Opening Night: Celebrating Black Composers of Classical Music

Saturday, November 5, 2022, 8 pm
Memorial Hall (590 Main Street, Melrose)

Program:
Join us as we take a closer look at some of the most talented yet often under-recognized Black composers in classical music history. All three composers featured fuse elements of African culture with classical forms – from Caribbean roots to jazz and blues, and the haunting melodies of African American spirituals and folk tunes.

• Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – The Bamboula (1905)

• Florence Price – Violin Concerto No. 1 (1939), Lucia Lin, violin

• William Grant Still – Afro-American Symphony (1930)

About the Soloist

Violinist Lucia Lin enjoys a multi-faceted career of solo engagements, chamber music performances with the Muir String Quartet, orchestral concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and teaching at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts.

Born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, Lucia Lin first made her debut at age eleven, performing the Mendelssohn Concerto with the Chicago Symphony. At the age of 22, she won a position in the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

She went on to become acting concertmaster with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and then spent two years as concertmaster with the London Symphony Orchestra where she was a leader for numerous recordings and tours, including those to Japan, Italy, Scotland, and Spain.

Currently, the pandemic and social uprisings of 2020 are the impetus for Ms. Lin’s newest project, “In Tandem,” ​an initiative dedicated to bringing new voices to classical music through commissions of ten emerging composers from the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music.