Memo to Facebook Group "The African-American Cello History Collective"…for continuers...

A word of explanation on the genesis of that once-strange and now settled-down FB group, The African-American Cello History Collective:

Here in the Triangle Area (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC), over the years I have made it a practice to try and do recital performances on-campus at the adjacent universities: my own, NCCU; UNC, with occasional visits to Duke University and NC State, Saint Augustine's College.  I played a recital at UNC-Chapel Hill on November 1, 2013--the night after the University's and the Town of Chapel Hill's annual Halloween celebration.  On Reformation Day evening, the Franklin Street main drag gets blocked off for the purpose of trickin-n' treatin' and general foolishness that could involve the police representing both "town and gown interests"!!

Anyway, my recital was great fun; it was a program of variation sets: Mendelssohn, Hindemith, James Lee III, Beethoven and Adolphus Hailstork.  The opening work was the most memorable of the evening, due to the presence of a family with Mom seated in the front row of Person Recital Hall with her two sons, one of whom is a cellist (about 7 years old at the time).  Apparently the sugar buzz from the Halloween trick or treating the previous night had worn off…during the opening piece of my recital!!  The Mendelssohn Variations concertantes is an enchantingly beautiful piece, but I hadn't envisioned it as an opening lullaby!!  The young cellist was asleep IN THE FRONT ROW directly in my line of vision!!  He only woke up when he heard the applause!!  My program was of limited duration ("blessed are the merciful"), so I decided to speak directly to my audience of friends, colleagues, UNC students (threatened with reprisals lest they not attend) and townies--who are some of the most sophisticated in the United States, according to recent surveys!!  It's a shame that my verbal program notes weren't recorded--they might've sounded like this blog post reads to you right now!!

My detailed mention of the recital evening pales in contrast to my profound sadness felt the very next morning, when my smartphone rang and Juanita Smith (the widow of composer Hale Smith) gave me the news that Kermit Moore has passed away at the age of 84.  Per my initial posting, Kermit was (by the previous month, which included the last conversation I would have with him by phone) one of those "shining beacons" whose name I first saw on the back of a Yusef Lateef jazz recording (an LP, mind you..."Hush N' Thunder"), and who I'd have an opportunity to perform with and talk plenty shop about the instrument, its history and repertoire…and about the African-American experience with it.  As I struggled to find a way to honor his memory and "press on", my poking of people on FB came to mind (...maybe three things will serve as incontrovertible evidence that I've been SUCKED into the 21st century hollering and screaming: Facebook, my smartphone and THIS BLOG!!).  I then began looking through the files of documents and photographs taken from my gradual and occasionally haphazard collections of research in American history and culture, which is ALSO African-American…and I was astounded at the magnitude of information I'd amassed.  A small voice in my head told me (though it sounded like ClemZilla's!!), "Bring it out"!!  That's where the barrage of photographs from God knows where (all over) came to mind.

Therefore, I am pleased to begin reposting said photos…since Facebook time moves very quickly, and Lord protect us from all those commercials between posts, messages and event creations!!  One of my favorites is a 1935 photograph of the Baltimore City Colored Orchestra and Chorus; when I saw it, I was nearly overcome with pride and gratitude.  The very thing I often complain to my students about I was learning all over again: the need to gobble up and somehow regurgitate significant history!!  February is NOT LONG ENOUGH!!  And we know what that is about on both sides of the color line, so we should just stretch the celebration on out…we make history the other eleven months of the year anyway!!  The size of the ensemble implies that the work on the impending program could've been Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or the Verdi Requiem (which I'll be playing next month at the Colour of Music Festival in Charleston, SC, www.colourofmusic.org), but err'body is "dressed to the Nines" in tuxedos and black formal dresses…'quite expectable for '35 and how folks back in the day chose to dress when putting their best foot forward in support of "the race".

My doctoral dissertation recitals at The University of Michigan were dedicated to the cello and chamber music of African-American composers.  In studying and engaging in the necessary research for the recitals, I knew that the scope of my academic and artistic endeavor was inherently and self-evidently broad: I couldn't talk about William Grant Still, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, David Baker, Hale Smith or Adolphus Hailstork without making contextual reference to American history itself or their respective community's place in it.  For that reason my discussions will invariably contain references to this country's struggle with skin-color equality or equal access to educational opportunity, because those issues directly affected the experiences of our forebears just as it affects our experiences today.

I'll step carefully down from my literal soapbox now--'lest it give way before I make it to the sidewalk!!

Peace and good intonation,

"Minor Holley" (Major's nephew)

Getting Started…on Tobacco Road...

The subject of this initial blog posting has nothing to do with tobacco or roads, but is, quite remarkably about the notion of "the history of cello playing and teaching among Americans of color", which is a road-oriented process and experience.

I have been pondering and fidgeting starting a blog on cello history, and after reading several posts on my fellow A-A cellist, friend and colleague Robert Clemens's blog page (once I was finished laughing hysterically!!) began poking around the web to see how easy this "evil act" might turn out to be!! :)

I come from a long line of church folk, public school teachers, historians, humorists and musicians so please fasten your seat belts as a few of my posts may wax theological, pedagogical, historical (and hysterical!!), and definitely musical.

My interest in the African-American presence in cello history is not new; it began in my formative years of playing, where like most adolescents I was looking for role models who were cellists but also looked like me or were at least walking paths that resembled the one I could see ahead of me.  That led to me two names, eventually: Kermit Moore (1929-2013) and Donald White (1925-2005). Donald White was a member of the cello section of the Cleveland Orchestra, joining the membership in 1957 having come from the Hartford (CT) Symphony.  Kermit Moore was a renowned cellist, composer and conductor who lived and worked in New York City for more than fifty years.

The next place I was led to, quite unexpectedly, was the appendix of Louis Potter's book the The Art of Cello Playing (1965).  Potter was one of my "grand-teachers" during my adolescent years in Lansing, Michigan.  The Suite of Howard Swanson is listed in the appendix of violoncello repertoire; I can't recall what (beyond my simple recognition of the English language, derivative as hell that it is!!) drew me into a state of further curiosity about Swanson, but off I slowly went in search of Howard.  Well, by the time I found out that Howard Swanson had lived and studied in Cleveland, Ohio…I was an undergraduate student at Baldwin-Wallace College (now University) in Berea--on the southwest "fringe" of Cleveland!!  I also ordered a copy of the score and part to the Suite while studying there.

To shorten an opening "long story"…my exploration and efforts to acquaint, study, practice, perform and dare to champion the cello, chamber and orchestral music of African-American composers as a facet of the hodgepodge of activities that most of us deign to call a "career"...began with this work.

I cordially invite all who wish or dare to join me on this exploration and investigation of this "unknown history". Peace…

Timothy W. Holley, A.Mus.D.