| << Front page | Arts | February 18, 2005 |
Young jazz pianist Eric Lewis swings into town
The Feb. 20 concert by the Black Musicians Guild will showcase the talent of hot young jazz pianist Eric Lewis and pay tribute to longtime guild supporter and emerita professor of pianoforte Frances Walker Slocum.
Showcasing the work of black composers is a primary function of the Oberlin Conservatory Black Musicians Guild and the concert they perform on Sunday, Feb. 20 will continue that tradition.
This concert will be unusual, however, because it will also include a special tribute to emerita professor of pianoforte Frances Walker Slocum, a longtime supporter of the guild and a mentor to many African-American students in the Conservatory. An excerpt of a recent audiotaped interview of Walker Slocum will be presented.
The concert, which will take place at 8 p.m. in the Conservatory’s Warner Concert Hall will showcase jazz pianist Eric Lewis, a rising star on the national jazz scene who was profiled last month in the New York Times, as well as guild instrumentalists and vocalists performing works by a wide range of black composers. The program includes a violin concerto transcribed for flute by Le Chevalier de St. Georges, a black contemporary of Mozart; a string arrangement of spirituals by Moses Hoganm, OC ’79 and original music by sophomore Theodore Croker.
A longtime Oberlin resident, Frances Walker Slocum, is known for performing music by noted African-American composers in critically-acclaimed concerts throughout the United States and Europe. She is a much-loved teacher and role model whose students have achieved renown in a variety of musical careers. Despite her official retirement in 1991, she has remained active in students’ lives and education.
A former member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, 31-year-old Eric Lewis is a 1995 graduate of the Manhattan School of Music. Winner of the 1999 Thelonius Monk International Piano Competition, he apprenticed with drummer Elvin Jones, trumpeter Roy Hargrove and singers Jon Henricks and Cassandra Wilson. Lewis is working on several film tracks and a score for a work commissioned by the Joffrey Ballet, as well as performing a number of solo engagements. He can be heard on the Wynton Marsalis soundtrack for the Ken Burns 2005 PBS documentary Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson.
While in Oberlin, Lewis will complete a three-day guest residency that will include master classes, a jazz forum and a performance by student ensemble the Theodore Croker and Kassa Overall Quintet.
Croker, a jazz studies major and co-chair with senior Reginald Patterson of
the Black Musicians Guild, met Lewis last year while studying in New York with
Wynton Marsalis, conductor of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.
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