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Adolphus Hailstork: Chamber Works

Adolphus Hailstork composer

The Harlem Chamber Players

Release Date: November 15, 2024
Catalog #: NV6667
Format: Digital
21st Century
Chamber
Piano
String Quartet
Voice

It’s admittedly rare to hear contemporary classical music that delivers a shot of energy and drive like a cup of coffee: strong enough to wake you up, but in a way that is still pleasing to the senses. ADOLPHUS HAILSTORK: CHAMBER WORKS boasts exactly this rare and invigorating combination — and the energetic performance by The Harlem Chamber Players adds an extra boost on top.

Hailstork’s music blends African, American, and European traditions; there are parts that positively sound like something Shostakovich or Prokofiev might have written, perhaps echoes of Hailstork’s studies with Nadia Boulanger in the 1960s. There are moments of contemplation, but if this album is anything, it’s invigorating and profound.

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Piano Quintet “Detroit”: I. Detroit Grit Adolphus Hailstork The Harlem Chamber Players | David Berry, piano; Ashley Horne, violin; Claire Chan, violin; William Frampton, viola; Wayne Smith, cello 4:15
02 Piano Quintet “Detroit”: II. Detroit Nocturne Adolphus Hailstork The Harlem Chamber Players | David Berry, piano; Ashley Horne, violin; Claire Chan, violin; William Frampton, viola; Wayne Smith, cello 6:43
03 Piano Quintet “Detroit”: III. Detroit Rise Adolphus Hailstork The Harlem Chamber Players | David Berry, piano; Ashley Horne, violin; Claire Chan, violin; William Frampton, viola; Wayne Smith, cello 7:29
04 Piano Quintet “Detroit”: IV. Prayer - In Memoriam Brazeal Dennard Adolphus Hailstork The Harlem Chamber Players | David Berry, piano; Ashley Horne, violin; Claire Chan, violin; William Frampton, viola; Wayne Smith, cello 6:23
05 Nobody Know Adolphus Hailstork Herbert Woodward Martin, lyricist; Kenneth Overton, baritone; The Harlem Chamber Players | Ashley Horne, violin; Claire Chan, violin; William Frampton, viola; Wayne Smith, cello 18:41

Recorded May 15 & September 1, 2023 at Patrych Sound Studios in New York NY
Recording Session Producer Joseph Patrych, Ruoting Li
Recording Session Engineer Joseph Patrych
Editing, Mixing & Mastering Peter Atkinson

Executive Producer Bob Lord

VP of A&R Brandon MacNeil
A&R Danielle Sullivan

VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Morgan Hauber
Publicity Chelsea Kornago
Digital Marketing Manager Brett Iannucci

Artist Information

The Harlem Chamber Players

Ensemble

The Harlem Chamber Players is an ethnically diverse collective of professional musicians dedicated to bringing high caliber, affordable, accessible live music to people in the Harlem community and beyond. Founded in 2008, The Harlem Chamber Players annually presents a rich season of formal live concerts, indoors, outdoors, and online. The Harlem Chamber Players also promote arts inclusion and equal access to the arts, bringing live music to underserved communities and promoting shared community arts and cultural engagement.

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Adolphus Hailstork III

composer

Adolphus Hailstork received his doctorate in composition from Michigan State University, where he was a student of H. Owen Reed. He had previously studied at the Manhattan School of Music, under Vittorio Giannini and David Diamond, at the American Institute at Fontainebleau with Nadia Boulanger, and at Howard University with Mark Fax.

Hailstork has written numerous works for chorus, solo voice, piano, organ, various chamber ensembles, band, orchestra, and opera.

Hailstork’s second and third symphonies were recorded by the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra (David Lockington) and were released by Naxos. Another Naxos recording, An American Port Of Call (Virginia Symphony Orchestra) was released in spring 2012. His most recent recording is Piano Concerto No. 1 on Naxos Records conducted by JoAnn Falletta. (2023)

Hailstork’s new pieces include The World Called (based on Rita Dove’s poem Testimonial), a work for soprano, chorus and orchestra commissioned by the Oratorio Society of Virginia (premiered in May 2018) and Still Holding On (February 2019), an orchestra work commissioned and premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

This last has become the first movement of Symphony no. 4 premiered by the Mannes School of Music on March 8, 2023. Other new works recently receiving notable first performances (2023) are A Knee On The Neck (George Floyd Requiem), Blest Be The Day (a Juneteenth Overture), premiered by the Baltimore Symphony, and Piano Concerto No. 2 commissioned by Lara Downes.

In 2023 Hailstork was inducted into the American Academy Of Arts And Letters.

David Berry

piano

A truly versatile artist, pianist David Berry has established a multi-faceted career as a concert performer, arranger, educator, and speaker. Berry’s performances as a concert pianist have been featured in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, and in live broadcasts of WQXR radio (New York). Berry was the grand prize winner of the Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition and a prize winner of the Thousand Islands International Piano Competition. He has been featured as a soloist, performing works of Chopin for the Kosciuszko Foundation, and music of Cuban composer and pianist Joaquin Nin for the Cervantes Institute.

Berry’s performances and invitations as a concerto soloist have crossed a wide span of repertoire ranging from Brahms’ Piano Concerto No.1 (The Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival Orchestra) to Yamekraw: An Ebony Rhapsody by Harlem Stride pianist James P. Johnson (The Harlem Chamber Players). As a performer of new music, Berry has premiered works by noted composers James Lee III and Adolphus Hailstork, as well as a collaboration with composer Jennifer Higdon. Berry was a featured soloist in the Juilliard School’s Focus Festival, All About Elliot, celebrating the 100th birthday of Elliot Carter.

An avid chamber musician, Berry has toured as a resident member of the Ritz Chamber Players, performing with the group in series such as the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society Concerts at the Kimmel Center, and the Meany Center for the Performing Arts Concert Series at the University of Washington. Berry has also toured as a member of the innovative chamber music-theater group, the Core Ensemble, presenting plays based on the lives of African-American and Latin historical figures at universities across the United States.

A sought after and talented arranger, Berry’s virtuoso concert piano arrangements of spirituals such as Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho, have been performed across the United States, including in the Untold Stories Piano Competition at Brigham Young University and by the Massachusetts-based Tiny Glass Tavern Ensemble. In addition to his concert arrangements, Berry recently published a book of solo piano hymn arrangements in 2024 with the Lorenz Corporation. A frequent adjudicator, masterclass clinician, and presenter whose presentations often focuses on utilizing multi-style improvisation and creating original piano arrangements, his work in these areas has been featured at institutions and organizations such as the University of Georgia, the University of Memphis, Wheaton College Conservatory of Music, and the Virginia, Utah, and Dallas Music Teacher Associations.

Berry is Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Department at Eastern Mennonite University, where he also serves as Interim Associate Dean for the School of Theology, Humanities, and the Performing Arts. Berry also serves as the Artistic Director of the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival, and as Chair of the Artistic Programs Committee of the Gateways Music Festival.

Berry received his Bachelor of Music with High Distinction from the Eastman School of Music, and Masters and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in Piano Performance from the Juilliard School.

Ashley Horne

violin

A native of Los Angeles, violinist Ashley Horne has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician around the world. A graduate of the Juilliard School, he is known for his “bright tone and fine overall sense of style” (Dennis Rooney of Strad Magazine). He has performed regularly with American Symphony Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Bard Festival Orchestra, Westchester Symphony, West-Park Chamber Society, Gateways Music Festival, Dance Theatre of Harlem Orchestra and New York City Opera, as well as on Broadway’s The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Wild Party, Carousel, The Producers, and On the Town.

He has been the featured soloist and concertmaster of numerous ensembles, including The New Black Repertory Ensemble, The Antara Ensemble of NY, Cascade Festival Orchestra, and Aspen Young Artists Orchestra and has served as the music director of The Antara Ensemble. His recording of Henry Cowell’s Fiddler’s Jig with the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra can be heard on Koch International. Horne has been a recitalist at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. Solo and chamber music performances have taken him to many interesting parts of the globe, such as Spain, Portugal, the Azores Islands, Odessa, and Istanbul. Filmgoers can see Horne in Le Mozart Noir, the PBS documentary of violinist and composer Chevalier de Saint George, as well as in Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America.

Claire Chan

violin

Claire Chan, born in Detroit, graduated Magna Cum Laude from Brown University where she earned musical honors and a Sc.B. in Neuroscience. Changing course, she continued her studies on the violin at The Juilliard School. As a scholarship student of Joseph Fuchs, she completed both her master’s and doctoral degrees. She taught at the Juilliard School as an assistant to both Professor Fuchs and the Juilliard String Quartet and later served on the faculty in Beijing at the Central Conservatory and the Capital Normal University. Currently, she teaches at Third Street Music School Settlement and at the Chamber Music Center of New York. She performs as a member of the Harlem Chamber Players, Sweeney Todd on Broadway, and New York City Opera. An avid chamber musician, she has collaborated with several award-winning groups such as the Essex Quartet and the Beijing Quartet and Chamber Players. She also performed as a member of the Kneisel Trio, the Jade String Trio, and with such varied artists as Sam Smith, 50 Cent, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Tony Bennet, Hall and Oates, Andrea Bocelli, and Placido Domingo. She can be heard on RCA Victor, Centaur, Convivium, Annsam, ESS.A.Y, and Death of Classical labels.

William Frampton

viola

Violist William Frampton has been praised by critics for his “impressive” performances (The New York Times) and “a glowing amber tone” (The Boston Globe). Since his New York recital debut in 2009 at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Frampton has enjoyed a career of performances around the world as a chamber musician, soloist, and orchestral player. Highlights include over 100 performances with a string quartet led by Midori Goto in tours of Asia and North America, appearances as guest artist with Escher Quartet and Johannes Quartet, and world premieres of chamber music by J. Mark Stambaugh and a concerto by Peter Homans. Frampton is Principal Viola of the American Symphony Orchestra and Associate Musician with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He performs in the Broadway orchestras of Hamilton and The Lion King, and on film scores including Barbie, The Joker, West Side Story, The Greatest Showman, and The Girl on the Train.

Frampton is Artistic Director of Music at Bunker Hill, a chamber music series in Southern New Jersey he co-founded in 2008 that brings five professional chamber music performances to Gloucester County NJ every year. The community built as a result of Music Bunker Hill has brought regular collaborations with schools, libraries, orchestras, and civic organizations, contributing to the cultural life of Southern New Jersey. He has performed at festivals including Bard Summerscape, Verbier, and IMS Prussia Cove, and as soloist with conductors including Joseph Silverstein and David Hoose. He holds degrees from New England Conservatory and the Juilliard School, and studied with Kim Kashkashian, Samuel Rhodes, Choong-Jin Chang, and Byrnina Socolofsky. Frampton teaches viola and chamber music at The College of New Jersey.

Wayne Smith

cello

Wayne Smith gave his recital debut at the Kennedy Center in 1996 and has appeared as soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Italy, Germany, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Poland, and China.

He is a frequent performer at Bargemusic and has appeared with the Orchestra of Saint Luke’s, the New Jersey Chamber Music Society, the Ritz Chamber Players, the Manhattan Chamber Players, the National Chamber Orchestra, the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, and the Princeton Chamber Symphony among other groups, and was a featured soloist on the PBS Series Musical Encounters. He has recorded and performed with such artists as Joe, Richard Smallwood, and the Spin Doctors’ Anthony Krizan, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and the Moody Blues, and on Broadway for Sweeney Todd.

He has also enjoyed an active teaching career and was on the faculties of Amherst College, the Deerfield Academy, the Williston Northampton School, and Salisbury State University. He did his undergraduate studies at the Eastman School of Music with Steven Doane and his graduate studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst with Astrid Schween.

Herbert Woodward Martin

librettist

Herbert Woodward Martin was born to David Martin and Willie Mae Martin in Birmingham AL. Martin’s father left Birmingham at the urging of his younger sister who wrote that he could earn $5.00 a day instead of $5.00 a week. He left Alabama immediately for Ohio and his mother left one month later and he followed his mother a month after that. They all landed in Toledo OH safely.

Martin attended Elementary School in Birmingham, and High School in Toledo. When he graduated from High School he began his university studies at The University of Toledo immediately. An interruption of these studies occurred when he won a scholarship to The University of Colorado at Boulder and then one to The Bread Loaf School of English where he learned that he had a talent for writing contemporary poetry. After a three year stint, he returned to Toledo to finish his B.A. studies. When he completed his B.A. Studies, he had earned a fellowship to SUNY at Buffalo where he worked on his degrees for three years. He began his career in teaching at Aquinas College. He then took another job at The University of Dayton where he remained and taught for three more decades.

In the middle of this career, he was teamed up with Adolphus Hailstork where he wrote an opera based on Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poems. He followed this with an oratorio titled; Crispus Attucks. This work was followed by Nobody Know for baritone and orchestra. This work was followed on Juneteenth for a performance with soprano J’Nai Bridges. The death of George Floyd followed with a new work titled: A Knee on The Neck, and the rest, according to Martin, is history.

Kenneth Overton

baritone

Kenneth Overton is lauded for blending his opulent baritone with magnetic, varied portrayals that seemingly “emanate from deep within body and soul.” Overton’s symphonious baritone voice has sent him around the globe, making him one of the most sought-after opera singers of his generation. In 2020, Overton became a GRAMMY® award-winner for Best Choral Performance in the title role of Richard Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by JoAnn Falletta.

This season, Overton joins the San Francisco Opera as Suleiman in Omar, while covering Abdul/Abe and King’s Herald Lohengrin. Overton also joins Opera Montana as Marcello in La bohème, and in concert he joins Lyric Fest for their Love Songs Concert, as well as the Resonance Ensemble as a featured soloist in a recital of Black composer’s works, curated by Damien Geter. This season he also made his debut with Opera Montana as Marcello in La bohème, sang the title role of Elijah with The New Choral Society, and returned to the Washington Chorus and The National Philharmonic as the soloist in Beethoven’s Mass in C.

Last season, Overton featured largely at the Welsh National Opera, leading their production of Migrations and performing the role of Duncan in The Shoemaker, both being world premieres. Overton went on to sing Porgy in Porgy and Bess, a co-production by Opera Carolina and North Carolina Opera. Concert engagements included The Washington Chorus performances of Duruflé’s Requiem as a soloist, and Undine Smith Moore’s Scenes from the Life of a Martyr as the narrator; additionally, Overton performed a concert staging of Porgy and Bess with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg, Strauss’ Daphne with the American Symphony Orchestra, Bach’s St. John Passion with The Dessoff Choirs, Handel’s Messiah at the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Chapel, A Knee on the Neck and Dona Nobis Pacem with the New York Choral Society. Overton made his Metropolitan Opera Debut in the GRAMMY® award-winning production of Porgy and Bess.

Overton has also sung leading roles with The Danish Royal Opera, L’Opera de Montreal, Palacios Bellas Artes, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Nashville Opera, Opera Memphis, Sacramento Opera, Opera Tampa, and symphonic appearances with The New York Philharmonic, and The Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

For more information please visit kennethoverton.com

Notes

Detroit, for several decades, was a city where I received many important composing and performance opportunities in the early and middle part of my career. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra even commissioned my second symphony. My cantata Done Made My Vow was performed there more times than any place else. The chorus for those performances was always the outstanding Brazeal Dennard Chorale. He loved his city and was a great mentor to me. The final movement of this quintet is dedicated to his memory.

— Adolphus Hailstork

Nobody Know is a concert aria based on a text by Herbert Martin, an American poet based in Dayton OH. It was commissioned by The Harlem Chamber Players to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first Black enslaved people in America. The piece depicts a “song from the other cross,” a viewpoint of one of the thieves crucified with Christ on Good Friday, the thief who spoke to Christ.

I take a small cue from that master of ironic humor Langston Hughes. He pointed out that almost everyone wanted to be on the right hand of Jesus. That was the side that everyone agreed the most opportunity existed. Hughes points out that no one was on the left side. That side would be opportune since no one was there. Why didn’t Blacks take advantage? I thought this was an opportunity for the thief who knew he was guilty, and that Christ was the victim. It was a moment of realization for him and a chance not to be missed if at all possible. In this rare moment of crucifixion, the second thief is the one who realizes what is before him. He is cast as a Black individual who uses language as he has heard it: Nobody Know. It is he who asks: Do Lord, Do Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom! This is an intended echo of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. No one people has written all of history or can claim to have written it all.

The text for this aria is a joining of several references:
Do Lord, Do Lord, remember me…
And
I am a sinner a-rolling through an unfriendly world.
And
Nobody knows de trouble I see . . .

It is perhaps accurate to say that the second thief, because of his self-awareness, realizes that he is guilty of what he is accused of and seeks redemption and salvation because he is in the presence of the Divine. He is the exact opposite of the first thief who skeptically says: If you are the Savior, why don’t you save yourself and us as well?

The truth is we should all side with the second thief if given the chance.

— Herbert Woodward Martin

Nobody Know
by Herbert Martin

O Lord, O Lord
have mercy on me,
have mercy on me,
according to your love,
according to your steadfast love.
Blot out my transgression;
wash me thoroughly;
cleanse me from my ambition.
Lord,
Lord,
My Lord,
do remember me,
says the guilty thief.
Do Lord,
Do Lord, remember me says the guilty thief;
when you be way beyond the blue
when you be way beyond the blue.
Remember me,
remember me;
remember I was a-rollin’,
I was a-rollin’, through an unfriendly world
I was a-rollin’ through an unfriendly world.
and I’m callin’ Lawd.
I have been robbed of everything, even liberty.
I am a-seekin to be a new creature
I am a-seekin’ to become a new creature.
What’s the matter church?
Ain’t you never seen a Cross before?
Somebody down there;
somebody down there needs to be cast out.

MM MM MM
Nobody know the trouble he see;
see dem nails in his hands;
nobody know his sorrow;
see that hole in his side?
Nobody know the terrible pain.
Nobody know, nobody know.

O Lord, Oh Lord
have mercy on me
according to your love
according to your steadfast love,
according to your abundant mercy.

Do Lord, do Lord,
Do remember me, says the guilty thief,
when you are way beyond the blue;
do Lord, do Lord,
remember me. . . .