Composer, Thomas Wilkins and pianist, Gerald Clayton to perform
Thomas Wilkins and pianist, Gerald Clayton will perform concerts featuring the music of Duke Ellington coming up at the LA Philharmonic:
On Thursday and Friday, Jan 20 and 21, at 8:00 p.m., LA Phil presents Symphonic Ellington: “New World A-Comin’,” with Gerald Clayton. The concert explores the symphonic range of Ellington from the whimsical dances in “Night Creature,” “New World A Comin,” “Brown, Black and Beige,” to his majestic ballet, “The River.” Thomas Wilkins is the conductor and jazz pianist and composer, Gerald Clayton, lends his touch to New World A-Comin.’
On Saturday and Sunday, Jan 22 and 23, at 8:00 p.m. Clayton joins Wilkins onstage as soloist for “Black, Brown, and Beige,” “A New World Comin’,” “Solitude,” and “David Danced,” selections from the Sacred Concerts. Wilkins composes on the stage with the Philharmonic for two performances featuring music from Ellington.
In 1943, Duke Ellington premiered two works about the experience of Black Americans—one, “Black, Brown, and Beige,” traced their collective history and another, “New World A-Comin’” imagined a hopeful future. Ellington wrote about the latter in his biography, “I visualized this new world as a place in the distant future, where there would be no war, no greed, no categorization, no non-believers, where love was unconditional, and no pronoun was good enough for God.”
Within the context of the orchestra, Ellington explored these themes, as well as his faith, in many forms, from sacred concerts to extended suites to tone poems. He brought the full range of his musical vocabulary to bear on his symphonic work, weaving spirituals, jazz, blues, and even West Indian dance music into his orchestrations. In two programs over four nights, Thomas Wilkins leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a weekend dedicated to the orchestral music of a great American composer.
Wilkins and Clayton are passionate about the musical legacy of Ellington and that these orchestral works still matter with either artist.
Thomas Wilkins is Principal Conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. He has held a titled position at the Hollywood Bowl since 2008, when he was named Principal Guest Conductor, and in the spring of 2014, he became Principal Conductor. To name a few of his accomplishments, in 2014, Wilkins received the prestigious “Outstanding Artist” award at the Nebraska Governor’s Arts Awards for his significant contribution to music in the state, while in March of 2018, the Longy School of Music awarded him the Leonard Bernstein Lifetime Achievement Award for the Elevation of Music in Society.
Gerald Clayton is a four-time Grammy-nominated pianist/composer who formally began his musical journey at the prestigious Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, where he received the 2002 Presidential Scholar of the Arts Award. Continuing his scholarly pursuits, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Piano Performance at USC’s Thornton School of Music under the instruction of piano icon, Billy Childs, after a year of intensive study with NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron at the Manhattan School of Music. Clayton won second place in the 2006 Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Piano Competition.
Before the show, the Phil offers a guided tour of the evening’s music before the concert to help concertgoers to know the context behind the program. Upbeat Live, key thinkers, and guest musicians – including members of the LA Phil – share their expertise and offer historical and cultural context for your program’s pieces, giving you a deeper understanding of the music.
