Washington Performing Arts presents Wynton Marsalis and his band performing at Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra on Sunday, for an evening of music inspired by the concept of freedom and human rights.
The centerpiece of the program is “Presidential Suite” by Ted Nash, composer and saxophonist with the orchestra for the past 17 years. Mr. Nash based the work on key speeches by John F. Kennedy, Jawaharlal Nehru, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Aung San Suu Kyi, Ronald Reagan, Lyndon B. Johnson and Nelson Mandela.
“The speeches that made my list had to move me, not just impress me,” Mr. Nash told The Washington Times. “My parents were civil rights activists, and I suppose that helped form in me a sensitivity to the issues. It’s a privilege to write for a band with which you have such an intimate understanding of how the members play, their tendencies, their strengths and their sound. It’s hard for outside writers to get the same sound from the band. We have 10 composers and arrangers in the band contributing to the repertoire.”
Mr. Nash developed the thematic material by transcribing the intonation of the words using the speakers’ actual pitches. The one exception was the speech of Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar, whose speech was an essay written while she was under house arrest.
A recipient of numerous awards, Mr. Nash received a Grammy nomination in 2010 for “Portrait in Seven Shades,” his musical impressions of famous artists. He approaches composing from many angles and often is at the piano to arrange and orchestrate, but when he is writing thematic material or melodies, his favorite way is to close his eyes and see where it is going.
“In each case, I had to think how to fit the ’melodies’ into a context,” Mr. Nash said. “Each of FDR’s ’four freedoms’ is represented by a soloist who deals with a particular theme (speech, worship of God, want and fear). Nehru’s voice stayed within a very small area of intonation, and it sounded a little new age to me. With LBJ, it was fun to make a musical tongue-in-cheek reference to Texas and use that motif to build on and create tension. Of course, for the final movement, Mandela, I chose a South African reggae-style groove.”
The event’s narrator is Malcolm-Jamal Warner, the popular actor, director and musician who appeared in Washington most recently in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” at Arena Stage. The impact of the speeches on humanity resonated with him as he contemplated the words he would narrate.
“President Kennedy’s speech came at such an important time in history,” Mr. Warner said. “My father was very active in civil rights. It’s one thing to read excerpts and another to hear them exactly as they were delivered.
“It’s amazing how history impacts our lives,” he said. “When I was performing in ’Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,’ the director and playwright translated it so today’s audiences can relate to what is happening now with same-sex marriages and religious conflicts.”
Mr. Warner received the 2015 Grammy Award for best traditional R&B performance for “Jesus Children,” the Robert Glasper Experiment song featuring Mr. Warner’s spoken word poetry in tribute to the children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
“[On Sunday] I want the Kennedy Center audience to listen to the speeches and discover how times have changed,” he said, “and yet how they remain the same.”
Mr. Nash likens composing to sculpting — slowly chipping away at “what has been there all the time, just hidden.”
“After my father heard the concert, he had tears in his eyes and said, ’We still have so much work to do,’” Mr. Nash said. “I agree with him, and if hearing these speeches can inspire more thought and action, I would feel that I accomplished much.”
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Washington Performing Arts presents Wynton Marsalis & Jazz at Lincoln Center
WHERE: Kennedy Center Concert Hall, 2700 F St. NW, Washington, D.C., 20566
WHEN: Sunday, 7 p.m.
INFO: Tickets: $35-$85 by calling 202/785-9727, 202/467-4600, 800/444-1324 or by visiting Kennedy-Center.org
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