From the Courtyard

“Art preserves life in a very special way. Our memories die with us, but art preserves the values and experiences” – Undine Smith Moore

From the Courtyard first recreates the sounds of an 1890s tenement courtyard, shared by multicultural immigrant families, then moves into the concert hall to hear how the rich legacy of folk music inspired later generations of composers. The concert features premieres by Leo Brouwer and Clarice Assad. Presented in cooperation with the Tenement Museum.

The concert features the innovative ensemble, Raices Negras, with flutist Ceylon Mitchell, cellist Erin Murphey Snedecor, and pianist Elizabeth G. Hill, with soprano Sharon Harms.

A powerful communicator renowned for her musical scope and versatility, Brazilian-American Clarice Assad is a significant voice in the classical, world music, pop, and jazz genres. The Grammy–nominated composer, pianist, vocalist, and educator is acclaimed for her evocative colors, rich textures, and diverse stylistic range. “She energetically bends music to her will and reshapes it with fascinating results” – Jazz Improv Magazine

We don’t picture Cuban guitarist/composer Leo Brouwer in Greenwich Village, but he must have visited Westbeth (David Del Tredici’s building in the West Village) to study with Stefan Wolpe. Brouwer is celebrated as a composer of guitar music, but his work extends far beyond that. Check out his film score for Like Water for Chocolate.

Lazar Wyner immigrated to New York from Cherkasy, Ukraine in 1914. An accomplished pianist, he soon found work in the silent movie industry and the Yiddish musical milieu that had sprung up around Second Avenue in the East Village. He was a prolific composer of Yiddish art songs, and his son, Pulitzer Prize-winner Yehudi Wyner, grew up in the City amidst this vibrant Yiddish cultural and intellectual tradition. We pair Lazar Weiner’s moving “Somewhere Far Away” and lively “Yoshi the Klezmer” with Yehudi Wyner’s early Psalm and Family Vaudeville songs.

Composer Manuel Ponce (1882-1948) scandalized ardent defenders of European classical music when he gave a concert combining Mexican popular and traditional songs with European artistic genres. He became an ardent advocate for South and Latin American music, exploring and cataloguing native music and developing its melodic and rhythmic features in his own original works.

Amy Beach (1867-1944) moved from Boston to New York City in 1915, attracted by its vibrant musical life. Her own compositional credo embraced folk music, in particular the folk songs of her own ancestors, the Irish, Scottish and English peoples who had immigrated to America. She wanted to depict the “laments, romances and dreams” of the Irish peoples in her Suite for Two Pianos Founded Upon Old Irish Melodies. An ardent contributor to New York’s intellectual and artistic scene, she wrote a response in the Times to Dvorak’s call for American composers to embrace the music of indigenous and African immigrants with a reminder that the cultural legacy of the British Isles was also a strong element of American cultural heritage. The dialogue reflects the search for a truly “American” musical identity that was a strong part of early twentieth-century musical thought in the Americas, a desire to shake off the chains of the European classical tradition and find new paths that reaffirmed new national identities.

Cuban-born Tania León’s compositional style has been influenced by Undine Smith Moore (1904-89), one of the most prominent African-American women composers of the 20th Century. Her Afro-American Suite (1969) sets traditional spirituals in a contemporary modern harmonic idiom. Dr Moore once said: “Art preserves life in a very special way. Our memories die with us, but art preserves the values and experiences.”

Music from the Courtyard program:

• Lazar Wyner – “Somewhere Far Away,” “Yoshi the Klezmer”
• Yehudi Wyner – Psalm 112, Family Vaudeville Songs
• Amy Cheney Beach – “Prelude” and “Finale” from Suite for Two Pianos
• Undine Smith Moore – Afro-American Suite
• Manuel M. Ponce – Canciones Mexicanas
• Clarice Assad – Flight of the Fairies
• Leo Brouwer – El Cazadoe de Historias
• Tania Leon Arenas – D’un Tiempo

[Image: Clarice Assad and Ceylon Mitchell]