FOR HUMANITY: A GALA PERFORMANCE
Houston, Saturday, November 17, 2018
8 PM
Celebrating the United Nations’ International Day of Tolerance, Rice University’s Boniuk Institute is proud to present the Gala Concert for Arts of Tolerance. Launched on April 12, 2018, Arts of Tolerance is a multidiscipline artistic series designed to bring people of different religious, cultural and social backgrounds together.
Three stirring works bring over 150 artists to the stage. Leading the first performance of the night are Karl Blench (conductor), A. Jan Taylor (director, Prairie View A&M University Concert Chorale), John Cornelius (piano)’ and Axiom Quartet, in the world premiere of Dr. Arthur Gottschalk’s Litany. Inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois famous series of conferences and studies on black social conditions called the Atlanta University Studies, where he found that Georgia’s prison industrial complex was financed by the incarceration of black males and that laws were applied to blacks in blatantly discriminatory ways. They also demonstrated that while black crime decreased between 1895 and 1903, local politicians claimed that blacks committed more crimes than ever before, a species of political mendacity that exists all too prominently to this day.
The second, The Gospel According to John Coltrane by Paul English, a special arrangement for jazz quartet, narrator and SATB choir in a tribute to iconic US jazz musician John Coltrane; featuring the Chor-Owls vocal ensemble under direction of Thomas Jaber, and the Paul English Jazz Quartet.
The evening’s closing work brings us the United States premier of Gottschalk’s momentous masterwork, 2015’s Requiem for the Living (Navona Records), an 8-movement, 45 minute work for full orchestra, chorus, and soloists with artists, Vladimir Lande (conductor, St. Petersburg State Symphony), Betsy Cook Weber and Jeb Mueller (directors, University of Houston Choruses), Lauren Snouffer (soprano), Andrea Jaber (mezzo-soprano), Thomas Glass (baritone) and Timothy Jones (bass). Embracing people and beliefs from almost all parts of the world, Gottschalk commemorates Western music, quoting many genres from its history, from Renaissance madrigals and Classical sonatas to jazz, pop, and blues; honoring Western and Eastern thought, innovation, and art.
Date: Saturday, November 17, 2018
Time: 7:30 PM
Place: South Main Baptist Church – 4100 South Main St, Houston, TX 77002
Cost: $50 – $200
Tickets and full details at www.artsoftolerance.org
