Album cover with abstract paper art.
Music speaks to the stories of our lives, and the more accomplished the composer, the richer and emotionally intelligent the stories. There are few contemporary musical voices as expressive as those of composer Dr. William Banfield and Grammy Award nominee, jazz pianist and vocalist Patrice Rushen. The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra under Maestro Andrew Sewell has captured works from both on Harmony in Black, the first of a five-part series just out on Albany Records.
The 73-minute album, recorded live during the Chamber Orchestra’s Oct. 13, 2023, concert at Overture Center’s Capitol Theater, formally launched on March 14. The recording marks another milestone for the ensemble, and one they believe could ripple across symphonic stages far beyond Madison.
“When you think about the classics, American music has so much to choose from and we need to start playing more of it,” says Joe Loehnis, the orchestra’s chief executive officer. “It’s our hope that other orchestras will listen to this [album] and start playing this music, too.”
Harmony in Black opens with Rushen’s Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, a three-movement work intertwining deeply layered dramatic tones with recordings of speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The disc finishes with Banfield’s jazzier eight-movement Testimony of Tone, Tune and Time, and his moving Symphony No. 8, about the challenges faced by Black activist/actor/bass-baritone Paul Robeson. Written in 2000, the three-movement composition was lost for a decade until a colleague of Banfield’s recovered it. The symphony received its world premiere at the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra’s Jan. 28, 2022, Masterworks concert.
The recording project has its roots in Banfield’s role as the orchestra’s composer-in-residence, a three-year position that began in 2021 and has been extended for another three years through 2027 to help shepherd the series through its creation and the release of one disk per year, with the final release in 2028. All recordings will focus on the work of composers of color, many contemporary, but also those who have come before and whose music received little play due to the composers’ race and the social restrictions of the time. Sewell and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra will perform on all five albums. The series also draws its inspiration from Banfield’s 2003 book Musical Landscapes in Color (University of Illinois Press) in which he interviews 45 contemporary Black composers.
Future albums will focus largely on Black composers, but the orchestra has left the door open to the possibility of featuring composers of color with different racial profiles. “Our view is open-ended,” says Loehnis. “We’re not finalizing the list because we want the project to grow organically so we can use what we learn for future albums.”
The future albums are in different planning stages, including the second one, due out next year. Composers under consideration in addition to Patrice Rushen include Michael Abels, whose Nope Suite for the film Nope recently won a Grammy Award; music educator and composer Andre Myers; composer and founder of the Imani Winds quartet Valerie Coleman; and double-bass virtuoso Xavier Foley.
“It’s my responsibility as a musical leader to represent our varied community in a variety of ways,” Sewell says. “We can widen the lens, create more diversity, and open our ears to more types and styles of music and resources.”
Such projects are expensive. Loehnis estimates the first album cost $750,000 to produce, an amount underwritten by multiple corporate donors including the American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact, which pledged $375,000 to the project, as well as underwriting the March 14 release party. Other donors include the TruStage Foundation, the Madison Community Foundation, and Columbia University’s Alice M. Ditson Fund.
The true value of such an effort comes in broadening our social culture, Sewell says.
“The opening of doors and of our eyes and ears will bring in fresh voices and celebrate voices from the past that have been overlooked,” he says. “The music brings us forward to reflect just who we are as a society.”
Loehnis agrees: “We’re an arts organization and our task is to introduce culture and open listeners up to new cultures. This project allows us to intentionally present these works. It’s our charge and our mandate to do so.”
Harmony in Black is available as a CD and in digital formats from wcoconcerts.org/merchandise. It is also streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube.
