Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra: Harmony in Black
Albany Records

Recently textura had the pleasure of reviewing the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra's 2025 release, Convergence, featuring live performances of works by Michael Abels, Valerie Coleman, Andre Myers, and Patrice Rushen. Curation for the Andrew Sewell-conducted recording was handled by Dr. William Banfield, the WCO's 2021–24 ‘Composer in Residence'; as important is the fact that Convergence is not the first but the the second chapter in the five-year ‘Musical Landscapes in Color' initiative the company undertook to celebrate work by living American composers. Released last year, the first chapter, Harmony in Black, is as deserving of attention for its performances and material, with one piece by, again, Rushen and two by Banfield himself. Like Convergence, Harmony in Black is a live recording, this one captured on October 13th, 2023.

The multi-Grammy-nominated Rushen is a highly respected figure in jazz circles, but her talents as a composer, songwriter, and pianist extend far beyond one realm. She's served as Musical Director for three Grammy Awards productions, Head Composer/Musical Director for the Emmy Awards, and Musical Director for a Janet Jackson world tour. Her move into formal symphonic composition with the album's Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory is but one more feather in Rushen's cap. For his part, Banfield has produced a staggering body of work over the past twenty-five years that includes compositions, recordings, books, teaching, and arts leadership. He served as a Pulitzer Prize judge in American music in 2010, 2016, and 2020, and Banfield's own output includes twelve symphonies, seven operas, nine concertos, and other works.

As different as the Rushen and Banfield works are, they're connected in being rooted in American history and the transformative words of pivotal figures. Whereas Rushen incorporates texts from speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. into her three-movement piece, Banfield draws from the writings and oratory of Frederick Douglass (1818-95) for his “instrumental concerto” Testimony of Tone, Tune and Time. The composer's three-part Symphony No. 8: Here I Stand, on the other hand, honours Paul Robeson and explores his evolution from artist to activist. Each of the three works is a strikingly original and illuminating meditation on Black peoples' struggles for civil rights and social justice.

Originally commissioned by the Detroit Symphony for one of its annual MLK celebration concerts, Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory honours King's spirit and memory by focusing on three areas of his life. The opening “Passion From The Pulpit” considers his connection to faith and to the church, the second movement, “The Dreamer Cometh,” addresses the price brave individuals pay in the name of progress and justice, and the third, “Freedom Is Not Free,” acknowledges the dangers confronted by those at the front-lines. Rushen reminds us of King's oratorical power in weaving speech excerpts into the composition, with the man's thunderous voice, in fact, the first element heard. A Gershwin-esque horn chorale then establishes an engaging musical tone for the nineteen-minute performance, after which Rushen works through a series of blues-inflected symphonic passages and gospel-influenced melodies and rhythms. Drawing for inspiration from the “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” “The Dreamer Cometh” is more sombre and tension-building as ideas about the civil rights movement crystallize into plans for embodied resistance and recognition of the dangers to come. The work resolves with the towering “Freedom Is Not Free,” which marches defiantly towards realization of the liberation and equality King envisioned. Even if the reverend's speech excerpts were to be removed, Rushen's three-part work would still hold up as a gripping and more-than-credible example of symphonic writing.

The two works by Banfield are not formally related, yet thematic overlaps are present. In creating works based on Frederick Douglass and Paul Robeson, the composer honours the inspiring work the men did to battle injustice, hatred, and oppression and promote a vision of a more humane future based in equality, acceptance, and freedom. As an enslaved man, Douglass experienced brutality from the very start of his life and recounted it in the 1845-published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In the eight-part Testimony of Tone, Tune and Time, Matthew Sintchak's saxophone soloist symbolizes the strong, defiant, and soulful spirit of Douglass, while the narrator conveys his message and the orchestra embodies the world around him. With his saxophone incisively weaving in and around the speaker and orchestra, Sintchak plays magnificently throughout; as arresting is the narration by retired Wisconsin Court of Appeals judge Paul Higginbotham, whose expressive, unaccompanied delivery rises vehemently in accordance with the text. Musically, the work ranges from intimate jazz balladry (“Awake”) to lyrical tenderness (“We Dance”).

August 2025