A next-generation ‘Concerto for Orchestra’ arrives — this one by Valerie Coleman
The “Seven O’Clock Shout” and “Umoja: Anthem of Unity” composer deepens her Philadelphia ties.
Valerie Coleman may not live in Philadelphia, and yet she’s ever-present in the city. A frequent visitor when she was Imani Winds’ flutist, Coleman has developed a compositional voice that is at once universal and personal in a series of premieres with the Philadelphia Orchestra over the past several years.
Warmth, hope, and the American spirit bubble forth in the first minute or two of This is Not a Small Voice for soprano and orchestra. There’s a feeling of springlike rebirth in both her Seven O’Clock Shout and Umoja: Anthem of Unity. When Umoja premiered in 2019, it was the orchestra’s first time performing a classical work by a living female African American composer.
Here, the New York-based Coleman talks about her latest: Concerto for Orchestra (”Renaissance”), an ambitious work commissioned by the orchestra receiving its world premiere in concerts this week in Philadelphia and at Carnegie Hall.
As a genre, the concerto for orchestra is loosely defined — Bartók and Lutoslawski wrote two popular examples — and Coleman’s take on it is programmatic. The Great Migration, World War II, the Cotton Club, and how the Red Summer of 1919 played out in Philadelphia appear in musical form. Pizzicato violins are raindrops, bassoons shout fire, and, as Coleman writes in a program note, tom-toms and bongos evoke the nightlife of “mafia, illegal alcohol, showgirls, zoot suit fashion and the underbelly of Broadway after-hours.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
You’ve said that your ‘Concerto for Orchestra’ reaches back to Jacob Lawrence’s ‘Beachhead’ (from his War Series paintings) for inspiration.
Yes, every setting to me has a sound; whether it’s a pitch, whether it is this atmospheric sound, or a melody. And so the beginning of the concerto really does depict that painting from the War Series. To me, that painting is so powerful. I really wanted to capture this feeling of what it’s like to be a Black soldier during this time where the type of duty that you would face is not necessarily going into combat. You could be relegated to the grunt work of things — latrine duty, for example. I could hear the sounds of bombs or just this high-pitch trauma manifested like a stillness. And so within the beginning of the concerto, you have this piano chord hit as if it’s a shock — cold ocean water on a person’s face.
The piece also relates to present day. Can you talk about that?
Well, there’s something that’s happening in present day among Black composers. We’re kind of coalescing and discussing all the issues of the day, we’re supporting each other. There was a New York Times article about the dinner party that potentially launched the Harlem Renaissance. Nobody knows for sure when it began. But this idea of artists coming together to create, to manifest this cultural explosion just simply through supporting one another, and collaborating with one another — I’m seeing that happen right now. So it’s kind of amazing to see that return or to see a parallel between that and what is happening now.
Who is part of this group?
I think that there were catalysts involved in getting us together — you know, the overturning of affirmative action. I remember the day after it happened I sent out a text to a bunch of different composers. And next thing you know we’re on Facebook chat just really giving our thoughts … I think we went from shock and fear of what would happen, not only to how our music is programmed, but to younger generations, how they might suffer within a collegiate setting or [how] there might be a drop off of applicants. And so this little group grew at this moment. It’s myself, DBR [Daniel Bernard Roumain], Jessie Montgomery, Nkeiru Okoye, Carlos Simon, Damien Geter, John Wineglass, Nokuthula Ngwenyama, Kevin Day — there’s like 21 of us.
The pendulum swings back and forth on this, but we’ve swung away from the idea of music as pure sound to something connected to the political and social forces going on in the outside world. What’s your thinking about where we are on that right now?
Every composer is completely different. For myself, growing up in Louisville, Ky., not far from where Muhammad Ali grew up and not far from where Breonna Taylor was shot and killed, my mom being that person who is a matron of a neighborhood — things like that really inform my purpose as a composer. I’m grateful to be able to have an imagination to create sound and create melody, but the idea of writing where it’s necessary to solve social-political issues is where I am right now in my life. Twenty years ago, 30 years ago — see, I’m aging myself — I had different ideas of what I wanted to write.
Do you ever write with a particular listener in mind? Do you have a certain ideal?
Yeah, absolutely, there is the visualization of who I’m writing for that I keep in my mind as I’m writing. When I write it for the Philadelphia Orchestra, I do visualize the Philadelphia Sound and how unique it is and how heart-strong it is. But the visual of how they generate that heart-strong sound is always in my mind and how [conductor] Yannick [Nézet-Séguin] moves as he’s collaborating and coaxing as an equal collaborative partner. That is something that stays really at the top of my visualizations.
What about an audience member — is there a specific person you visualize writing for?
For This is Not a Small Voice, I was just thinking about the community and trying to really create a love song for them. And so, yeah, that visualization was there. I think for this concerto, the visualization has been more about the members of the orchestra. You know, I thought about Carol [Jantsch, tuba player] and Ricky [Ricardo Morales, clarinetist] — all the crew.
It’s interesting that you’re not the Philadelphia Orchestra’s composer in residence, but you have this relationship where you’ve done as much work for this orchestra as any composer in residence here has. Is there more on the horizon?
I hope so. From your words to God’s ears.
‘Seven O’Clock Shout’ has had such an interesting life. It plays the role that John Adams’ ‘The Chairman Dances’ was playing in orchestras 30 years ago. It seems to be everywhere.
I’m surprised about that — I’m shocked. Jeremy [Rothman, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s artistic administrator] gave me two weeks to write that piece, in response to the pandemic. And honestly I thought that it would have a short life, that once things calmed down with COVID, it would no longer be programmed. But somehow it’s still being programmed. And I think that it really does go lockstep with Yannick talking about the connection that we all want on this just basic human level of community. And so maybe that is the reason it’s stuck around — that thematic idea.
COVID has sort of lifted, but the need for community has only gotten more intense. Especially since we’re in such a divisive place right now.
I think that is where I’ve been leaning compositionally. I feel like there can never be enough works that send out messages of coming together.
Valerie Coleman’s “Concerto for Orchestra (’Renaissance’)” is performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin on Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. in Verizon Hall, Broad and Spruce Streets. Also on the program: Debussy’s “La Mer” and, with pianist Mitsuko Uchida, Ravel’s “Piano Concerto in G Major.” Tickets are $25-$181. philorch.org, 215-893-1999.