by Louise Toppin. The lecture series features a keynote by Tammy Kernodle (University Distinguished Professor of Music at Miami University and the former President of the Society for American Music) and presentations by Tad Biggs, Sasha Doster, Samantha Ege, Philip Ewell, Angela Hammond, Gayle Murchison, and Garrett Schumann. A second keynote presentation by Christopher Wilkins (Music Director and Conductor for the Akron Symphony and Boston's Landmarks Orchestra) and Louise Toppin, DMA (Professor of Music, University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor, University of Michigan) will discuss Perry’s time in Akron, Ohio, as well as the challenges surrounding the publication of her works. The lecture series is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
On Thursday, March 14, 2024 at 7:30pm at Tishman Auditorium at The New School, in partnership with the Mannes School of Music at The New School College of Performing Arts, the festival celebrates the Chamber Music of Julia Perry. The performance features soloists from Experiential Orchestra, along with guest soloists baritone Will Liverman, bass-baritone Donnie Ray Albert, and flutist Brandon Patrick George, in selections from Julia Perry’s chamber music catalog including the presumed world premiere of her Quinary Quixotic Songs, as well as Six Contrasts for baritone, Pastoral for solo flute and ensemble, and Symphony No. 13 for Wind Quintet. Angela Hammond will provide an overview of Perry’s life, and a panel discussion with Afa Dworkin, President and Artistic Director of the Sphinx Organization; Loki Karuna, Interdisciplinary Arts Activist; and composer Anthony M. Kelley will be moderated by Co-Founder, Artistic Director and Violist of Castle of our Skins Ashleigh Gordon. MacDowell Executive Director Chiwoniso Kaitano will discuss Perry’s eight stays at the nation’s preeminent artist residency program between 1954 and 1968.
On Friday March 15, 2024 at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, the festival brings Perry’s legacy to the next generation, through side-by-side rehearsals and readings with Experiential Orchestra led by Music Director James Blachly and students from three New York City conservatories. In addition to rehearsing with violin soloist Curtis Stewart, students will have the opportunity to learn from Stewart and Fredara M. Hadley, Ph.D., Ethnomusicology Professor at The Juilliard School, about their personal relationship with Perry’s music. Jennifer Arnold, Violist and Antiracism Advocate, will lead additional activities. These rehearsals and readings are open only to the participating students and other festival participants.
The Closing Night Concert on Saturday, March 16, 2024 at 8pm presented by National Concerts at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center features Julia Perry’s Violin Concerto performed by Curtis Stewart and the Experiential Orchestra led by Music Director James Blachly, following the March 1 release of their recording of the piece as part of EXO’s American Counterpoints album. Perry’s Violin Concerto was composed in 1963 and revised in 1968, but she continued to update the score until 1977, only two years before her death. Both this performance and the recording include Perry’s extensive revisions to its orchestration, by Roger Zahab. EXO, Stewart, and Blachly gave the professional world premiere performance of this revised version of the concerto in December 2022 in New York. Students from three New York City conservatories will join EXO for the concerto, sitting side-by-side with EXO members. The festival Closing Night Concert also includes soprano Louise Toppin performing the world premiere orchestral arrangement of Julia Perry’s setting of the spiritual I’m a Poor Li’l Orphan in this World and Experiential Orchestra performing Perry’s beautiful Prelude for Strings. The concert closes with the two youth ensembles performing the first half of the concert – Ruckel Middle School Chorus (Niceville, FL) and Sandra Day O’Connor HS Orchestra (San Antonio, TX) – joining EXO on stage to perform Perry's Ye, Who Seek the Truth, introducing this important composer’s music to the next generation.
Programs subject to change. Visit www.JuliaPerryFestival.com for all festival updates and information.
Julia Perry Centenary Celebration & Festival Schedule:
Opening Night with PUBLIQuartet, Violinist Curtis Stewart, Soprano Laquita Mitchell and Pianist Samantha Ege
Wednesday, March 13, 2024 - Doors at 7pm; Concert at 8pm
Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY
Tickets & Information
Discussion and Discovery – A Lecture Series Organized by Dr. Louise Toppin
Thursday, March 14, 2024 from 9:30am-6pm
In Partnership with the Mannes School of Music at The New School College of Performing Arts
Theresa Lang Community and Student Center
Arnhold Hall, 2nd Floor
55 West 13th Street, New York, NY
Free Registration & Information
The Chamber Music of Julia Perry
Thursday, March 14, 2024 at 7:30pm
In Partnership with the Mannes School of Music at The New School College of Performing Arts
Featuring Soloists from Experiential Orchestra; Donnie Ray Albert, Bass-Baritone; Brandon Patrick George, Flute; and Will Liverman, Baritone
Angela Hammond, Speaker
Chiwoniso Kaitano, Executive Director, MacDowell
Panel Discussion with Afa Dworkin, President and Artistic Director of the Sphinx Organization; Loki Karuna, Interdisciplinary Arts Activist; and Composer Anthony M. Kelley; moderated by Ashleigh Gordon, Co-Founder, Artistic Director & Violist of Castle of our Skins
John L. Tishman Auditorium
63 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
Introducing Julia Perry to the Next Generation
Friday, March 15, 2024
Experiential Orchestra in a Side-by-Side Reading with Conservatory Students
Led by EXO Music Director James Blachly
With Violin Soloist Curtis Stewart; Fredara Hadley, Ph.D., Professor of Ethnomusicology, The Juilliard School; and Jennifer Arnold, Violist and Antiracism Advocate
The DiMenna Center for Classical Music
50 W 37th St, New York, NY
Closed event. Festival participants only.
Closing Night with Experiential Orchestra, Violinist Curtis Stewart, Soprano Louise Toppin
Saturday, March 16, 2024 at 8pm
Presented by National Concerts
Featuring Experiential Orchestra; James Blachly, EXO Music Director; Curtis Stewart, Violin Soloist; Louise Toppin, Soprano; Students from Three New York City Conservatories; Ruckel Middle School Chorus (Niceville, FL); Sandra Day O’Connor HS Orchestra (San Antonio, TX)
Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center
1941 Broadway, New York, NY
Tickets & Information
Use code EXO316 for a 15% discount.
Programs subject to change. Visit www.JuliaPerryFestival.com for all festival updates and information.
For more information about the presenters and presenting partners:
Experiential Orchestra: www.experientialorchestra.com
James Blachly: www.jamesblachly.com
Videmus: www.videmus.org
Louise Toppin: www.louisetoppin.com
Mannes School of Music at The New School College of Performing Arts: www.newschool.edu/mannes
National Concerts: www.nationalconcerts.com
WQXR is the official media partner for the Julia Perry Centenary Celebration & Festival
For more information about American Counterpoints, Bright Shiny Things: Paula Mlyn, paula@a440arts.com
Jan 26 and 27: Arvo Pärt's Passio at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine - Two Concerts for Peace and Healing
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Experiential Orchestra in Partnership with LPR Present Arvo Pärt's Passio: A Concert for Peace and Healing
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Experiential Orchestra in Partnership with LPR
Present Arvo Pärt's Passio
A Concert for Peace and Healing
Friday, January 26 and Saturday, January 27, 2024
7pm Choral Prelude, 8pm Concert
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine
1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street, New York, NY
Tickets & Information
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Experiential Orchestra (EXO) in partnership with LPR present Arvo Pärt's monumental work Passio in A Concert for Peace and Healing on Friday, January 26 and Saturday, January 27 at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine – the world’s largest Gothic Cathedral (1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street, New York, NY). The performance of Passio begins at 8pm, preceded by a choral prelude at 7pm.
The concerts feature the GRAMMY-winning Experiential Orchestra led by Music Director James Blachly with soloists Enrico Lagasca, Haitham Haidar, and the Evangelist Quartet (Elijah McCormick, soprano; Kate Maroney, alto; Oliver Mercer, tenor; Charles Wesley Evans, bass). Both 8pm concerts will begin with a 7pm choral prelude of Orthodox Chants performed by Artefact Ensemble led by Benedict Sheehan, with singers stationed throughout the Cathedral.
Audience members may choose to recline on yoga mats during the performance, or sit in chairs, immersing themselves in the soaring and awe-inspiring architecture of the Cathedral while being transported by Pärt's timeless music.
NPR recently reported, "Known for his serene, slow-moving music, the 88-year-old Estonian composer has attracted a legion of fans far beyond classical borderlines who love his chilled-out sound, including Björk, Michael Stipe and Keanu Reeves... Pärt routinely gets the nod as being the most performed living composer. And in our ever violent, confounding world, we need his music now more than ever."
These performances follow EXO and Artefact Ensemble’s sold-out performances of the music of Arvo Pärt at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in The Temple of Dendur, presented by Met Live Arts in 2021.
For more information: www.experientialorchestra.com/calendar/passio
www.lpr.com | www.stjohndivine.org | www.experientialorchestra.com | www.artefactensemble.org
March 2024: Experiential Orchestra and Videmus Celebrate Julia Perry - Composer Whose Music is Being Rediscovered - with Four-Day Festival in New York
Experiential Orchestra and Videmus Announce
The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in New York City
Experiential Orchestra and Videmus Announce
The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in New York City
March 13-16, 2024
Closing Night Concert: March 16, 2024 at Lincoln Center, Alice Tully Hall
Experiential Orchestra performs Perry’s Violin Concerto
James Blachly, Music Director | Curtis Stewart, Violin Soloist | with Youth Ensembles
Presented by National Concerts
Complete programming and the festival schedule will be announced in January
Information: www.experientialorchestra.com/projects/julia-perry-festival
From March 13-16, 2024, Experiential Orchestra (EXO) and Videmus will present the Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in New York City, celebrating her brilliance and legacy and illustrating the vibrance and importance of her music historically, today, and tomorrow.
The festival will include performances of Perry's chamber music by PUBLIQuartet; a series of talks and discussions organized by Dr. Louise Toppin, founder of the African Diaspora Music Project and Artistic Director of Videmus; and a side-by-side rehearsal and reading of Perry's music by EXO with students from New York City conservatories and music schools.
A shared performance by Experiential Orchestra and youth ensembles led by EXO Music Director James Blachly and presented by National Concerts on March 16 at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall passes Perry’s musical legacy to the next generation. The concert culminates in four-time-Grammy nominee Curtis Stewart performing Perry's virtuosic Violin Concerto, with young musicians sitting side-by-side the EXO professionals in the orchestra.
The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival follows the release of American Counterpoints, a new album from Experiential Orchestra and Curtis Stewart, conducted by James Blachly, that includes the world premiere recording of Perry's Violin Concerto plus music by Stewart and Coleridge Taylor-Perkinson. The album will be released by Bright Shiny Things on March 1, 2024.
Excerpted from A Biographical Sketch of Julia Perry by Fredara M. Hadley, Ph.D.; The Juilliard School:
Julia Perry may be new to 21st Century listeners, but she was well-known in her lifetime. Listening to her compositions and learning about her life is an act of rediscovery in the purest sense of the word because the world had, indeed, discovered her. Julia Perry was a woman born in 1924 in Lexington, Kentucky, to an educated Black family. She grew up in Akron, Ohio, the fourth of five sisters in a time where classical musical training was typical for a well-to-do Black family such as hers. She was innately gifted and studied both voice and violin.
In the 1940s, Perry continued her studies at Westminster College where she studied voice, piano, and composition. . . the 1950s were a productive era for her in which studied composition with Luigi Dallapiccola at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusetts. While at Tanglewood she completed her Stabat Mater and performed it to great acclaim. She then received two Guggenheim Fellowships in 1952 and 1954 to travel and study with Dallapiccola in Florence, Italy and then with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Yet again, Perry was recognized for her compositional talent when she won the Boulanger Grand Prix for her Viola Sonata. . . One of the clearest examples of her new musical horizons was in her Short Piece for Orchestra which premiered in 1952 and was performed and recorded by The New York Philharmonic in 1965. . .Upon her return to the United States she crafted her own responses to the Civil Rights Era which was then cresting. She wrote pieces including her Fifth Symphony (“Integration Symphony) for Chamber Orchestra and her Tenth Symphony (“Soul Symphony) that incorporated elements of black popular music. . .
Unfortunately, by the 1960s mental and health challenges began to take their toll. Perry, who never married and had no children, was her own primary means of financial and creative support. Through physical paralysis she continued to write. When her right side became incapacitated, she taught herself to write with her left hand. Many urged her to donate her prolific oeuvre to an archive, but Perry, who had received so much commercial success in her lifetime kept her manuscripts in hopes that another publication opportunity would emerge.
Sadly, that was not to be, and Julia Perry passed away on April 24, 1979. Although many of her compositions are lost or only exist in manuscript form, listeners should listen to Julia Perry as a composer who followed her own call to freedom in an era where that was denied for many others. And perhaps Julia Perry was right, and her dreams of continuing acclaim are coming true after all.
Read more about Julia Perry in Garrett Schumann’s feature in The New York Times and in The Marginalian.
For more information about the presenters and participants in the Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival:
Experiential Orchestra: www.experientialorchestra.com
Videmus: www.videmus.org
Dr. Louise Toppin: www.louisetoppin.com
African Diaspora Music Project: www.africandiasporamusicproject.org
James Blachly: www.jamesblachly.com
Curtis Stewart: www.curtisjstewart.com
PUBLIQuartet: www.publiquartet.com
American Counterpoints, Bright Shiny Things: Paula Mlyn, paula@a440arts.com
Complete programming and the festival schedule will be announced in January