2001 Gateways Music Festival
The New York Times
Sunday, August 26, 2001

Works by composers ranging from Back and Beethoven to Joplin and Ellington will be performed by African-American musicians at the Gateways Music Festival, which is scheduled to be held in Rochester from Sept. 5 through 11.

The event began in 1993 in an effort to increase awareness of African-American classical musicians; it has been held every other year since 1995 in Rochester, where its founder, the pianist Armenta Adams Hummings, is an associate professor at the Eastman School of Music.

This year more than 100 musicians are scheduled to perform in solo recitals, chamber music, symphonic concerts and lectures. Performances will be held at churches, schools, the Hochstein Music School and the Eastman Theater, a 3,000-seat music hall with Maxfield Parrish murals.

The festival will include compositions by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Walker, Coleridge Taylor Perkinson, Florence Price and other African-Americans.