Together with the College of Rochester’s Eastman College of Music, Gateways Music Pageant ignites the season with its 2025 Fall Pageant. It crowns its 2025–2026 programming with a momentous return to its birthplace in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
The Pageant, celebrated for its mission to attach and assist skilled classical musicians of African descent, stated it should current “an inspiring lineup of concert events, neighborhood occasions and academic packages that spotlight artistry, cultural heritage and collaboration across the nation.”
The Gateways Fall Pageant, which can happen Oct. 13–16 in Rochester, celebrates “custom and transformation by means of classical efficiency, cultural alternate, and collective celebration.”
On the coronary heart of the Pageant, seven-time GRAMMY Award-winner Terence Blanchard and his electrifying band, The E-Collective, be a part of the Gateways Pageant Orchestra, led by conductor Damon Gupton, for Movie Scores Reside! — a efficiency of Blanchard’s iconic movie scores — together with Malcolm X, BlacKkKlansman, and Inside Man.
Offered in collaboration with the inaugural Soundtrax Movie Pageant, the live performance underscores Gateways’ mission to highlight the cultural contributions of Black composers.
The Pageant stated it additionally includes a solo recital by acclaimed pianist David Berry and a live performance together with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Nonet in F Minor carried out by the Gateways Chamber Gamers — an all-star ensemble of Black classical musicians that includes bassoonist Monica Ellis of the GRAMMY Award-winning ensemble Imani Winds, cellist Patrice Jackson of the Berklee College of Music, hornist Kevin Newton of Imani Winds, oboist Titus Underwood of the Nashville Symphony, bassist Patricia Weitzel of the Penn State Faculty of Arts and Structure and others.
Gateways Music Pageant stated academic programming contains the Younger Musicians Institute: Rochester Day for Strings, a free, day-long, immersive program the place younger string gamers study, rehearse, and carry out alongside Gateways’ skilled educating artists.
From intimate recitals to daring orchestral collaborations, the Pageant celebrates the richness of Black musical excellence and the communal pleasure of gathering.
“By celebrating and sustaining the custom of Black classical artistry, offering a house for musicians who carry the custom ahead, and presenting performances that carry collectively audiences of all backgrounds, Gateways is writing its personal classical narrative,” the Pageant stated.
“At Gateways, music isn’t simply heard — it’s felt. It strikes by means of the room, connecting folks throughout time, custom, and lived expertise,” stated Gateways Music Pageant President and Creative Director Alex Laing. “This fall, we’re not simply presenting concert events — creating area for pleasure, recognition, and cultural reminiscence. To see Black musicians performing on the highest degree, particularly in works by Black composers, is highly effective. However to witness that in neighborhood — with others who worth artistry, historical past, and belonging — that’s transformative. That’s Gateways.”
On the Fall Pageant, the Gateways Chamber Gamers supply a one-night-only efficiency of collaboration, connection, and collective sound.
The Gateways Music Pageant stated, on the coronary heart of this system is Coleridge-Taylor’s hardly ever heard Nonet in F Minor (1894) — a sweeping work of youthful brilliance by the Black British composer who challenged racial limitations in his time and whose music speaks powerfully to questions of presence, belonging, and creative authority in the present day.
It stated this system additionally showcases the ensemble in smaller configurations — duos, trios, and different combos — revealing completely different sides of the ensemble and the artists, which embrace violist Jordan Bak of the North Carolina College of the Arts, clarinetist Olivia Hamilton of the Minnesota Orchestra and Sioux Metropolis Symphony, violinist Kyle Lombard of the Saint Louis Symphony and rising-star pianist Joshua Mhoon, presently finding out on the Juilliard College.
“The result’s a efficiency alive with listening, dialogue, and creativeness, honoring each the composer’s legacy and the uncommon event of those artists sharing the stage,” the Pageant stated.
For extra info, go to www.gatewaysmusicfestival.org.
