Black Renaissance in the USA and Caribbean

'There are concerts that make you realise what you've been missing... The first half of Thursday's Lontano concert at St John's, Smith Square, provided the answer.'

The Independent

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Mezzo soprano, Simone Ibbett-Brown, sings settings by the African-American poet Langston Hughes in works by Margaret Bonds and Florence Price. Afro-Cuban poet Nicolas Guillén’s poems also were greatly influenced by the Negritude (Blackness) movement begun by Langston Hughes in Harlem, a movement that reached Europe and the Caribbean. Ibbett-Brown joins Lontano to give the world premiere of Odaline de la Martinez’s Four Afro Cuban Poems by Nicolas Guillén. The programme also features other contemporary works by Fred Lerdahl and Augusta Read Thomas, winner of the Ernst von Siemens Composer’s Prize in 2000.

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Pre-Concert Panel at 6.30pm

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Pre-concert panel on the Black Renaissance in the US and abroad, with Joan Anim Addo. 

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Programme​

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Margaret Bonds Three Dream Portraits by Langston Hughes

Augusta Read Thomas Dream Catcher* 

| Caprice* 

Odaline de la Martínez Four Afro-Cuban Poems by Nicolas Guillén**

Fred Lerdahl Three Diatonic Studies*

Florence Price Four Songs | Fantasy in Purple | Forever | Song to the Dark Virgin

| Travel’ End

 

*UK Premiere

**World Premiere

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Artists​

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Lontano

Simone Ibbett-Brown mezzo soprano

Caroline Balding violin

Dominic Saunders piano