The past eight months have been
tremendously fruitful for Chicago Modern Orchestra Project founding
director Renée Baker.
In July 2018, Ms. Baker was one of three female African-American
composers to participate in Magnetic Fields: Sonic Abstraction
at the Museum of Fine Arts of St. Petersburg, Florida. It was also
during the month of July that the first of her Baldwin Chronicles
was presented to the world.
Described as “a multimedia work of
operatic proportions based on texts by James Baldwin” by
Chicago's
The Visualist, The Baldwin Chronicles: Negro
Ideologies was presented in July
2018 and immediately considered for presentation at Symphony Center
by the CSO African-American Network. “While I was initially
approached by Symphony Center with an invitation to present Negro
Ideologies, I made the choice to
create a larger production to further explore James Baldwin's work,”
Ms. Baker said during a telephone interview.
This
new work, titled The
Baldwin Chronicles: Midnight Ramble receives its world
premiere in Buntrock Hall at Chicago's Symphony Center on Saturday,
February 16, 2019 at 5:00pm. This is
Ms. Baker's third presentation as
Visiting Resident Artist for the Chicago Symphony African-American
Network (AAN) at Symphony Center since the successful presentation of
Oscar Micheaux's silent movie Body and Soul in
2017 featuring Ms. Baker's vibrant score for jazz orchestra, which
was followed by last year's screeing of the 1927 race film The
Scar of Shame which also
included a new version of the musical score.
The
world “prolific” is used to describe those whose output in their
chosen fields has been incredibly fruitful and productive. One can
definitely include Renée Baker in this category, as she has composed
over 2,000 works including symphonies, chamber music, ballets, film
scores and operas. She has also published sixteen graphic novels
and received commissions from the Chicago Sinfonietta, Joffrey
Ballet, Berlin's International Brass, Chicago's Sheds Aquarium and
Indiana University's Cinema and Black Film Center Archive. Blue
Sonapoeme, Ms. Baker's first
opera, was premiered in 2012 at Chicago's South Shore Jazz Festival,
and subsequent works have been presented at both the INTUIT Museum
the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Kulhspot (Berlin), and the
Destijlik Museum in Zwolle, the Netherlands – thus making her the
first African-American to have premiered a significant series of
successful operas.
The
task of delving deeply into the life and work of James Baldwin could
be seen as daunting as he was one of the leading writers,
intellectuals and activists of the twentieth century. His output,
which included novels, essays, poems, articles and sermons, “serve
to remind the American public of our full humanity,” Renée said.
“James Baldwin was undoubtedly brilliant, but had he been a White
man, there would have been a very different reaction and response to
his work. Much of his thought process included finding his 'place',
even with being a brilliant man of letters who was able to debate
anyone.”
This 'finding of
place' manifested itself in Baldwin's move to France from the United
States at the age of twenty-four. Baldwin wrote about this move in
the essay “The Discovery of What it Means to be an American”,
describing the decision as the conscious removal of himself from
American prejudice and to have his writing understood on its own
merit.
Baldwin's
decision to live in France, however, was neither an abandoning of the
United States nor of himself. In 1957 he returned to the United
States and became deeply involved in the Civil Rights movement (while
personally eschewing the title of “Civil Rights activist”), his
involvement and observation resulting in a series of articles and
essays written between 1957 and 1963 about which Time
Magazine said “there is not
another writer who expresses with such poignancy and abrasiveness the
dark realities of the racial ferment in North and South”.
The thoughts
included in Baldwin's essays about race in the United States have
maintained their relevance through the present day, and equally
compelling are the profound, impossible-to-answer questions that
appear throughout all of his work. Despite the relationship
between James and his father being harsh, the experiences of religion
and spirituality pervade Baldwin's writing, as do questions
surrounding sexuality, color, relationships, and the sense of
'rootlessness' felt by African-Americans as described by Pulitzer
Prize winning playwright August Wilson who also experienced the
racism and segregation of the early twentieth-century when true
equality was just outside of the fingertips of millions of
African-Americans.
After
a profound exploration of and immersion into Baldwin's work, Renée
chose the poem “Conundrum” as the centerpiece of Midnight
Ramble. “Midnight ramble is
a term once used to talk about late-night movies, Ms. Baker said.
“In this context, I use the phrase to describe what had to be James
Baldwin's thoughts in some of his darkest moments – dark
illuminations inside the Black mind.” Included in the 2014
publication Jimmy's Blues and Other Poems, “Conundrum”
confronts the question of acceptance. “How do you tell the
difference between what's yours and what's not? Those questions are
still faced today,” Ms Baker said. “Fortunately for us, Baldwin
confronted these questions in an incredibly straightforward and
succint manner.”
Threading
ideas from essays, novels, the love letter, filmed debates and
stitching images and feeling into music, Renée 's intention with The
Baldwin Chronicles: Midnight Ramble
is to “plant the listener and viewer into James Baldwin's
imagination.” One manner of accomplishing this is the inclusion
of the Keith Hampton
Singers to
signify Baldwin's constant return to the church and the ideals with
which he was raised.
In addition to the
chorus, The Baldwin
Chronicles: Midnight Ramble
incorporates performing forces including eleven soloists and the
Chicago Modern Orchestra Project. Ms. Baker's work as a modern
artist and filmmaker is also included in this production, as all of
the set pieces are original creations. Additionally, the set
includes a twenty-four foot wide screen on which film, graphics and
paintings will be projected including scenes from both New York and
Paris in the 1950s and 1960s.
“Beauty and life for Baldwin stem
from the precariousness of terror, the sublime moments of the blues,
rhythm and stops of improvisation, and the simultaneity of Black life
and life in America,” Renée said. “As a storyteller and
intellectual, Baldwin occupies a position as a cultural icon and
truth-teller for us all, and The Baldwin Chronicles: Midnight
Ramble is a unique space for
stitching together music and his poetic imagination.”
Renée Baker's The
Baldwin Chronicles: Midnight Ramble is
being produced by and presented at Symphony Center Chicago
on Sunday, February 16, 2018 at
5:00pm.
With music and libretto by Ms. Baker, the creative team includes
concept direction by Bibiana Maite' and set design by Aghijana Daru.
Performs include featured vocalists Dee
Alexander, Rae-Myra Hilliard, Vickie Johnson, Sheila Jones, Robert
Sims, Julian Otis, Cornelius Johnson, Taalib-Din Ziyad, Saalik Ziyad,
Yoseph Henry and Jeffrey Burish; the Keith Hampton Singers, and the
Chicago Modern Orchestra Project.
For tickets and more information, please visit
https://cso.org/ticketsandevents/.
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