INFEMNITY™ Arts and Culture News

  Nina and Matthew Kennedy On February 24th, the Church of the Holy Spirit of Lake Forest, Illinois presented a panel discussion on "The History and Evolution of the Negro Spiritual." Panelists included former Fisk Jubilee Singers Delano O'Banion, George Cooper, Robert Denson, and E.J. Murray. Nina Kennedy was the only non-Jubilee Singer panelist, as her father served as director of the group from 1957 to 1986. The Reverend Mother Jihan Murray-Smith, Associate Rector at the Church of the Holy Spirit, - and also a former Fisk Jubilee Singer - served as moderator. The conversation included much history of the Negro Spiritual starting with its origins on American plantations during slavery, and the importation of African melodies during the Middle Passage. Several recordings were heard including those of Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson. Delano O'Banion While the famous portrait of the Fisk Jubilee Singers commissioned by Queen Victoria was on the screen, Nina Kennedy sh...

As you may have read last month (in my blog  "Juilliard Covers Its Ass" ), I was very upset to learn of an auditory exercise conducted by the Juilliard Drama Division depicting scenes from slavery. Several students complained about this exercise, and posted some of the actual audio on Facebook and Instagram. The person who presented this workshop claimed that the intent of the exercise was to explore the origins of Negro Spirituals. The Fisk Jubilee Singers Anyone who knows me knows that my father directed the Fisk Jubilee Singers, who have been called the originators of the Negro Spiritual. In my  Lammy-nominated memoir ,  Practicing for Love , I wrote extensively about the history of the Jubilee Singers, and how their music had been utilized by Czech composer Antonín Dvořák in his Symphony from the New World. When I wrote the first blog, Juilliard had expressed no interest whatsoever in my book. Well, about a week after I sent an email of complaint to the Director ...

On April 23rd, I received an email from the Juilliard Alumni Association director. In it was an email from the president of the school addressing an issue concerning a workshop conducted by the Drama Division. Evidently, the Drama Division invited a guest lecturer who conducted a workshop on the African American experience during slavery. In the words of President Woetzel to students, faculty, and staff:       "I write to you to address a September 2020 Drama Division workshop that has impacted our school community. While I am s haring a message below that was sent to the drama community by Evan Yionoulis, dean and director of the Drama Division, I believe it is important for our school community to hear directly from me.      To live our values requires an acknowledgment of mistakes we have made. To that end, I want to state unequivocally that this workshop was ill-conceived and should not have occurred in the manner that it did. I extend a heartfelt ...

Join us as we pay homage to  American classical pianist, professor, choral director, composer, and arranger of Negro Spirituals Matthew Kennedy , who was born March 10, 1921 in Americus, Georgia. We will be posting links to his recordings, articles, and film clips as part of his 100th birthday celebration. As a young boy, Matthew Kennedy sat in the segregated audience for a live concert given by famed Russian pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. He decided to become a pianist himself after that concert. Soon afterwards, he and his mother traveled to New York City at apply for study at the Juilliard School, for which he won a scholarship as a result of imitating Rachmaninoff's playing style. After graduating from the Juilliard Preparatory Division, he entered Fisk University as a freshman and served as piano accompanist for the Fisk Jubilee Singers under then-director Mrs. James A. Myers. He traveled the world with the group performing several solo pieces on their programs, thu...

Senator Raphael Warnock At the end of Inauguration Day, I heard the new Georgia Senator the Reverend Raphael Warnock being interviewed by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. At one point in the interview, Rachel pointed out how some Republicans had tried to hold Warnock's religion against him. As part of his response, he quoted the words of American philosopher and theologian  Howard Thurman: " By some amazing but vastly creative spiritual insight the slave undertook the redemption of a religion that the master had profaned in his midst."   The words went by so fast that I had to pause and rewind, and listen to it several times.  While contemplating these words, I thought of how slave owners had used biblical text to encourage passivity and obedience in their slaves. The church was the only legal gathering place for slaves, precisely  for that purpose. So how were formerly enslaved people able to claim this religion after emancipation? I do have a rather unique pe...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: info@infemnity.com In anticipation of Matthew Kennedy's 100th birthday celebration, INFEMNITY Productions is happy to promote the popular CD which he titled Familiar Favorites . The world will be celebrating the 250th birthday of Ludwig von Beethoven on December 17th, and Matthew Kennedy's performance of the second movement (Adagio cantabile) of Beethoven's "Pathétique" Sonata is one of the selections on the CD. Enjoy this opening clip of the documentary film Matthew Kennedy: One Man's Journey , in which he performs the Beethoven, among other numbers on the CD. Matthew Kennedy was born on March 10, 1921.  The star of his own radio show at age eleven, Matthew played the organ to accompany silent films at the segregated cinema in his home town Americus, Georgia, where he was given the stage name “Sunshine,” and was dressed in a bellhop uniform. After graduating from Fisk University and Juilliard, he was the director of the world-re...

  Following the success of the Busoni The Visionary series, American pianist Jeni Slotchiver has released a new album this month. With Southern roots of her own, Ms. Slotchiver’s debut ZOHO CD release American Heritage presents compositions that honor the vast African-American musical tradition as well as Union army hymns from the Civil War. There are contemporary arrangements and harmonizations of sea shanties, songs of enslaved people, and secular dances, plus arrangements of spirituals. Several compositions recall the strong, Southern voices of gospel and blues. Of the eight composers represented, six are of African descent, two of whom are women. Visit Jeni Slotchiver's website at  www.jenislotchiver.com . Subscribe to her YouTube channel  here . About Jeni Slotchiver ... " Critics Choice: Appropriate for Millennial Reflections A fascinating program of piano works impressively played by the pianist Jeni Slotchiver…Filled with incandescent piano writing and music of ...

Harriette Cole and Judith Jamison Dancer, choreographer, and Artistic Director Emerita of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater   Judith Jamison  was the special guest on this week's "Real Conversations With..." series presented by AARP Black Community  on Facebook Live. She was interviewed by Harriette Cole , who describes herself as "a life stylist, author, nationally syndicated advice columnist, motivational speaker, media trainer, magazine editor, lifestyle writer, wife and mother." Judith Jamison I have watched Judith Jamison's career through the years since my days as an undergraduate in Philadelphia at the Curtis Institute of Music, when Sophisticated Ladies  came to town for its pre-Broadway run. During yesterday's conversation, Jamison praised the cast and music of the production, Duke Ellington 's band and Gregory Hines , with whom she starred and choreographed the show. This production happened many years after her groundbreaking internat...

Nina Kennedy outside of Carnegie Hall Early in January, we had seen on Facebook that the Harry T. Burleigh Society was presenting the Fisk Jubilee Singers  in concert at Carnegie Hall. April and I sat in the audience for the concert, and were delighted to hear the old plantation songs or "Spirituals," which I had heard throughout my childhood while my father was director. We were also delighted to see that the current group had included my father's arrangement of the spiritual "Steal Away" on the program. In her opening remarks, president and co-founder of the Harry T. Burleigh Society Lynne Foote  welcomed the audience and introduced the group. The works arranged by Burleigh  on the program included "My Lord, What a Mornin'," "Balm in Gilead," and "Heav'n, Heav'n." Spirituals arranged by John W. Work III , Hall Johnson , R. Nathaniel Dett , Moses Hogan ,  Undine Smith Moore , current director Paul Kwami , among ...

As you probably know, I am currently going through boxes and papers preparing for the publication of my first book of memoirs. Today I thought I would share with you this New York Times review of the Fisk Jubilee Singers' 1980 Carnegie Hall concert with my father as director and my mother as piano accompanist.

Florence B. Price ¹ Florence Beatrice Price (April 9, 1887 – June 3, 1953) was an American classical composer. She was the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, and the first to have a composition played by a major orchestra.  Florence Beatrice Price was born to Florence Gulliver and James H. Smith on April 9, 1887, in Little Rock, Arkansas, one of three children in a mixed-race family. Despite racial issues of the era, her family was well respected and did well within their community. Her father was a dentist and her mother was a music teacher who guided Florence's early musical training. She had her first piano performance at the age of four and went on to have her first composition published at the age of 11. By the time she was 14, Florence had graduated from Capitol High School at the top of her class and was enrolled in the New England Conservatory of Music with a major in piano and organ. Initially, she pretended to be Mexican to avo...