Omar Thomas (b. 1982)

Described as “elegant, beautiful, sophisticated, intense, and crystal clear in emotional intent,” the music of Omar Thomas continues to move listeners everywhere it is performed. Born to Guyanese parents in Brooklyn, New York in 1984, Omar moved to Boston in 2006 to pursue a Master of Music in Jazz Composition at the New England Conservatory of Music after studying Music Education at James Madison University. He is the protégé of lauded composers and educators Ken Schaphorst and Frank Carlberg and studied under Grammy-winning composer and bandleader Maria Schneider.

Hailed by Herbie Hancock as showing “great promise as a new voice in the further development of jazz in the future,” educator, arranger, and award-winning composer Omar Thomas has created music extensively in the contemporary jazz ensemble idiom. It was while completing his Master of Music Degree that he was appointed the position of Assistant Professor of Harmony at Berklee College of Music at the surprisingly young age of 23. Following his Berklee tenure, he served on faculty of the Music Theory department at The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Now a Yamaha Master Educator, he is currently an Associate Professor of Composition and Jazz Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. He was awarded the ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award in 2008, and invited by the ASCAP Association to perform his music in their highly exclusive JaZzCap Showcase, held in New York City. In 2012, Omar was named the Boston Music Award’s “Jazz Artist of the Year.” In 2019, he was awarded the National Bandmasters Association/Revelli Award for his wind composition Come Sunday, becoming the first Black composer awarded the honor in the contest’s 42-year history.

Shenandoah (2018)

“Shenandoah is one of the most well-known and beloved Americana folk songs. Originally a river song detailing the lives and journeys of fur traders canoeing down the Missouri River, the symbolism of this culturally-significant melody has been expanded to include its geographic namesake – an area of the eastern United States that encompasses West Virginia and a good portion of the western part of Virginia – and various parks, rivers, counties, and academic institutions found within.

 

“Back in May of 2018, after hearing a really lovely duo arrangement of Shenandoah while adjudicating a music competition in Minneapolis, I asked myself, after hearing so many versions of this iconic and historic song, how would I set it differently? I thought about it and thought about it and thought about it, and before I realized it, I had composed and assembled just about all of this arrangement in my head by assigning bass notes to the melody and filling in the harmony in my head afterwards. I would intermittently check myself on the piano to make sure what I was imagining worked, and ended up changing almost nothing at all from what I’d heard in my mind’s ear.

 

“This arrangement recalls the beauty of Shenandoah Valley, not bathed in golden sunlight, but blanketed by low-hanging clouds and experiencing intermittent periods of heavy rainfall (created with a combination of percussion textures, generated both on instruments and from the body). There are a few musical moments where the sun attempts to pierce through the clouds, but ultimately the rains win out. This arrangement of Shenandoah is at times mysterious, somewhat ominous, constantly introspective, and deeply soulful.”

Of Our New Day Begun (2015)

“Of Our New Day Begun was written to honor nine beautiful souls who lost their lives to a callous act of hatred and domestic terrorism on the evening of June 17, 2015 while worshipping in their beloved sanctuary, the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (affectionately referred to as “Mother Emanuel”) in Charleston, South Carolina. My greatest challenge in creating this work was walking the line between reverence for the victims and their families, and honoring my strong, bitter feelings towards both the perpetrator and the segments of our society that continue to create people like him. I realized that the most powerful musical expression I could offer incorporated elements from both sides of that line – embracing my pain and anger while being moved by the displays of grace and forgiveness demonstrated by the victims’ families.

 

“Historically, Black Americans have, in great number, turned to the church to find refuge and grounding in the most trying of times. Thus, the musical themes and ideas for Of Our New Day Begun are rooted in the Black American church tradition. The piece is anchored by James and John Johnson’s time-honored song, ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ (known endearingly as the ‘Negro National Anthem’), and peppered with blues harmonies and melodies. Singing, stomping, and clapping are also prominent features of this work, as they have always been a mainstay of black music traditions, and the inclusion of the tambourine in these sections is a direct nod to black worship services.

 

“Of Our New Day Begun begins with a unison statement of a melodic cell from ‘Lift Every Voice….’ before suddenly giving way to ghostly, bluesy chords in the horns and bassoons. This section moves to a dolorous and bitter dirge presentation of the anthem in irregularly shifting 12/8 and 6/8 meter, which grows in intensity as it offers fleeting glimmers of hope and relief answered by cries of blues-inspired licks. A maddening, ostinato-driven section representing a frustration and weariness that words cannot, grows into a group singing of ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing,’ fueled by the stomping and clapping reminiscent of the Black church.

 

“In the latter half of the piece the music turns hopeful, settling into 9/8 time and modulating up a step during its ascent to a glorious statement of the final lines of ‘Lift Every Voice…’ in 4/4, honoring the powerful display of humanity set forth by the families of the victims. There is a long and emotional decrescendo that lands on a pensive and cathartic gospel-inspired hymn song. Returning to 9/8 time, the piece comes to rest on a unison F that grows from a very distant hum to a thunderous roar, driven forward by march-like stomping to represent the ceaseless marching of black Americans towards equality.

New Morning for the World: Daybreak of Freedom (1982)

Joseph Schwantner (b. 1943)

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Joseph Schwantner is Professor of Composition at the Yale School of Music. A native of Chicago, he attended the Chicago Conservatory and Northwestern University. After receiving his doctorate in 1968, he joined the faculty of the Eastman School of Music in 1970 – an association that would last nearly thirty years – and, later, also developed a studio at the Juilliard School in New York. In 1979, he was awarded the coveted Pulitzer Prize in Music for his first orchestral work, Aftertones of Infinity. He served from 1982-85 as Composer in Residence with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra under music director Leonard Slatkin. Throughout his more than three decades as a leading composer, Schwantner has been prolific in his composition for nearly every possible combination of instruments, including orchestra, chamber ensembles, voice, and solo piano.

As early as 1979, Eastman director Robert Freeman had suggested that Schwantner compose a work to include the former Pittsburgh Pirates baseball luminary Willie Stargell as narrator. In 1982 the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) commissioned Schwantner to compose a new work for the Eastman Philharmonia, the primary orchestra of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. With the fifteenth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., approaching in 1983, the composer decided to write a work for orchestra and narrator, using excerpts from Dr. King’s speeches to be read by Stargell. Schwantner and Stargell worked closely in selecting the texts. This performance features a transcription of the work for wind ensemble.

The work begins with an angry and noble fanfare, punctuated with the pealing of bell-like arpeggios in the woodwinds. Before long, the narrator enters but the rage of the band again prevails. An extended woodwind passage follows, built upon the rhythm of the fanfare, but the brass instruments soon overpower the proceedings. The reassuring words of Dr. King are heard again, temporarily calming the band. A sudden poignance assumes control, supporting the narrator (“Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth…”). The remainder of the work is not without struggle, but an overwhelming sense of direction and organization becomes stronger as it progresses. Perhaps the most memorable section of this work is the transition that follows, leading into Dr. King’s later expansion of his immortal “I Have a Dream” speech. Schwantner’s undeniable gift of melodic expression is abundantly apparent, reinforcing the timeless plea for true freedom and equality with elegiac simplicity.

TEXT

(adapted from the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

There comes a time when people get tired… tired of being segregated and humiliated, tired of being kicked about by the brutal feet of oppression.

We are going to walk non-violently and peacefully to let the nation and the world know we are tired now. We’ve lived with slavery and segregation three hundred and forty-five years, we waited a long time for freedom.

Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here.

For more than two centuries our foreparents labored in this country without wages – and built the homes of their masters in the midst of brutal injustice and shameful humiliation. And yet out of a bottomless vitality, they continued to thrive and develop.

If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.

No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

We’re on the move …neither the burning of our churches nor the beating and killing of our clergymen will stop us. We’re on the move now …my people listen! The battle is in our hands… I know some of you are asking today, ‘How long will it take?’

I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to earth will rise again.

How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long, because you will reap what you sow. How long? Not long, because the arm of the moral universe is long, and it bends toward justice.

When the history books are written in the future, somebody will have to say, “There lived a race of people – a black people – who injected a new meaning into the veins of history and of civilization. This is our challenge and our responsibility.

I have a dream. The dream is one of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where persons will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few: a dream of a land where persons do not argue that the color of one’s skin determines the content of one’s character; the dream of a place where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where everyone will respect the dignity and worth of all human personality, and men will dare to live together as brothers…

Whenever it is fulfilled, we will emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man into the bright and glowing daybreak of freedom and justice for all of God’s children.