Life Experience: Ever-expanding ‘Celebration’ trumpets Black History Month

Spencer Patterson

Friday, Feb. 18, 2005 | 9:33 a.m.

Five years ago UNLV's music department celebrated Black History Month wit a concert in a campus lecture room, drawing an audience of about 70.

It wasn't long before the event outgrew its humble origins, however, movin to Doc Rando Recital Hall, where the 2003 edition drew packed crowd of more than 300 for two shows on consecutive nights.

At 7:30 tonight "A Celebration of the African-American Experience" furthe expands its surroundings, this time in 1,870-seat Artemus Ha Hall.

"Last year we had people standing, and others not being able to ge in," said Dr. Alfonse Anderson, a UNLV music professor and the event's chief organizer.

"We're very excited to see how it will work in Ham Hall this year."

Along with its size, the annual concert has also expanded its scope considerably this year. In addition to chorale and orchestral performances, tonight's show will also feature contributions from UNLV's theater and dance departments.

"We are trying to make it a full College of Fine Arts event," Anderson said. "We're broadening it with a very varied program, with solo performances as well as group performances, and dance and theater throughout the entire show."

One highlight promises to be the premiere of a piece composed by Dr. Paul Seitz, a music professor at UNLV. The work is based on the traditional spiritual "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child," and will be performed by the Greenspun Junior High School Chamber Orchestra, with Anderson, a tenor, contributing the vocal.

Anderson stressed that even though spirituals were an outgrowth of American slavery, they are an important part of the nation's overall music heritage.

"The spiritual is part of our culture as Americans, not just the black experience," Anderson said. "All cultures are combined in this music, and it has given birth to many other forms of music in America, like jazz idioms and blues and pop and rock."

Anderson's wife, Kimberly, is the director of orchestras at Greenspun. She has been working with the chamber group -- 15 students in grades 6-8 -- since November to prepare them for tonight.

"It's a very difficult piece," Kimberly Anderson said. "It's syncopated on the eighth note, so it's not the type of piece you'd usually find middle school groups playing. I have some very talented students."

Seitz, who has dropped by Greenspun regularly to help the group learn his piece, will sit in on viola tonight. Kimberly Anderson will conduct.

"I've been trying to help the students understand what an important celebration this is, and that they're a part of a really great celebration of our American culture," she said. "They're amazingly mature children, and I think they really do understand."

Youth will also be represented by the University Children's Chorale, consisting of singers aged 8 to 14. The group is slated to perform three spirituals under the direction of Jeff Krisge, Liz Goodman and Barbara Buer.

Dr. Jocelyn Jensen will direct the UNLV Women's Chorus, which has prepared a trio of spirituals by Moses Hogan and Albert McNeil. Hogan, credited for revitalizing the spiritual genre, died last year at age 46.

Jensen, a UNLV professor, will also conduct the University Concert Singers, who are set to perform Ladysmith Black Mambazo's arrangement of the "Pan-African National Anthem," along with two movements from "Missa Kenya" (Kenya Mass).

The University Men's Glee Club is also scheduled to participate, under the direction of Eric Fleischer.

"It's representative of the many cultures coming together to honor our African-Americans, but also the fact that our country is more aware of their significant contributions," Jensen said. "This gives us an opportunity to showcase the talents of many people and of many black composers and artists."

Professional actor/director Nate Bynum, a UNLV professor in the theater department, will supervise tonight's dramatic segments, which will include monologues and scenes.

Bynum, who has appeared in such films as "The Rainmaker" and "The People vs. Larry Flynt," flew into town early this week to work with the university's theater students who will take the stage tonight.

"I booked out of Hollywood this week so I could make sure we get this under way and done right," Bynum said. "I'll look at what Alfonse has planned and then I'll try to put together a central theme to keep it moving."

Bynum said he will likely also present something himself.

"There are some pieces I haven't done for a long time, and I'm anxious to get back onstage," he said.

As much as tonight's concert is expected to entail, the event's organizers envision an even more wide-ranging African-American celebration in 2006.

"We're going to push to make it even bigger next year," Alfonse Anderson said. "We couldn't get art and film and architecture involved this year, but they've said they will be a part of it next year. We want all aspects of the arts involved."