It may be the middle of the orchestral season, but New World Symphony still has plenty of excitement in store for the rest of its 2024-25 run, including a special series coinciding with Black History Month.
Returning for its second year at venues across the city, “I Dream a World” Festival centers on Black composers and artists, with a particular emphasis on the Harlem Renaissance.
Dr. Tammy Kernodle, a music professor at Miami University of Ohio who serves as curation partner for the series, says the program offers a look at voices and movements in American culture that have gone underexplored.
“It was initially started as a way of recapturing the history and the music of the Harlem Renaissance,” she said. “Most people know the Renaissance from the literary part of the movement, but are not very familiar with the musical part.”
The program also highlights artists that emerged after the Second World War, in keeping with the season’s overarching theme commemorating the 80th anniversary of the conflict’s end in 1945. The centerpiece concert, “Transitions and Trailblazers,” will feature work ranging from the Renaissance through to the Civil Rights Movement.
Led by guest conductor Jeri Lynne Johnson across two performances, Sat., Feb, 8 at 7:30 p.m. and Sun., Feb, 9 at 2 p.m., the program will feature William Grant Still’s “Festive Overture,” William Dawson’s “Negro Folk Symphony,” and Julia Perry’s “Stabat Mater.” Perry, a one-time professor at the famed Tallahassee HBCU Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, was one of the few African American composers working in modernist and atonal music.
“We're looking at trailblazers and trendsetters that emerged during World War II, but are important in terms of the progression of Black music following [the war],” she said. “The composers and the performers that are spotlighted this year really are telling a different story about black consciousness, particularly at an important time in which there is this kind of progression toward what we think of as the Civil Rights Movement.”
Another of those trailblazers is Hazel Scott, a Trinidadian-born, Juilliard-trained pianist whose method of “jazzing the classics” made her a national celebrity. Scott starred in Hollywood movies with Mae West and Lena Horne and became the first Black American to host her own TV show, never compromising her principles by performing in segregated venues.
The orchestra will celebrate her legacy with two events, one at New World Center’s Truist Pavilion on Thurs., Feb. 6, and another at the Lyric Theater in Overtown on Fri., Feb. 7. Both will feature the same program, centering on Scott’s unique renditions of works by Bach, Rachmaninoff, Liszt, and Chopin.
There’s even more diversity in the rest of the season. Stéphane Denève, artistic director at New World Symphony, highlights a couple of programs in particular: On Fri., April 18 and Sat., April 19, he’ll conduct a program anchored by Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique.” Denève says the programmatic symphony, featuring a tumultuous narrative inspired by the French composer’s real-life romance with a Shakespearean actress, is ideal for newcomers to classical music.
“I think Berlioz really invented the magic of an orchestra,” he said. “I think of it like a toy box with every possible color. It’s an incredible narrative, an incredible trip. I think it’s something that is very accessible, and yet it shows the richness of an orchestra.”
Speaking of color, New World’s iconic concert hall will light up than
ks to a program on March 1 and 2 titled “Music in (Techni)Color.” The show will feature the east coast premiere of Anna Clyne’s “PALETTE,” an acronym for plum, amber, lava, ebony, teal, tangerine, and emerald. The piece is created for an “augmented orchestra” that will use special lighting to turn the space into a kaleidoscope. The program also includes Ravel’s “Mother Goose Suite” and Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”
Channeling Miami’s own buzzing art scene, Denève hopes the show’s blend of visual art and music will also evoke the Paris art scene of a century ago, where artists like Picasso worked with musical ensembles such as the Ballet Russes.
“I think [Miami] is a very open-minded place to try to do that,” said Denève. “I personally believe so much that art forms should dialogue together, and we should not be specializing in only one.”
IF YOU GO
New World Symphony
Through May 2025
New World Center, 500 17th St., Miami Beach; and the Historic Lyric Theater, 819 NW 2nd Ave., Miami