The Fifth Gateways Music Festival

Founded by the artistic director Armenta Adams Hummings in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1993, Gateways Music Festivals bring together African-American musicians from across the country for a series of solo recitals, chamber music and orchestral concerts, and lecture demonstrations. The Gateways Festivals have a threefold mission: to increase the visibility and viability of African-American classical musicians; to establish role models for young musicians of all ethnic origins and specifically to encourage young African-Americans to study and seek careers in the field of classical music; and to provide opportunities for African-American musicians to meet, exchange ideas, and revitalize.

In the early 1990s, African Americans comprised less than two percent of the players in American symphony orchestras. Even today many African Americans feel isolated in their home orchestras or college jobs. While it may be impossible to imagine American popular music and jazz without the contributions of African Americans, most people, if asked to visualize an orchestra or string quartet, would not fill those chairs with black faces. For many young African Americans attending the week's events, it was the first time they could look onto the stage at a classical concert and see faces like their own.

Hummings, a concert pianist, knows well the importance of black role models; it was not until she was thirteen and attended a recital by Marian Anderson that she had allowed herself to believe that blacks had a place in the "mostly white environment" of classical music. Gateways grew out of her desire to provide similar encouragement to her eldest son, who is now a professional violist in Richmond, Virginia.

This year's festival, the fifth and largest of the festivals, was held in Rochester, New York. Nearly one hundred musicians participated in events held in area churches, community centers, colleges, and at the Eastman School of Music. The festival opened on 29 August with a morning concert of sacred works by the Gateways Youth Orchestra. The evening concert featured the Gateways Music Festival Orchestra performing The Breaks, a jazz-inspired work by Anthony Kelly, the resident composer of the Richmond Symphony, and a spirited performance of Beethoven's Symphony no. 9. The concert brought together nationally known soloists, Gateways participants, and a multi-ethnic chorus drawn largely from the community under the baton of Michael Morgan, the conductor and music director of the Oakland East Bay Symphony.

The evening concert's dual emphasis on both African-American and European composers continued throughout the festival. Every day at noon, pianist Roy Eaton entranced students, faculty, and community members gathered in the main hall of the Eastman School with his sensitively phrased renditions of music composed or inspired by Scott Joplin. Monday evening, Rochester's own William Warfield provided one of the highlights of the week, sharing his life story, singing spirituals and German lieder, coaching young performers, and conversing with the audience. Tuesday evening, the Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church hosted African-American pianists who have made history (including a first-prize winner in the Naumberg competition, Awadagin Pratt) in a recital presenting the works of Scriabin, Gershwin, Coleridge Taylor Perkinson, Bach, and others. In a series of three evening concerts, six different ensembles presented all of Bach's Brandenburg concerti. Mid-afternoon and late-evening chamber music concerts presented the works of William P. Dawson, Coleridge Taylor Perkinson, George Walker, Duke Ellington, Mozart, Michael Haydn, Vivaldi, William Grant Still, Saint Saens, Ulysses Kay, Copland, Manuel de Falla, Hindemith, Kodaly, Eugene Ysaye, and others. As demonstrated by this list, minority instrumentalists and composers may be marginalized, but they refuse to allow their music -- both the music they write and the music they play -- to be forced into anybody else's preordained categories.

The significant presence of music by European composers during the festival raises complex issues surrounding music and identity in America today. Is the current widespread effort to validate and appreciate certain musical traditions rooted in the African-American experience, e.g., jazz or rap, perhaps also an attempt at keeping the European traditions to ourselves? When I asked one of the festival participants about the inclusion of European composers on the programs, he countered that his favorite composer had always been Brahms. "Why should we restrict ourselves to African American composers? Why shouldn't we play the music we love? Brahms is no more your composer [as a white woman] than he is mine." Thus, in this participant's opinion, while the festival did offer more opportunities to hear the works of African-American composers than most other concert series, it stressed that they are an integral part of the classical tradition, no a separate-but-equal one.

The exclusion of non-African-American performers raises other issues as well. Because of its rarity, the sight of an all-black ensemble may recall images of novelty groups of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Yet, upon further reflection, the comparison quickly falls short. Those audiences were segregated, separated by the color of their skin, and the musicians in novelty groups often played together because they were not allowed into higher-status and higher-paying ensembles. The audiences at the Gateways events were not segregated; they were in fact more diverse than at most classical concerts since, in addition to the more typical concert audience the festival succeeds in drawing more African Americans to their performances. There is thus an atmosphere of warmth and excitement at Gateways concerts not found in most concert halls, created by the knowledge that musicians and audience members alike are sharing in something very special. Gateways participants choose to come together to suggest a new possibility for the future, one suggested by the message of Beethoven's nineth symphony, one beyond divisions or barriers. If they succeed in their threefold mission, there may come a day when there is no longer a need for Gateways -- a day when American music-making will truly be a communal enterprise for all Americans. Until that day, we can all look forward to the festival's continued success as it moves to Cleveland next year.

--Heidi Owen