This weekend, 26-28 February, the Lowell Milken Center for American Jewish Experience at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music is presenting a series of performances and discussions to launch its new Music & Justice series. The events include a revival of Dave Brubeck’s visionary cantata from 1969, The Gates of Justice, performed in dialogue with contemporary compositions around social justice themes. There will also be a day-long public conference featuring prominent scholars and experts.
I wrote a feature on this project for Chorus America, which includes input from two of the three Brubeck sons, Darius and Chris, who will join to play the jazz trio in The Gates of Justice.
UPDATE: Here’s a link to the Zoom panel talk referenced below.
The Great Depression has been repeatedly invoked of late as we try to gauge the enormous impact of the current pandemic and the related economic crisis. But in the 1930s, Americans had a government in place that recognized the importance of the arts through the Works Progress Administration. These programs employed massive numbers of artists, writers, musicians, actors, dancers, and photographers.
On 5 July, together with Naxos and The American Interest, PostClassical Ensemble (PCE) presents the next installment in its More than Music series: Behrouz Jamali’s documentary on The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936), which focuses on the Dust Bowl, and The River (1938), a modern ode to the role played by the Mississippi River. With scores by Virgil Thomson, both were the first-ever films created by the federal government for commercial release (i.e., not merely informational or educational films). Both champion a distinctly anti-Hollywood aesthetic.
There will be a follow-up Zoom chat on 9 July at 3pm EST. A panel will explore government funding for the arts during the pandemic: conductor Angel Gil-Ordóñez, PCE Executive Producer Joseph Horowitz, historian David Woolner, and film historians Neil Lerner and George Stoney. Also on the agenda is a discussion of how Roosevelt’s New Deal addressed issues of race in the era of Jim Crow. To register, click here.
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 