Evelyn Simpson Curenton (born 1953) is an American composer, pianist, organist, and vocalist.
Simpson Curenton was a child prodigy. She played the piano at the age of two. She began piano lessons at age five. When she was seven years old she began to perform with the Singing Simpsons of Philadelphia, a family group, After graduating from Germantown High School she earned a B.M., Music Education and Voice from Temple University.
She has been commissioned to write works for the American Guild of Organists, George Shirley, Duke Ellington, and her sisters Joy Simpson and Marietta Simpson; arranged music for the Carnegie Hall Concert of Spirituals for Kathleen Battle, Jessye Norman, and the Porgy and Bess Chorus of the New York Metropolitan Opera, and has performed with musical organizations such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Philadelphia's National Opera Ebony (later renamed Opera North). [1]
Based in the Washington, D.C., area, Curenton is Music Director of the Washington Performing Arts Society's Men and Women of the Gospel and an associate of the Smithsonian Institution. She has given lectures and participated in workshops on early 18th-century black religious music and the music of African-Americans during the Civil Rights era.
In celebration of composer Leonard Bernstein’s 100 birthday, Nolan Williams, Jr. commissioned the re-working of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass by four Philadelphia composers – Simpson, Jay Fluellen, Ruth Naomi Floyd, and Rollo Dilworth. Williams tasked them to “collectively write a new version that expresses their faith or crisis of faith”. [2] The new piece premiered at Philadelphia’s Monumental Baptist Church in August 2018. [2]
Leonard Bernstein was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first American-born conductor to receive international acclaim. Bernstein was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history" according to music critic Donal Henahan. Bernstein's honors and accolades include seven Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, and 16 Grammy Awards as well as an Academy Award nomination. He received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981.
Marcus Samuel Blitzstein, was an American composer, lyricist, and librettist. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Works Progress Administration. He is known for The Cradle Will Rock and for his off-Broadway translation/adaptation of The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. His works also include the opera Regina, an adaptation of Lillian Hellman's play The Little Foxes; the Broadway musical Juno, based on Seán O'Casey's play Juno and the Paycock; and No for an Answer. He completed translation/adaptations of Brecht's and Weill's musical play Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and of Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children with music by Paul Dessau. Blitzstein also composed music for films, such as Surf and Seaweed (1931) and The Spanish Earth (1937), and he contributed two songs to the original 1960 production of Hellman's play Toys in the Attic.
Eugene George Istomin was an American pianist. He was a winner of the Leventritt Award and recorded extensively as a soloist and in a piano trio in which he collaborated with Isaac Stern and Leonard Rose.
Ned Miller Rorem was an American composer of contemporary classical music and a writer. Best known for his art songs, which number over 500, Rorem was considered the leading American of his time writing in the genre. Frequently described as a neoromantic composer, he showed limited interest in the emerging modernist aesthetic of his lifetime. As a writer, he kept—and later published—numerous diaries in which he spoke candidly of his exchanges and relationships with many cultural figures of America and France.
Adele Addison is an American lyric soprano who was a figure in the classical music world during the 1950s and 1960s. Although she did appear in several operas, Addison spent most of her career performing in recital and concert. Her performances spanned a wide array of literature from the Baroque period to contemporary compositions. She is best remembered today as the singing voice for Bess in the 1959 movie, Porgy and Bess. Known for her polished and fluent tone, Addison made a desirable Baroque vocal artist. She can be heard on numerous recordings, of which her Baroque performances are perhaps her best work. Many of her recordings were made with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Leonard Bernstein.
Sir James Loy MacMillan, is a Catholic Scottish classical composer and conductor.
Mass is a musical theatre work composed by Leonard Bernstein with text by Bernstein and additional text and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. Commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy, it premiered on September 8, 1971, conducted by Maurice Peress and choreographed by Alvin Ailey. The production used costume designs by Frank Thompson. The performance was part of the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Mass premiered in Europe in 1973, with John Mauceri conducting the Yale Symphony Orchestra in Vienna.
Daron Aric Hagen is an American composer, writer, and filmmaker.
Bright Sheng is a Chinese-born American composer, pianist and conductor. Sheng has earned many honors for his music and compositions, including a MacArthur Fellowship in 2001; he also was a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. His music has been commissioned and performed by virtually every major American symphony orchestra, in addition to the Orchestre de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra among numerous others. His music has been performed by such musicians as the conductors Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur, Christoph Eschenbach, Charles Dutoit, Michael Tilson Thomas, Leonard Slatkin, Gerard Schwarz, David Robertson, David Zinman, Neeme Järvi, Robert Spano, Hugh Wolff; the cellists Yo-Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, and Alisa Weilerstein; the pianists Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, and Peter Serkin; the violinists Gil Shaham and Cho-Liang Lin; and the percussionist Evelyn Glennie.
James Tocco is an American concert pianist. He is the youngest of thirteen children born to Vincenzo and Rose Tocco, both Sicilian immigrants.
Alexander Frey, KM, KStJ, is an American symphony orchestra conductor, virtuoso organist, pianist, harpsichordist and composer. Frey is in great demand as one of the world's most versatile conductors, and enjoys success in the concert hall and opera house, and in the music of Broadway and Hollywood. Leonard Bernstein referred to him as "a wonderful spirit".
Roger Bevan Williams, MBE is a Welsh organist and musicologist. In 2010, he retired as Master of Ceremonial Music and Organist to the University of Aberdeen, a music department in which he had been a member for over 30 years.
[Charles] Russell Woollen was an American keyboard artist and composer.
Margaret Rizza is an English composer, primarily of church music. She taught singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama from 1977 to 1994.
Beebe Freitas was an American pianist, organist, vocal coach and educator. She was the Head of Music for Hawaii Opera Theatre.
Kile Smith is an American composer of choral, vocal, orchestral, and chamber music. The Arc in the Sky with The Crossing received a 2020 Grammy nomination for Best Choral Performance, and the Canticle CD by Cincinnati's Vocal Arts Ensemble helped win the 2020 Classical Producer of the Year Grammy for Blanton Alspaugh. A Black Birch in Winter, which includes Smith's Where Flames a Word, won the 2020 Estonian Recording of the Year for Voces Musicales.
'Rollo A. Dilworth is an American choral composer, arranger, conductor, and music educator from St. Louis, Missouri.
Sacred jazz is jazz composed and performed with religious intent.
Nolan E. Williams Jr. is an American composer, musicologist, and producer. He was an editor of the African American Heritage Hymnal.
Carlos Simon is an African-American composer of Western classical music.