Negro Folk Symphony
'I hope the audience will hear that only a black person could have written this,' William Dawson said of his Negro Folk Symphony, now composed 91 years ago.
"My music tastes like cod," Edvard Grieg thought, referring to the salty Norwegian folk melodies that permeate his work. With African-American William Dawson, he has a kindred spirit. 'I hope the audience will hear that only a black could have written this,' he said of his Negro Folk Symphony (1934) - inspired by spirituals, West African rhythms and the history of 250 years of slavery. A revelation.
Programme & performers
Strauss
Don Juan
Grieg
Piano concerto
Dawson
Negro Folk Symphony (Dutch premiere)


A history of 250 years of slavery

A piece comparable, if not superior, in quality, to orchestral works by the much-better-known William Grant Still and the now-ubiquitous Florence Price, with whom he must have rubbed collegial elbows in Chicago.
