CONCERT, EXHIBIT TO HONOR THE CAREER OF VIRGINIA COMPOSER ADOLPHUS HAILSTORK
An exhibit and chamber music concert at Old Dominion University will honor the musical career of internationally known composer, music laureate for the Commonwealth of Virginia and professor of music at Norfolk State University Adolphus Hailstork.
"Kaleidoscope: The Musical World of Adolphus Hailstork" will open at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 13, in the Diehn Composers Room of the Diehn Fine and Performing Arts Center. A concert featuring a selection of Hailstork's works will begin at 3 p.m. in the Chandler Recital Hall, followed by a reception in the center's atrium. Both the concert and exhibit, which runs through March 1, are free and open to the public. Reservations are required and can be made by calling 683-4175.
The exhibit provides an overview of Hailstork's creative process, from small works for one voice or instrument to full chorus and orchestral works. Items on display will include photographs, scores and memorabilia.
Directed by Hailstork himself, the concert will include singers Lorraine Bell, Frank Ward and Agnes Mobley Wynne, and musicians Robert Brown, Leslie Neal Douglas, F. Gerard Errante, Amadi Hummings, Lee Jordan-Anders, Annie Loud, Lee Teply and Jeanette Winsor.
Hailstork has written numerous works for chorus, solo voice, various chamber ensembles, band and orchestra. Among his compositions are "Celebration," which has been recorded by the Detroit Symphony; "Out Of The Depths," which won the 1977 Belwin-Mills Max Winkler Award presented by the Band Directors National Association; "American Guernica," which received first prize in the Virginia College Band Directors' 1983 national contest; and "Mourn Not The Dead," which received the 1971 Ernest Bloch Award for choral composition. In 1995, the chamber work "Consort Piece" was awarded first prize by the University of Delaware Festival of Contemporary Music.
During the 1980s Hailstork created three of his largest and most frequently performed choral works: the triptych "Songs of Isaiah," the oratorio "Done Made My Vow," and the cantata "I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes." In 1990, a consortium of five orchestras commissioned a piano concerto, which was premiered by Leon Bates in 1992. Hailstork was commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music to write "Festival Music" for the Baltimore Symphony, and in 1999 his second symphony, "Symphony No. 2," and second opera, "Joshua's Boots," were premiered.
Hailstork received his doctorate in composition from Michigan State University, where he was a student of H. Owen Reed. Currently at professor of music at Norfolk State University, he holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and Howard University.
The exhibit and concert are part of a continuing series in which the Diehn Composers Room highlights the work and collections of 20th-century American composers. "Kaleidoscope: The Musical World of Adolphus Hailstork" is funded by a generous grant from the Norfolk Foundation.
For more information, call the Diehn Composers Room at Old Dominion at 683-4175.
Old Dominion University Office of University Relations
Room 100 Koch Hall Norfolk, Virginia 23529-0018 Telephone 757-683-3114
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