Cromwell Place: Emerging Art

In 1892, Dvořák landed in the USA as the newly appointed director of the National Conservatory of Music of America, in New York City. During his three years in the USA, he was also tasked with the job of spearheading the creation, of a truly (North) ‘American’ musical form of expression. Though still a post-colonialist viewpoint – North American music already existed in the form of the music of Black and indigenous peoples – the choice of Dvořák, as a composer who might be able to do this within the realm of art music, was an inspired one. For many years, Dvořák had made the music of his native Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) an integral part of his compositional output. The musical children of his time in New York include his Symphony No. 9 ‘From the New World’, the Cello Concerto, and the ‘American’ string quartet. We will perform the quartet at Cromwell Place on Saturday 28 January.

At the Conservatory, one of his Black students, singer, composer and arranger Harry T Burleigh, frequently shared Black and other indigenous music with Dvořák. It was through Burleigh that Dvořák came to know that much of this music was (and is still in much indigenous music in many other parts of the world) based on the pentatonic scale (a scale of five notes). Each theme in the ‘American’ String Quartet is pentatonic, as is the anonymous spiritual, Deep River.

The concert also features the world premiere of We Folk Disquieten, by British-Sri Lankan composer Yshani Perinpanayagam. Perinpanayagam has based her piece on the pentatonic scale – or rather, several. There is really only one pentatonic scale, which can be anchored to any given note (i.e., played at a higher or lower pitch). Perinpanayagam, giving each instrument a distinct pentatonic scale, represents the local voices of different peoples in different parts of the world, gathering them in a single, powerful, unified voice as the work unfolds.

Pyramids in an Urban Landscape by the Mexican composer Diana Syrse will be given its UK premiere at Cromwell Place. Syrse combines the use of traditional string quartet instruments with pre-Columbian ones. At first, one may wonder why these pre-Columbian shapes and sounds are irrupting into the old, established order of the string quartet. This is until we realise it is the ‘West’, the colonisers, who have encroached around the pyramids, the ayoyote, the ocarina and the shaker, all of whom were there first.

The title of the concert, ‘Emerging Art’, evokes the idea of the new: new music, new paintings, new art. But these final expressions cannot be understood without also delving into the different processes and cultural environments which lay out the conditions in which artists work, to generate this new art. We invite the audience to join us in being a part of the process that underpins the genesis of some of the works we perform today.