Walnut Hills High School Music Nuts Club

Maxwell Fairman, president - Ky Tan, vice president

BIPOC Composers Celebration

Oblivion ............................................................................................ Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)

Nile Thompson, oboe
Maple Leaf Rag ..................................................................................... Scott Joplin (1868-1917)
Ky Tan, piano
Mother and Child ........................................................................ William Grant Still (1895-1978)
Christopher Vonderschmidt, violin
Adoration ........................................................................................... Florence Price (1887-1953)
Maeve Henderson, viola
Leyenda .............................................................................................. Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909)
Nikita Veytsman, piano
The Deserted Garden.......................................................................... Florence Price (1887-1953)
Prakriti Gupta, violin
Ky Tan, piano
Histoire du Tango ............................................................................. Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)
III. Nightclub 1960
Erica Nam, violin
Incantation and Dance ................................................................. William Grant Still (1895-1978)
Josh Rudnick, oboe
Night .................................................................................................. Florence Price (1887-1953)
Oh, What a Beautiful City ....................................... Traditional arr. Edward Boatner (1898-1981)
Ella Vaughn, voice
Blue/s forms .................................................................. Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932-2004)
I. Plain Blue/s
III. Jettin’ Blue/s

Maxwell Fairman, violin

 Program Notes

Astor Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer who incorporated elements of jazz and
classical music into the traditional tango to create the new style of Nuevo Tango. Oblivion, one
of Piazzolla’s most famous pieces, was composed in 1982. The title comes from the Latin word
oblivio/oblivium, meaning “to forget'' or “the condition of being forgotten,” which is perfectly
encapsulated in the melancholy mood of the piece.
-Nile Thompson

The Maple Leaf Rag was one of Scott Joplin’s first pieces and one of the very first pieces of
the ragtime style. Composed in 1899, the Maple Leaf Rag was attributed to the Maple Leaf Club
in Sedalia, MO. The ragtime piece quickly became a national sensation, selling over a million
copies and even becoming the best-selling ragtime piece!
The genre of this piece is ragtime, heavily using syncopation to give its signature “swing” style.
As Scott Joplin is widely considered the father of ragtime, this piece is one of the first ragtime
pieces. The song was written for piano only, but there exist lyrics to accompany the instrument.
Enjoy this tune!
-Ky Tan

William Grant Still was born in 1895 in Woodville, Mississippi. He moved to Arkansas with
his mother after his father died when he was only a few months old. In Arkansas, Still began
learning the violin and discovered his passion for music. Still attended Wilberforce University,
taking classes for a B.S. Degree. However, he spent almost all of his time conducting the band
and starting his first attempts at composing. Later, he studied music theory and composition at
Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio.
Mother and Child is the second movement of William Grant Still’s Suite for Violin and Piano,
composed in 1943. The inspiration behind the piece comes from a painting by Sargent Johnson
adapted into the sculpture that inspired Still to write this piece.
-Christopher Vonderschmidt
Florence Price is best known as the first Black woman to achieve national recognition as a
composer. Price’s Symphony in E minor was performed in 1933 by the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra – the first major American orchestra to perform a work by a Black woman. However,
her compositions were not widely heard due to the prejudices of the time.

Adoration was published in 1951, two years before her death at 66 in Chicago, IL. After her
death, most of her over 300 works faded into obscurity. In 2009, while renovating an old home,
workers found boxes containing music considered lost, including two violin concertos and her
fourth symphony. Originally composed for the organ and intended for use at church, Adoration is
similar to the popular spiritual songs of the time: warm and gentle, with a romantic melody over
long pedal points in the harmonic accompaniment.
-Maeve Henderson

Asturias, also known as Leyenda, is a musical work by Isaac Albéniz, a Spanish composer and
pianist. This piece was originally written for the piano and set in the key of G minor. It was first
published in Barcelona by Juan Bta. Pujol & Co. in 1892 as the prelude to a three-movement set
entitled Chants d'Espagne. The German publisher Hofmeister gave it the name “Asturias
(Leyenda)” posthumously.
They included it in the 1911 "complete version" of the Suite española, although Albéniz never
intended the piece for this suite. Despite the new name, this music is not considered suggestive
of the folk music of the northern Spanish region of Asturias but rather of Andalusian flamenco
traditions.
-Nikita Veytsman

Florence Price is the first African American woman composer to earn national recognition.
Performing by the age of 4 and composing by the age of 11, she has composed over 300 pieces
and has taught at music academies. To this day, she is seen as a pioneer among women defining
classical music. The beautiful piece The Deserted Garden by Florence Price is a smooth,
flowing piece with a romantic tone. Price composed the work in 1933 for a violin and a piano
duo. She uses the Dorian mode and pentatonic scale to create an amalgamation of blues and jazz
harmonies, capturing the sound of Western Europe and the American South. The dynamic
changes from a piano to a mezzo piano to a mezzo forte create a rich and sonorous tone for the
listener and the player. The piece allows the musician to dive into the music and become one
with it while playing.

-Prakriti Gupta
Astor Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer who lived from 1921 to 1992. As Piazzolla
grew up, he started to play with several different tango orchestras and formed his own at about
age 25. He was influenced by the music surrounding him, ranging from a blend of jazz and
classical to the music he heard at the clubs. Throughout his years in Buenos Aires, he
experimented with the sound and structure of tango but later became unsatisfied with his
compositions. After winning a composing contest, he traveled to Paris to study with Nadia
Boulanger. She taught him to be true to himself and encouraged him to continue his writings. At
first, his new rhythms and harmonies were not well received. However, they gradually
influenced other tango composers and were featured in film scores, television programs, and
other media.
Piazzolla displayed the history and evolution of tango with the four-movement work Histoire du
Tango. “Nightclub 1960” is one of its movements. When Piazzolla wrote “Nightclub 1960,” he
described it as a “time of rapidly expanding international exchange,” meaning that music was
evolving worldwide. “Nightclub 1960” depicts the audience rushing to the nightclub to hear the
earliest new tango. This piece is exciting, rich, and keeps you guessing. You will hear different
themes repeat in the music, but each repetition may be unlike the last. I enjoy it a lot, and I hope
you enjoy it as well!

-Erica Nam

William Grant Still (1895-1978) was born in Mississippi and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Still was very influential in his compositions, and he is often referred to as the “Dean of Afro-
American Composers.” He was the first African-American to conduct a major symphony
orchestra, to produce an Opera through the New York City Opera, and to have his symphony
performed by a major symphony orchestra. He was so influential that his home in Los Angeles
was designated a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1976. He was also added to the American
Classical Music Hall of Fame in 1999.

Incantation and Dance starts with a slow lament that carries throughout the Incantation.
Suddenly the music speeds up, and the dance begins. The dance is uplifting, energetic, and
primarily pentatonic. Halfway through the dance, the music darkens, and the beginning theme is
quoted. The main theme of the dance section returns. Then, the music spirals in intensity to the
end.
-Josh Rudnick
Night is based on a poem written by Bessie Mayle (1898-1959). Black poets such as Bessie
Mayle of the early twentieth century often used the beauty of the blackness of the nighttime sky
to celebrate the beauty of their own Blackness.

Florence B. Price is an African-American classical composer, pianist, organist, and music

teacher, born in Little Rock, Arkansas, who put Night to music in 1940. This beautiful song
shows her style through her beauty and richness. It offers layers of meaning, and it adds a warm
and embracing tone that creates a gorgeous piece that captures a beautiful moment in time.
Price's decision to sustain the high note on the word “ and turns” emphasizes the importance of
that persistence in preserving.
-Ella Vaughn

Edward Hammon Boatner was born on November 13, 1898, in New Orleans, Louisiana, to the
family of a mister, Dr. Daniel Webster. Boatner frequently traveled from church to church,
which provided an introduction to church singing. Boatner later received his musical education at
Western University in Kansas, the Boston Conservatory, New England Conservatory, the Longy
School of Music, and the Chicago College of Music. Boatner arranged and published more than
200 spirituals in his lifetime, including “Oh, What a Beautiful City.” This spiritual uses a
rhythmic “Alleluia” inspired by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, reflecting the image of the
“universal city” in the song’s text.
-Ella Vaughn

Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson was an African-American pianist and composer. He never wanted

to let classical music get “too serious,” so he infused his knowledge of jazz and blues into his
compositions. In Blue/s forms, Perkinson uses “blue” notes (the lowered 3rd and 7th notes of the
scale) and includes plenty of repetitions to emulate the style of blues. He involves classical music
in the piece as well. For example, the first chord of Plain Blue/s is the first chord of Bach’s
Sonata no. 1 in G Minor for solo violin. The virtuosity of Jettin’ Blue/s is reminiscent of
Paganini.
-Maxwell Fairman
 Organizations To Support

Sphinx Organization: https://www.sphinxmusic.org/donate

Music by Black Composers:

https://www.musicbyblackcomposers.org/support-us/donate-now/

NIMAN: https://niman.org/donate/

William Grant Still Music:

http://www.williamgrantstillmusic.com/SheetMusicCollections.htm

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Special thanks to the Church of Our Savior for letting the Music Nuts Club
use their space for free! To learn about other concerts and to support the
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