The performers are the Rose City Brass Quintet of Portland, Oregon.  This composition combines 12 tone composition with jazz idioms.

Jazz Quintet

Piano-Joyce Solomon Moorman
Percussion-Wilson Oscar Moorman II
One Day In... is a 4 movement composition, a movement for each season.  Here, though, are only two, spring and summer.

One Day In Spring, Summer

I traveled to Ghana and saw the Door of No Return/Door of Return at Cape Coast Castle.  When I saw "Door of Return" I felt that Ghana was welcoming me back to the land from which my ancestors were forcibly taken by the slave traders.

The performance is by the Afro American Chamber Society Orchestra of Los Angeles with Janise White conducting.

Ghana-Door of Return

Commissioned by Vienna Modern Masters for their Third International Festival of New Music for Orchestra in Olomouc, Czech Republic, June 1998.  The orchestra is the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jiri Mikula

A Tone Poem for Victims of Racism and Hatred

This is Act 2 Scene 1 from my opera ELEGIES FOR THE FALLEN, which is about the Soweto uprising in South Africa.  The uprising began in 1976 and continued for a year and a half.  In this scene a woman is preparing to go to bed and looks at the picture of her husband who has been in jail for revolutionary acts for 18 years.

The performers are Yvonne Hatchett, mezzo soprano; Joyce Solomon Moorman, piano; Wilson Moorman, percussion.

Sorrow's Bride

This is Act 2 scene 2 from my opera ELEGIES FOR THE FALLEN, which is about the Soweto uprising which began in 1976 and continued for a year and a half.  In this scene there is confrontation between the police and the rebellious students. One student is killed.  This is a dance/movement scene.

The performers are the Richmond County Orchestra of Staten Island, New York.

Rocks Versus Machine Guns

This aria for contralto is from the prologue of my opera Elegies for the Fallen.  The prologue is about the slave trade.  An old woman watches as a young man escapes from a group of captured Africans.  The performers are Nicole Mitchel, contralto, Joyce Solomon Moorman, piano.

Oh Scion

Soweto's Mourning Mothers is from the first Act of my opera Elegies for the Fallen, which is about the Soweto uprising in South Africa that began in 1976.  The performers are Nicole Mitchel, contralto, and Joyce Solomon Moorman, piano.

jsm

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