Tom Clowes, Crossing Borders Music
Collective founder and president: 520-331-8270
tclowes@gmail.com
Crossing Borders Music Collective presents its debut event, “Beyond the Headlines: Haiti in Music,” a concert of string quartets by Haitian composers on the third anniversary of Haiti’s earthquake. While commemorating the tragedy, the concert will also explore the untold stories of the richness of Haitian culture. The first of the concert’s three sections will feature Werner Jaegerhuber’s Suite Folklorique (“Folkloric Suite”). Jaegerhuber, a German-Haitian composer of the early 20th century, researched and collected Haitian folk songs from around the country and used these songs in his compositions. In Suite Folklorique, the work’s movements correspond to vodou deities and the folk music associated with them. The second section will feature the quartets of Haitian-born composers Claude Dauphin and Rudy Perrault, who emigrated to Canada and the US, respectively. Their quartets explore the theme of “exile” from their homeland in a modern style that, in the first, evokes nostalgia, and in the second, irreparable separation and loss.
Lastly, the concert will present excerpts of the new documentary Kenbe La (“Hold On”) by Bel Son Productions, which explores music education in Haiti, as well as works by current and former teachers and students of the Holy Trinity School of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The composers include Julio Racine, former director of the Holy Trinity Philharmonic Orchestra, Haiti’s de facto national orchestra; 19-year-old music student Sabrina Jean-Louis; Robert Durand, who helped create the Holy Trinity School; and Fritz Bernardin, a recent alumnus who is now the faculty viola teacher, whose new arrangement of Choucoune, an enduringly popular song by 19th century songwriter Michel Mauléart Monton, will be premiered.
The musicians will be making use of new critical editions prepared by the painstaking research of South Carolina State University Associate Professor Robert Grenier, who in some cases had to re-construct scores using the extant parts. Professor Grenier will be in attendance.
This is the official debut event of the Crossing Borders Music Collective, a new non-profit organization. The Crossing Borders Music Collective fosters intercultural appreciation, understanding, and cooperation through music. To this end, CBMC presents music of composers from around the world, focusing on those from under-represented countries. Members of the CBMC Board of Directors have performed concerts of music from Haiti, Nigeria, Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil since 2007. Concerts have promoted education, development, and medical assistance programs in Haiti, Nicaragua, and Mexico. Their 2011 concert Journey to Haiti supporting earthquake re-building efforts was broadcast on WFMT, Chicago’s classical radio station, and was the feature of a WorldView broadcast on music from Haiti on WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR affiliate. Of the concert, music critic Andrew Patner of the Chicago Sun-Times and WFMT wrote, “Wow. I was amazed at the overall quality of the music making, the news pieces and composers introduced… deeply moving and inspiring…” CBMC’s November preview performance of“Beyond the Headlines: Haiti in Music” was a TimeOut Chicago Critic’s Pick.
The concert will support the relief efforts of the Haitian Congress to Fortify Haiti, a not-for-profit 501c3 organization of Haitians in the Diaspora dedicated to mobilizing themselves to help develop Haiti. To that end, members of the Haitian Congress strengthen and organize their human and material resources, their children, and friends and allies of Haiti to make a positive contribution towards the creation of a stable, peaceful and prosperous Haiti where they, as Haitians in the Diaspora, can reintegrate themselves into the life of their country.
Selections from the concert will be previewed on WFMT’s contemporary music show Relevant Tones, on WBEZ’s WorldView, and on WHPK’s Vwa Lakay: the Voice from Home.
www.crossingbordersmusiccollective.org
http://haitiancongress.org/
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What: Crossing Borders Music Collective presents its debut concert: “Beyond the Headlines: Haiti in Music,” featuring string quartets by Haitian composers
Where: Fulton Hall, University of Chicago
5845 South Ellis Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
When: Saturday, Jan. 12, 7:30PM
Admission: free-will offering