The Sphinx Organization to Make Wigmore Hall Debut in May

The Sphinx Organization will make its Wigmore Hall debut on Sunday, May 26, 2024 at 7:30pm in American Sketches. A distinguished ensemble of violinists Melissa White (2001 Sphinx Competition Winner, Harlem Quartet, Kaleidoscope Collective) and Alex Gonzalez (Sphinx Virtuosi, The Knights), violist Michael Casimir (2015/2011/2009 Sphinx Competition Awards, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra), cellist Sterling Elliott (2024 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, 2023 YCAT Robey Artist, 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant, 2019 & 2014 Sphinx Competition Winner), and pianist Michelle Cann (2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence) perform a program of works by celebrated American composers Jessie Montgomery, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Billy Strayhorn, Tania León, William Grant Still, and Florence Price.

Founded by violinist social, entrepreneur and poet/journalist Aaron P. Dworkin in 1996, and now led by President and Artistic Director Afa Dworkin, the Sphinx Organization is a non-profit social justice enterprise dedicated to increasing representation of Black and Latinx artists in classical music, recognizing artistic excellence and transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts. The musicians of the Sphinx "Familia" champion these aims and ideals and are passionate about undertaking widespread outreach and engagement work as they tour these works worldwide. Hailed as "topnotch" by The New York Times, the Sphinx Virtuosi were introduced to a global stage via the July 2023 release of their debut album, Songs for Our Times, on Deutsche Grammophon.

The program opens with Strum by 2024 GRAMMY-winning composer, violinist and educator Jessie Montgomery, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's current Mead Composer-in-Residence, who has been affiliated with the Sphinx Organization since 1999. Originally composed for cello quintet, Strum draws on American folk idioms evoking a spirit of dance and movement. As Montgomery writes in the program note for the piece: "I utilized texture motives, layers of rhythmic or harmonic ostinati that string together to form a bed of sound for melodies to weave in and out... The piece has a kind of narrative that begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration."

A lively arrangement of Billy Strayhorn's jazz standard Take the A Train, the composer's breakout composition and a signature tune of the Duke Ellington orchestra, precedes Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Tania León's Tumbao. Currently Carnegie Hall's Debs Composer's Chair and London Philharmonic Orchestra Composer-in-Residence, León uses her signature musical language to weave intimate connections to memories of her formative years in Havana, and to meaningful encounters and relationships throughout her life. Stylistically, she combines a prominent clave rhythm with angular phrases, chromatic scurries, spiky jabs and compelling use of dissonance.

William Grant Still's Mother and Child draws inspiration from a chalk drawing by Sargent Claude Johnson, a Black artist based in San Francisco - his work depicting a young Black woman gently cradling the head of her child, who seeks refuge in her embrace as she rests her head on her other arm with a pensive stare. Like the artwork that inspired it, Still's Mother and Child uses a deceptive simplicity to express the complex emotions of the subjects. With gentle alternation between major and minor, the work offers a compact musical portrait of maternal love.

Completing the program are works by British composer and conductor Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, American composer Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson-named for the earlier composer-whose interests spanned jazz, dance, pop, film, television, and classical music, and by Florence Price, the pioneering African-American composer whose work has experienced a renaissance in recent years.

Program Information

Sunday, May 26, 2024 at 7:30pm
Sphinx Organization American Sketches
Wigmore Hall | 36 Wigmore St | London W1U 2BP
Tickets: £18- £40
Link: www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/202405261930

Program:
Montgomery, Jessie (b. 1981) - Strum
Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel (1875-1912) - Piano Quintet in G minor, Op.1
Strayhorn, Billy (1915-1967) - Take the A Train
León, Tania (b. 1943) - Tumbao
Perkinson, Coleridge-Taylor (1932-2004) - Movement for String Trio
Still, William Grant (1895-1978) - Mother and Child
Price, Florence (1887-1953) - Piano Quintet in E minor

Melissa White, Violin
Alex Gonzalez, Violin
Michael Casimir, Viola
Sterling Elliott, Cello
Michelle Cann, Piano

*Photo Credit: Image courtesy of the Sphinx Organization.

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