Malcolm X, The Civil Rights Movement and the African American struggle for social justice and human rights

X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X, An Opera in Three Acts by Anthony Davis with libretto by Thulani Davis is a landmark and masterpiece of American Opera Theater. On many important levels, X is the seminal American opera about The African American Experience in the mid to late 20th Century

No American Opera of the last 60 years has so brilliantly interwoven social themes of critical contemporary importance, richly hewn drama and masterfully innovative music as is found in X.

 February 21st 2015 will mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X.   This extended showcase of critical highlights from the opera has been created during 2013 to enhance the marketing and strategic pitch campaigns for prospective productions of X during 2015.    This post underscores my work done for Mr. Davis during 2013 as his marketing and strategy agent.

Premiered to great acclaim in 1986 by New York City Opera, X richly details the life and death of one of the most talked about iconic figures in American politics of the 1960s.

Davis' score is richly complex and multi layered with jazz, African poly rhythms enveloped in late 20th Century classical music idioms. Mr. Davis notes that he used  rhythmic overlay as a device of operatic leitmotif that reappears throughout. The vocal writing is exquisite in its intricate detailed use of block scoring with an effect recalling the power of Verdi opera Ensembles.

The Arias, Duets and Ensemble writing is matched with an immediacy and depth in Thulani Davis’ text  which is provocative, as it is moving.  More poignantly, X is now: X is 2014…. with a searing relevance speaking directly to an American nation at a crossroads in confronting Race Relations, Social Justice and the discussion of the threats posed by the current Supreme Court and Congress to The Civil Rights Movement legacies: the 1964 Civil Rights Act, The Voting Rights section in The Civil Rights Act of 1965 and poignantly,"The New Jim Crow":the crisis of mass incarceration of African American men in the prison system. Note, the scene in Act 2 titled Policeman speaks directly to the experience of young black men like Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis to issues of racial profiling and worse. X is a tour de force of amazing clairvoyance   

In this premiere recording, the music is brought to life by the brilliant singers which include Thomas Young, tenor as Elijah and Street, Eugene Perry, baritone as Malcolm X, Herbert Perry, bass baritone as Reginald Priscilla Baskerville as Louise and Betty, Hilda Harris as Ella and an outstanding Ensemble including Cynthia Aaronson,Vanessa Ayers, Cornelius White,William Moize,Raymond Bazemore,, Autris Paige and Reginald Pindell.  The Policemen Scene with resonance for the 2013 Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman event are sung by tenors John Daniecki and Ronald Edwards.  The Reporter commenting about the death of JFK is spoken by Max Wilcox  The orchestra is The Orchestra of St Luke's under the baton of William Henry Curry.  To purchase the cd recording, visit Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Life-Times-Malcolm-Anthony-Davis/dp/B000009JE4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406301581&sr=8-1&keywords=anthony+davis+x

To learn more about the rich and diverse world of contemporary Black Composers, visit  http://www.billdoggettproductions.com/Black-Composers.html

Anthony Davis:X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X,An Opera in Three Acts-Excerpts

Méditation boréale

As young boy, I worked with my grandfather during the summers paving driveways in Rocky Mount, Virginia. He was a task master. Things had to be done the right way and with haste when he asked for it in his own playful way. He would say, “Pull those weeds up likety split!” or “Shovel that dirt lickety split!” It was tortuous work during the hot summer days but ultimately proved quite lucrative at the end of the day when my grandfather paid me for the days work.
This piece, in its whimsical character, draws on inspiration from that colloquial phrase, Likety Split, coined in the 1860s. It meant to do something quickly or in a hurry. I used the rhythmic syllabic stresses of the phrase as a main motif for the piece. (li-ke-ty split) To create a playful mood, I used bouncing pizzicato lines in the cello part over wildly syncopated rhythms played by the piano. Harmonically, the central idea moves in parallel motion in thirds between the voices. As the piece develops to an agitated state, both instruments relentlessly rhythmically drive to a climatic ending - done so in a lickety split fashion...
~Carlos Oliver Simon Jr. (2015)

Lickety Split- Cello and Piano

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Composed by Rasmus Zwicki as part of the 2018 Sundance Institute Film Music & Sound Design Lab for a documentary film by Zeshawn Ali. Recorded at Skywalker Sound, conducted by Peter Golub.

Instrumental version here: https://soundcloud.com/somesoundfilmscoring/rasmus-zwicki-instrumental-soundtrack-from-two-gods

Rasmus Zwicki - Prayer Call Soundtrack from 'TWO GODS' (Sundance Lab)

for sleepy days,
rainy days,
winter nights.

peace and light, 

- hannah faith

CHAMOMILE

Hummingbird Two

Shimmer

REASON - Might Not Make It

Be Kind

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Marshmello & Halsey - Be Kind

La Jolla Symphony Orchestra, Steven Schick, conductor.

Mandeville Auditorium, La Jolla, CA, Feb. 9. 2019

Community Acoustics

Carlos Simon is a native of Atlanta, Georgia whose music ranges from concert music for large and small ensembles to film scores with influences of jazz, gospel, and neo- romanticism.
Simon’s latest album, MY ANCESTOR’S GIFT, was released on the Navona Records label in April 2018. Described as an “overall driving force” (Review Graveyard) and featured on Apple Music’s “Albums to Watch”, MY ANCESTOR’S GIFT incorporates spoken word and historic recordings to craft a multifaceted program of musical works that are inspired as much by the past as they are the present.
As a part of the Sundance Institute, Simon was named as a Sundance Composer Fellow in 2018, which was held at the historic Skywalker Ranch. His string quartet, Elegy, honoring the lives of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner was recently performed at the Kennedy Center for the Mason Bates JFK Jukebox Series. With support from the US Embassy in Tokyo and US/Japan Foundation, Simon traveled with the Asia/America New Music Institute (AANMI) on a two-week tour of Japan in 2018 performing concerts in some of the most sacred temples and concert spaces in Japan including Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Japan. Other recent accolades include being a Composer Fellow at the Cabrillo Festival for

 Contemporary Music, winning the Underwood Emerging Composer Commission from the American Composers Orchestra in 2016, the prestigious Marvin Hamlisch Film Scoring Award in 2015, and the Presser Award from the Theodore Presser Foundation in 2015.
Recent commissions have come from Morehouse College celebrating its 150th founding anniversary, the University of Michigan Symphony band celebrating the university’s 200th anniversary, Albany Symphony’s Dogs of Desire (American Music Festival) as well as serving as the young composer-in-residence with the the Detroit Chamber String and Winds in 2016. Simon’s music has been performed by Tony Arnold, the Third Angle New Music Ensemble, Hub New Music Ensemble, the Asian/ American New Music Institute, the University of Michigan Symphony Band, American Composers Orchestra, Flint Symphony, the Color of Music Festival, Dogs of Desire, University of North Texas Symphony Band, University of Miami Symphony Band, Georgia State University Wind Ensemble and many other professional performance organizations. His piece, Let America Be America Again (text by Langston Hughes) is scheduled to be featured in an upcoming PBS documentary chronicling the inaugural Gabriela Lena Frank Academy of Music. He now serves as a member of the music faculty at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.

 Acting as music director and keyboardist for GRAMMY Award winner Jennifer Holliday, Simon has performed with the Boston Pops Symphony, Jackson Symphony, and St. Louis Symphony. He has toured internationally with soul GRAMMY-nominated artist, Angie Stone, and performed throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Simon earned his doctorate degree at the University of Michigan, where he studied with Michael Daugherty and Evan Chambers. He has also received degrees from Georgia State University and Morehouse College. Additionally, he studied in Baden, Austria at the Hollywood Music Workshop with Conrad Pope and at New York University’s Film Scoring Summer Workshop.
Carlos Simon, Jr. is a member of many music organizations including ASCAP, where he was honored as one of the "Composers to Watch" in 2015. He is also an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Music Sinfonia Fraternity and a member of the National Association of Negro Musicians, Society of Composers International, and Pi Kappa Lambda Music Honor Society. His compositions have been published by the Gregorian Institute of America (GIA) Publications and Hal Leonard Publications.

Lickety Split- Cello and Piano

Carlos Simon

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