Gateways Music Pageant will likely be in New York Metropolis from April 24 to 27 for a collection of magical musical moments.
Gateways mentioned Spring Pageant 2025 kicks off in Rochester after which strikes to the Huge Apple.
The NYC occasions are capped by the Gateways Pageant Orchestra’s return to Carnegie Corridor on Sunday, April 27, below the baton of Anthony Parnther. The orchestra offered out throughout its final look in 2022, its debut on the famed establishment.
Gateways Music Pageant “exists to rejoice and proceed Black artistry in classical music.”
Its orchestra includes Black skilled classical musicians drawn from the nation’s main orchestras and music schools.
Different NYC occasions embrace Gateway’s orchestral fee of spirituals by Damian Sneed, that includes GRAMMY-winning mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges; William Levi Dawson’s Negro People Symphony, led by Anthony Parnther, the primary time since its New York premiere at Carnegie Corridor over 90 years in the past; a live performance by GRAMMY-nominated violinist Curtis Stewart; a recital with Rochelle Sennet on piano; a symposium; and masterclasses at Harlem College of the Arts and Weill Music Institute. An inventory of occasions follows the press launch under.
After launching with a collection of live shows and conversations in Rochester, New York, on April 21, Gateways mentioned Spring Pageant 2025 will land in Manhattan for performances, lectures, and masterclasses from April 24 to April 27, rounding out the week-long occasion.
The Gateways Pageant Orchestra is at the center of the pageant, composed of Black skilled classical musicians drawn from the nation’s main orchestras and music schools.
Gateways mentioned its finale live performance at Carnegie Corridor (April 27) marks the orchestra’s extremely anticipated first return to the venue since its historic, sold-out debut in 2022.
Led as soon as once more by conductor Anthony Parnther, Gateways mentioned this season’s finale program enhances folk-inspired symphonies by Antonín Dvořák and William Levi Dawson with the New York premiere of a brand new Gateways fee from Damien Sneed, that includes GRAMMY-winning mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges.
Gateways mentioned different pageant highlights embrace solo recitals by GRAMMY-nominated violinist Curtis Stewart and pianist Rochelle Sennet, inspiring talks, discussions, and academic initiatives, and performances by the Gateways Brass Collective.
Gateways mentioned Spring Pageant 2025 is offered in affiliation with the College of Rochester’s Eastman College of Music.
Gateways mentioned its wealthy spring choices proceed to influence the classical music panorama profoundly.
By celebrating and sustaining the custom of Black classical artistry, offering a house for musicians who carry the custom ahead, and presenting performances that deliver collectively multiracial, multigenerational audiences, Gateways mentioned it’s writing its classical narrative.
“Gateways isn’t only a pageant — it’s a house. A spot the place Black classical musicians deliver their full selves to the stage, and the place audiences can come collectively to hear, join, and rejoice,” mentioned Gateways Music Pageant President and Inventive Director Alex Laing.
“This April, we invite everybody to return out, see world-class artists, and be a part of a cultural second,” he added. “Whether or not it’s your first pageant, otherwise you by no means miss one, if classical music has been a part of your life for many years otherwise you’re experiencing it for the primary time, Gateways Spring Pageant guarantees to problem, encourage, and uplift.”
Contemporary off a landmark thirtieth anniversary season in 2023-2024, which included important debuts in Chicago and Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Middle in addition to a 1 million greenback Mellon Basis award, the Gateways Pageant Orchestra heads to New York with a thoughtfully curated program that honors the enduring energy of folks traditions, with particular give attention to Negro spirituals.
Gateways mentioned the finale live performance on April 27, at 2 p.m. at Carnegie Corridor, opens with Antonín Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony, a piece impressed by the dances and people tunes of the composer’s Bohemian homeland.
Dvořák believed that “Negro melodies … have to be the true basis of any critical and unique college of composition to be developed in the USA.”
Gateways mentioned this system concludes with William Levi Dawson’s Negro People Symphony, a towering landmark in American composition, first heard at Carnegie Corridor simply days after its 1934 world premiere.
Rooted within the religious custom and formed by Dawson’s travels in West Africa, Gateways mentioned his work represents a convincing declaration of Black cultural pleasure.
The 2 symphonies bookend the New York Metropolis premiere of Reflections of Resilience: 5 Spirituals, a brand new Gateways Music Pageant fee from NAACP Picture Award- and Sphinx Medal of Excellence-winning musical polymath Damien Sneed, that includes the GRAMMY-winning mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges.
Sneed describes the brand new work as “5 spirituals rigorously woven collectively in a musical tapestry highlighting the custom of the African American religious.” The Carnegie Corridor live performance will stream dwell to residence audiences worldwide as a part of WQXR’s Stay from Carnegie Corridor collection.
For full Spring Pageant info, please go to www.gatewaysmusicfestival.org.
