Professor Kypros Markou conducts major work by distinguished African American composer, Adolphus Hailstork
The Dearborn Symphony under Maestro Kypros Markou will perform the Second Symphony of Adolphus Hailstork on Sunday, February 25 at 3:00 p.m. at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center. The Second Symphony of Hailstork was commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) 20 years ago and was given its premier by the DSO soon after it's completion.
The program will open with Bernstein's Overture to Candide to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Bernstein's birth. The concert will also feature Lalo Symphonie espagnole and Chabrier's Espana. Soloist for the Symphonie espagnol will be the brilliant young American violinist Benjamin Beilman. Incidentally, Mr. Beilman will also be the featured soloist with the DSO this weekend, stepping in on short notice to fill in for Renaud Capuçon. Benjamin Beilman was the winner of the DSO's Young Artists competition 12 years ago. Since then he has won many international awards and has built a remarkable career performing with major orchestras and giving concerts in the USA and Europe. He has appeared as soloist with the Dearborn Symphony under maestro Markou on several occasions.
*The Dearborn Symphony is offering a special discount of 30% for Wayne State University students, faculty and staff! In order to obtain the discount you must call the Dearborn Symphony Box Office at 313-565-2424 and mention "Wayne State". The deadline to obtain discounted tickets is Friday, February 23, at 2:30 p.m. You can reach Alice Wu, Office Manager from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.
More about Adolphus Hailstork
Composer and College Professor Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork, born April 17, 1941 in Rochester, New York, began his musical studies with piano lessons as a child. He studied at Howard University (B.Mus., 1963) and Manhattan School of Music (B.Mus. in Composition, 1965, M.Mus. in Composition, 1966), spending the summer of 1963 at the American Institute at Fontainebleau, France.
After service in the U.S. Armed Forces in Germany (1966-1968), he returned to the United States and pursued his doctorate degree at Michigan State University in Lansing (Ph.D., 1971). He also attended the Electronic Music Institution at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire (summer, 1972) and the Seminar on Contemporary Music (summer, 1978) at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
His principal teachers were H. Owen Reed (Michigan State University), Vittorio Giannini and David Diamond (Manhattan School of Music), Mark Fax (Howard University) and Nadia Boulanger (American Institute at Fontainebleau). His career as a teacher includes graduate assistantships at Michigan State University (1969-1971), and professorships at Youngstown State University in Ohio (1971-1977), Norfolk State University in Virginia (1977-2000), and Old Dominion University, also in Norfolk, Virginia (2000- present), where he is Eminent Scholar and Professor of Music. Dr. Hailstork began writing music at an early age. His musical-comedy, The Race for Space, was performed at Howard University during his senior year in college (1963), and his master's thesis, Statement, Variations and Fugue, was performed by the Baltimore Symphony in 1966.
Hailstork writes in a variety of forms and styles: symphonic works and tone poems for orchestra; a piano concerto; numerous chamber works; duos for such combinations as horn and piano, clarinet and piano, flute and piano, and others; a large number of songs including songs for soprano, baritone, mezzo-soprano, some with piano and others with orchestra or chamber group; band works and band transcriptions, and many pieces for piano.
Among his compositions are Celebration, which, in 1976, was recorded by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra; Out of the Depths, which won the 1977 Belwin-Mills Max Winkler Award presented by the Band Directors National Association; American Guernica, awarded first prize in a national contest sponsored by the Virginia College Band Directors in 1983; and Mourn Not the Dead which received the 1971 Ernest Bloch Award for choral composition. In 1995, the chamber work, Consort Piece, was awarded First Prize by the University of Delaware Festival of Contemporary Music. In 1990, a consortium of five orchestras commissioned a piano concerto which was premiered by Leon Bates in 1992. In addition, Dr. Hailstork was commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music to write Festival Music for the Baltimore Symphony. Other significant performances by major orchestras (Philadelphia, Chicago and New York) have been led by leading conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Daniel Barenboim and Kurt Masur.
In 1999, the composer's second symphony (commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra), and his second opera, Joshua's Boots (commissioned by the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and the Kansas City Lyric Opera), were premiered. (The 2nd symphony which I will be conducting on Sunday was commissioned by the Detroit Symphony in 1998, 20 years ago!)
In 2002, James Conlon conducted Hailstork's oratorio Done Made My Vow at the renowned Cincinnati May Festival. During the summer of 2003, Dr. Hailstork was Visiting Artist at the Walden School for young composers. A CD of Hailstork's Symphonies No. 2 and 3, recorded by David Lockington with the Grand Rapids Symphony, will be released during the 2004-2005 season. In 1992, Dr. Hailstork was proclaimed a Cultural Laureate of the State of Virginia.