America’s Musical Roots

April 8, 2025, 10:00 pm

Share this Post

Violinist Chad Hoopes
Violinist Chad Hoopes

The two composers on this program were well acquainted and together helped to form what we think of today as American-spirited works of chamber music. Harry T. Burleigh, an African American singer and composer, befriended Antonín Dvořák while he was a student at the National Conservatory. Burleigh’s Southland Sketches was among the first pieces of chamber music by an African American composer to be distributed to an audience overseas. Dvořák wrote his Bass Quintet in G major in 1875, well before his famous stay in the United States, but the vibrant folk-infused style of the Quintet foreshadows the music he composed in America, in which he quickly embraced the native music he found in the new world.

Playlist

Henry T. Burleigh: Southland Sketches for Violin and Piano
Chad Hoopes, violin; Wu Han, piano

Antonín Dvořák: Quintet in G major for Two Violins, Viola, Cello, and Bass, Op. 77
Calidore String Quartet (Jeffrey Myers, Ryan Meehan, violin; Jeremy Berry, viola; Estelle Choi, cello) Xavier Foley, bass