André Raphel conducts Coleridge-Taylor, Still, and Caine with the Uri Caine Trio, Barbara Walker, vocalist, and Catto Chorus

American conductor André Raphel leads this first program in a series exploring complex social issues. The centerpiece of these concerts is Philadelphia jazz pianist and composer Uri Caine’s gospel and popular music-based The Passion of Octavius Catto, which tells of the 19th-century civil rights leader’s fight for justice. English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s charming potpourri Petite Suite de Concert dates from about 1911. In four movements, “Longing,” “Sorrow,” “Humor,” and “Aspiration,” William Grant Still’s 1930 Afro-American Symphony, his best-known work, is a blues-tinged panorama of the composer’s heritage.

Festival: Voices of Loss, Reckoning, and Hope is supported by the generosity of the Elinor V. Crawford Living Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Richard Saltonstall Charitable Foundation.

Support for these performances of “The Passion of Octavius Catto” has been generously provided by Vita L. Weir and Edward Brice, Jr., and Pamela Everhart and Karl Coiscou.

André Raphel, conductor
Uri Caine Trio
Uri Caine, piano
Mike Boone, bass
Clarence Penn, drums
Barbara Walker, vocalist
Catto Chorus

COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Petite Suite de Concert
STILL Symphony No. 1, Afro-American
---- Intermission----

Uri CAINE The Passion of Octavius Catto