Dvorak to Duke Ellington: A Conductor Explores America's Music and Its African American Roots - Softcover

Peress, Maurice

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195374479 ISBN 13: 9780195374476

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2008

Synopsis

Drawing upon a remarkable mix of intensive research and the personal experience of a career devoted to the music about which Dvoák so presciently spoke, Maurice Peress's lively and convincing narrative treats readers to a rare and delightful glimpse behind the scenes of the burgeoning American school of music and beyond.

In Dvorak to Duke Ellington, Peress begins by recounting the music's formative years: Dvorák's three year residency as Director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York (1892-1895), and his students, in particular Will Marion Cook and Rubin Goldmark, who would in turn become the teachers of Ellington, Gershwin, and Copland. We follow Dvorák to the famed Chicago World's Fair of 1893, where he directed a concert of his music for Bohemian Honor Day. Peress brings to light the little known African American presence at the Fair: the piano professors, about-to-be-ragtimers; and the gifted young artists Paul Dunbar, Harry T. Burleigh, and Cook, who gathered at the Haitian Pavilion with its director, Frederick Douglass, to organize their own gala concert for Colored Persons Day.

Peress, a distinguished conductor, is himself a part of this story; working with Duke Ellington on the Suite from Black, Brown and Beige and his "opera comique," Queenie Pie; conducting the world premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass; and reconstructing landmark American concerts at which George Antheil's Ballet Mecanique, George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, James Reese Europe's Clef Club (the first all-black concert at Carnegie Hall), and Ellington's Black, Brown and Beige, were first presented. Concluding with an astounding look at Ellington and his music, Dvorák to Duke Ellington offers an engrossing, elegant portrait of the Dvorák legacy, America's music, and the inestimable African-American influence upon it.

About this title

About the Author

Maurice Peress is Professor of Music of Queen's College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. A disciple of Leonard Bernstein, he was conductor of the Corpus Christi and Kansas City symphony orchestras.

Review

"Peress has in-depth and first-hand knowledge of the subject as he worked with Ellington, edited and'or orchestrated five of Ellington's symphonic works, and has presented a number of critically acclaimed historically accurate concert recreations...With an unparalleled background in music and research, Peress is uniquely suited to delve into the topic at hand, and does so with skillful results,...there is not a graduate composition or conducting major who would not benefit from reading this highly personal tome." --JCG

"For anyone interested in a good look at a poorly understood line of American musical history, or for anyone interested in a simple, fascinating story of music and genius, Peress's Dvorak to Duke Ellington is a captivating read." --International Musician

"What makes Dvorák to Duke Ellington so compelling is that it is written by an accomplished conductor who collaborated with Ellington late in his life on the orchestration and/or creation of some of his major compositions, most notably Black, Brown, and Beige and Queenie Pie. Among Peress's most significant achievements is his balancing of an almost irrepressible enthusiasm for the music he champions with a more objective judgement that needs to be brought to bear on what is still a raw topic: namely, how do we come to terms with the complicated miscegenation that is American music?"--Symphony

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0195374479
• ISBN 13: 9780195374476
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 272