This unique concert features an Austrian orchestra performing works by composers who wrote about the experience of Africans and African-Americans.
The program includes Alexander Zemlinsky’s Africa Sings, which was written in 1929 and features poetry by Langston Hughes and other prominent writers from the Harlem Renaissance. The program also features Phillip Glass’s recent collaboration with the Beninese singer Angélique Kidjo, one of the great international artists performing today, based on three poems of Ifé, where the Yoruba people believe the world was created. “The power of Kidjo’s unflappable voice, the range of her emotional expression, the stellar, genre-bending musicians who back her, and the infectious, activist energy that course through her songs all transcend any native tongue.” (NPR Music)