Thursday, August 16, 2012

Charles Kaufmann: 'Project Update #9: Filming Schedule Update'

[Photo: J. Rosamond Johnson, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and James Weldon Johnson outside Coleridge-Taylor's home in Croydon, 1905. Image used by permission of Melanie Edwards.]

Charles Kaufmann, Artistic Director of The Longfellow Chorus, writes:

Project Update #9: Filming Schedule Update

The filming for "Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and his music in America" is now about two-thirds complete, but there are four more exciting filming sessions planned for August, September and October. Your support for our project will help ensure that our completed film will cause quite a stir next March! — Charles Kaufmann

In late August, in Boston, we film violinist Mariana Green-Hill performing Coleridge-Taylor's "Hiawathan Sketches," Opus 16, for violin and piano, the young composer's first attempt at creating music from Longfellow's epic poem -- a charming collection of three pieces.
In late September, tenor Rodrick Dixon returns to Portland, Maine, along with Melanie Edwards, granddaughter of jazz great J. Rosamond Johnson, to film "Under the Bamboo Tree," Johnson's most popular single ragtime hit, 1901, and to explore the cross influence between Johnson's and Coleridge-Taylor's music and personalities. His Majesty's Theater meets Broadway ca. 1905/06 in this fascinating sequence.
In late October, two young Juilliard graduates, choreographer Darrell Grand Moultrie and dancer Allison Mixon, come to Portland to film Darrell's choreography to the Coleridge-Taylor song, "Thou Art Risen, My Beloved," as sung last week in Washington by Rodrick Dixon. The New York Times writes, "Moultrie moves his dancers around stage with remarkable authority... [and] is obviously someone to watch."
On October 16, four historians participate in a filmed roundtable discussion about Coleridge-Taylor at the Maine Historical Society in Portland. Participants: Jeffrey Green, author of "Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a Musical Life (2011);" Dr. William Tortolano, author of numerous Coleridge-Taylor studies; Karen A. Schaffer, author of "Maud Powell Favorites," and President of the Maud Powell Society; and Ann Havemeyer, PhD, historian of the Norfolk Historical Society.