Belmont University School of Music
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 2025
7:30 P.M. MCAFEE CONCERT HALL
Belmont
University School of Music presents
New Music Ensemble
Mark Volker, director
Sami Copeland & Nathan Bunch, assistants
Pre-Concert Discussion
Hannibal Lokumbe+, Kim Phuc Phan Thi+, Mark Volker†
Moderated by D’Angelo Taylor+
Program
Due biassanòt
Isabel Fisher, piano
Ellery Smith, piano
Troupe Wilson, piano
Dario Argentesi (b. 1985)
Suite: War and Sorrow In the Clouds
Musica Ricercata VII
Wartech
Brendan Wilson, flute
Henry Johnston, keyboards and computer
Liam Slowey, keyboard and computer
Chase Wilson, keyboard and computer
Liam Slowey* (b. 2000)
György Ligeti (b. 1923) arr. Henry Johnston*
Ethan Alford* (b. 2003)
Pavane melancholique Kees Schoonenbeek (b. 1947)
Brendan Wilson, flute Anastasia Heers, oboe
Sami Copeland**, piano
A Forgotten Winter Dream
Mark Volker** (b. 1974)
Of Peace
Lokumbe from In the Spirit of Being (b. 1948)
Soren Allen**
Genevieve Braden
Logan Bressman
Sami Copeland**
Monica Dudley
Abby Everett
Eva Grossardt
Cayman Hogue, bassoon
Children of Fire
Intermission
Grace Homer
Miriam Marks
Jonathan Martin**
Nick Simela
Bray Stratton
Mark Volker†
Kyra Watson**
Jill Wilson
Hannibal Lokumbe
I. Sunrise (b. 1948)
II. In Life There is So Much
III. The Bombing
IV. Aftermath
V. Finale
Angela Stenzel**, soprano
Will Kreth+, child soprano
Solo Quintet
Hannibal Lokumbe+, trumpet
Nate Spratford+, saxophone
Tony Moreira†, piano
Roy Vogt†, bass
Todd London†, drumset
Hannibal
Choir
Orchestra
Dillon Wright**, piccolo/flute
Brendan Wilson, flute
Miriam Marks, percussion
Jay Moreland, percussion
Matthew Oliver, percussion
Anastasia Heers, piano
Nicholas Benefield, piano
Daniel Ko, violin 1/soloist
Madlyn Anderson, violin 1
Natalie Piedra, violin 1
Kate Borosky, violin 2
Rocco Greco, violin 2
Eleanore Markwald, violin 2
Isabella Kinard, viola
Nathaniel Eulentrop, viola, Heather Sherman, viola
Madelyn Duncan, cello
Owen Siller, cello
Claire Walker, bass
Ethan Alford, electronics
Liam Slowey, sound reinforcement
Chase Wilson, sound reinforcement
Mark Volker†, conductor
*School of Music Student
**School of Music Graduate Student
School of Music Alumnus
†School of Music Faculty
+Professional Guest
About the Guests
Composer and trumpeter Hannibal Lokumbe (né Marvin Peterson) has been celebrating and commemorating the African-American experience through music and words for the last fifty years. His journey has taken him from Smithville, Texas, where he was first inspired by the spirituals and hymns of his grandparents, to the stages of Carnegie Hall and celebrated venues around the world.
Beginning his professional career as a jazz musician in New York City in 1970, Lokumbe has toured and recorded with some of jazz’s most influential and accomplished artists, including Gil Evans, Pharaoh Sanders, Roy Haynes, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Cecil Taylor, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, Carla Bley, Carmen McRae, Lee Morgan, Art Blakey and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. As a bandleader and composer in his own right, he has released twenty recordings for labels including Atlantic, Naxos and Enja Records.
Bridging the worlds of jazz and classical music, Lokumbe’s work has been commissioned and performed by orchestras across the country, including the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (Can You Hear God Crying?), Detroit Symphony Orchestra (Dear Mrs. Parks), New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (God, Mississippi and a Man Called Evers). Other commissions include Carnegie Hall, Hamburg Radio Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Houston Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, Vocal Essence, Carole Haas Gravagno, the Art Sanctuary of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Orchestra 2016-2019 (One Land, One River, One People, Healing Tones) with conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Nashville Symphony 2023 (The Jonah People: A Legacy of Struggle and Triumph) and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic 2023 (Trials, Tears, Transcendence: The Life of Clara
Luper). Lokumbe’s oratorio African Portraits debuted at Carnegie Hall with conductor Paul Lustig Dunkel and the American Composers Orchestra. Since its 1990 debut, the work has been performed more than one hundred times by orchestras across America, and was recorded with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Daniel Barenboim.
Lokumbe is the founder and director of the Music Liberation Orchestra, a program that teaches music, genealogy and writing to incarcerated men around the country in institutions such as the Bastrop County Jail, located in Bastrop, Texas; Orleans Parish prison, located in New Orleans, Louisiana and Holmesburg Prison located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Notable awards and recognitions include Harlem Jazz Hall of Fame Lifetime Inductee, the Bessie Awards, 1999; National Endowment for the Arts, American Academy of Arts and Letters, United States Artists’ Award in Music, Peter Cummings Fellow, 2010; Detroit Symphony Orchestra Lifetime Achievement Award, 2011; Joyce Award, 2011; Honorary Advanced Degree, Drexel University College of Arts and Sciences, 2017; Philadelphia Orchestra Composer-in-Residency, 2016-2019 and more. In 2020, Americans for the Arts awarded Lokumbe with the Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities in support of his community-based work and his commitment to building a more just and liberated society. Presently, Hannibal is composing the next major work entitled, Once A Place Called Earth
Kim Phuc Phan Thi: The Vietnam War knows many tragedies, some more familiar than others. A photograph of a young girl running naked down a road, her skin on fire with napalm, changed the way the world looked at the Vietnam War, and at all wars. The photograph was transmitted around the world and later won a Pulitzer Prize. The girl in the picture is Kim Phuc.
Phan Thi Kim Phuc was born and raised in the village of Trang Bang, thirty minutes north of Saigon. During the Vietnam War, the strategic Route 1 that runs through the village became the main supply road from Saigon to Phnom Penh. On June 8, 1972 together with American coordinators, the South Vietnamese Airforce dropped napalm bombs on Kim’s village. Nine-year-old Kim fled from a Cao Dai pagoda, where she and her family were hiding. Two of her infant cousins did not survive the attack, and Kim was badly burned. Kim was photographed running down the road, screaming from the third degree burns to her skin. Nick Ut, the Associated Press photographer who was there to cover the siege, took the photograph of young Kim. Moved by her pain, he rushed her to a South Vietnamese hospital. She then spent fourteen months recovering in Barsky Hospital, the American hospital in Saigon, where her care was paid for by a private foundation. Ut’s photograph of Kim remains one of the most unforgettable images of the Vietnam War. Kim Phuc was not expected to live. The third degree burns covering half her body would require many operations and years of therapy. After two years, however, with the help of doctors who were committed to her care, she was able to return to her village and her family began to rebuild their lives.
In 1982, ten years after the famous photograph, a German photographer located Kim. In the interim, the Government had subjected her to endless interviews. Kim had been forced to quit school and move back to her province, where she was supervised daily as a “national symbol of war.” That was a low point in her life. She spent her time reading to find out her purpose in life. Christmas 1982 she became a Christian.
In 1986, Kim was sent to study in Cuba, where she met a fellow Vietnamese student, Toan BUI HUY. They married in 1992, and spent their honeymoon in Moscow. On their return to Cuba, the couple defected when the plane stopped to refuel in Gander, Newfoundland. With the help of Nancy Pocock, they settled in Canada. Now her husband gains employment as a residential counselor for the disabled.
When Vietnam Veterans groups heard of Kim’s whereabouts, they invited her to participate at a service in Washington, as part of a Veterans Day observance. Ms. Kim Phuc PHAN THI wanted to share her experience and help others heal from the pain of war. While there, she spoke face to face with a veteran who coordinated the air strike on her village on that day in 1972, and she forgave him. In light of Kim’s struggle, a foundation has been established to further heal the wounds of war. The Kim Foundation International is a non-profit organization committed to funding programs to heal children in war torn areas of the world. It is named for Kim Phuc, who wants to give back what so many gave to her to contribute to her healing.
Now, Mrs. Kim Phuc PHAN THI lives in the Toronto area of Canada with her husband and two sons, Thomas and Stephen. In 1997 UNESCO named her a Goodwill Ambassador for Culture of Peace. She is also an Honorary Member of Kingston Rotary, a member of the Advisory Board for the Wheelchair Foundation, The Free Children Foundation and The World Children Centre in Atlanta USA. She is a recipient of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal 2002.
This concert and guest residencies are partially funded by:
The HUB: Office of Hope, Unity, and Belonging School of Music: Music and Discourse School of Music: Commercial Music Program School of Music: Composition Program
This program is presented as part of The SPARK Symposium
For more information on upcoming concerts and events, please visit www.belmont.edu/cmpa or “like” Belmont University School of Music on Facebook.
