Gateways Festival Orchestra Returns To Carnegie Hall In April
Festival highlights include solo recitals by violinist Curtis Stewart (April 22 & 25) and pianist Rochelle Sennet (April 21 & 26); inspiring talks, discussions, and more.
By: A.A. Cristi Mar. 10, 2025
Gateways Music Festival in association with Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester celebrates the transformative power of Black classical artistry with Spring Festival 2025 in Rochester, NY (April 21–24) and New York City (April 24–27).
At the heart of the festival is the Gateways Festival Orchestra, composed of Black professional musicians drawn from the nation's leading orchestras and music faculties. Gateways' back-to-back residencies culminate with finale concerts at Eastman's Kodak Hall (April 24) and New York's Carnegie Hall (April 27), marking the orchestra's highly anticipated first return to the venue since its historic, sold-out debut in 2022. Led once again by conductor Anthony Parnther, this season's finale program complements folk-inspired symphonies by Antonín Dvořák and William Levi Dawson with the world premiere of a new Gateways commission from Damien Sneed, featuring mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges.
Other festival highlights include solo recitals by violinist Curtis Stewart (April 22 & 25) and pianist Rochelle Sennet (April 21 & 26); inspiring talks, discussions, and educational initiatives (April 23 & 26); and a performance by the Gateways Brass Collective (April 23), all presented at Eastman and Hochstein Performance Hall in Rochester, and at Carnegie Hall, Harlem School of the Arts, and Merkin Hall in New York City.
Gateways' rich spring offerings continue to make a profound impact on the classical music landscape. By celebrating and sustaining the tradition of Black classical artistry, providing a home for musicians who carry the tradition forward, and presenting performances that bring together multiracial, multigenerational audiences, Gateways is writing its own classical narrative.
Gateways Festival Orchestra at Eastman (April 24) & Carnegie Hall (April 27)
The Gateways Festival Orchestra will present its finale concerts under the baton of Anthony Parnther. Hailed by The New York Times as “a conductor for the future” with “a flourishing career,” Parnther previously led the orchestra's debuts at Carnegie Hall, where their sold-out program featured a world premiere by Jon Batiste, and in Chicago, where Splash Magazine reported: “The Gateways Festival Orchestra inspires through the power of their playing. … The artistry of these musicians, their wonderful performance and joy in that performance, was led with grace, elegance, and strength this evening by Maestro Anthony Parnther.” Now, Parnther leads the orchestra in a thoughtfully curated program that celebrates the enduring power of folk traditions, with special focus on the cultural legacy of Negro spirituals and their profound influence on American music. The program opens with Antonín Dvořák's Eighth Symphony, a work inspired by the dances and folk tunes of the composer's Bohemian homeland. Dvořák believed that “Negro melodies … must be the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States,” and the program concludes with William Levi Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony, a towering landmark in American composition, first heard at Carnegie Hall just days after its 1934 world premiere. Rooted in the spiritual tradition and shaped by Dawson's travels in West Africa, his work represents a resounding declaration of Black cultural pride.
The two symphonies bookend the world and New York City premieres of Reflections of Resilience: Five Spirituals, a new Gateways Music Festival commission from NAACP Image Award- and Sphinx Medal of Excellence-winning musical polymath Damien Sneed. Describing the new work as “five spirituals carefully woven together in a musical tapestry highlighting the tradition of the African American spiritual,” Sneed explains: “This song cycle for voice and orchestra incorporates the many styles (the spiritual, jazz, gospel, Afro-Latin rhythmic grooves, etc.) birthed from the confluence of European music and the vast development of African American cultural roots, from the record of the White Lion slave ship arriving in Point Comfort, VA to today and beyond.” Sneed composed and arranged the cycle for Gateways Festival Orchestra, featuring such traditional African percussion instruments as the clave and adawura, and for Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges, who joins Parnther and the ensemble for its first performances.
The Carnegie Hall concert will stream live to home audiences worldwide as part of WQXR's Live from Carnegie Hall series. Members of Gateways Festival Orchestra also offer an immersive afternoon of masterclasses and mentorship to aspiring young performers at Gateways' Spring 2025 Young Musicians Institute, hosted by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute the previous day (April 26).
Solo recitals: Curtis Stewart (April 22 & 25) & Rochelle Sennet (April 21 & 26)
Spring Festival 2025 shines a light on the work of two important Black artists. “Combining omnivory and brilliance” (The New York Times), six-time Grammy nominee Curtis Stewart is a violinist and composer who serves as Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra, professor at The Juilliard School, and member of award-winning ensembles PUBLIQuartet and The Mighty Third Rail. Gateways presents Stewart in recital at Eastman (April 22) and Merkin Hall (April 25), where he is a 2024-25 Artist-in-Residence. Both performances showcase Seasons of Change, his re-composition of The Four Seasons as an Afrofuturist meditation on climate change, memory, and resilience. This interlayers Vivaldi's music with Stewart's digital soundscapes and recordings of the unhoused in Phoenix, AZ, whose voices and personal stories form the emotional backbone of his work. Stewart's New York City recital will also feature his world premiere performance of selections from his ambitious new project, American Caprices, which explores the intersection between classical violin techniques and the diverse musical traditions that shape the American soundscape.
Rochelle Sennet is the inaugural Associate Dean of DEI at the College of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she is Professor of Piano in the School of Music. Albany Records recently released the third volume in her series Bach to Black, Suites for Piano, which juxtaposes the keyboard suites of J.S. Bach with those of Black composers including Margaret Bonds, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, William Grant Still, Adolphus Hailstork, James Lee III, Florence Price, and George Walker. Gateways presents Dr. Sennet in solo piano recitals at Eastman, as part of a season-long partnership with the school's George Walker Center for Equity and Inclusion in Music (April 21), and at Harlem School of the Arts (April 26).
Gateways Brass Collective (April 23)
The nation's only all-Black professional brass quintet, Gateways Brass Collective comprises trumpeters Herbert Smith and Courtney Jones, horn player Larry Williams, trombonist Isrea Butler, and tuba player Jerome Stover. All equally adept in classical, jazz, and contemporary idioms, they have performed with artists and ensembles ranging from Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, and the Duke Ellington Orchestra to the Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco Symphonies. Following last fall's sold-out performance at Eastman's Kilbourn Hall, Gateways Brass Collective returns to Rochester this spring, taking its signature mix of genres to the city's Hochstein Performance Hall as part of WXXI's Live from Hochstein (April 23), the longest-running live broadcast concert series in Western New York. Continuing Gateways' ongoing collaboration with Harlem School of the Arts, the collective also offers the community music school's young brass players an inspiring afternoon of masterclasses, sectionals, and performance (April 24).
Celebrating Dawson's legacy with talk, conversation, & song (April 23 & 26)
Gateways rounds out the Spring Festival with two enrichment events. Presented in collaboration with the William Levi Dawson Institute for Classical and Folk Music at Tuskegee University, these both celebrate the legacy of pioneering composer, arranger, musicologist, and choral director William Levi Dawson. In the 2025 Paul J. Burgett Lecture and Community Conversation at Eastman, Dr. Louise Toppin, Professor of Music at the University of Michigan, will explore Dawson's work at the Tuskegee Institute, his vital role in preserving and elevating Black composers' contributions to classical music, and his integration of spirituals into the symphonic tradition. Soprano Amber Rogers, winner of the 2024 National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM) Competition, will give a recital of Dawson's vocal works, and a panel discussion will further examine his legacy and the broader impact of Black music traditions (April 23).
Gateways' Burgett Symposium at the Resnick Education Wing of Carnegie Hall offers an expanded version of this event. Additional lectures by Dr. Wayne Barr and Dr. Yi Cheng, both from Tuskegee University, will complement reprises of Dr. Toppin's presentation and Rogers's performance. This time the panel discussion will feature Drs. Toppin, Barr, and Cheng together with Christopher Jenkins, Associate Dean of Oberlin Conservatory, and other scholars. Together they will draw on historical scholarship and modern practice to honor the profound contributions made to classical music by Black artists (April 26).
Success of 30th anniversary season
Like Gateways' fall festival in Rochester and recent debuts at Walt Disney World and the Cleveland Institute of Music, Spring Festival 2025 builds on the success of the organization's expanded 2023–24 season. Marking Gateways' landmark 30th anniversary, this featured major debuts in Chicago, where the spring residency culminated with a full orchestral concert, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., with a chamber program featuring guest narrator Phylicia Rashad. This same program also sold out Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, prompting The New York Times to admire the “camaraderie and visibility” Gateways promotes, and praise “the festival's transformative power.” To cap this banner anniversary season, last summer Gateways was awarded the sum of one million dollars by the Mellon Foundation.
About Gateways Music Festival
Gateways Music Festival celebrates Black classical artistry and enlightens and inspires communities through the power of performance. Founded in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1993 by noted concert pianist Armenta Hummings Dumisani, the festival was brought to Rochester, New York in 1995 when Hummings Dumisani joined the Eastman School of Music faculty. Approximately 125 musicians – comprising players in major symphony orchestras, faculty from renowned music schools and conservatories, and active freelance artists – participate in each festival. In 2016, while remaining an independent non-profit organization, Gateways formalized its longstanding relationship with Eastman and the University of Rochester. Among other mutual benefits, this deepened relationship provided the means for Gateways to appoint its first professional staff position and broaden its impact in and beyond Rochester. In addition to the annual full-orchestra festival, other Gateways initiatives include chamber music festivals; Gateways Brass Collective, the only all-Black professional brass quintet in the country; Gateways Residency, which is curated to present renowned artists nationwide throughout the year in recitals, masterclasses, and community-based activities; Gateways Chamber Players, an all-star touring ensemble featuring some of the nation's most renowned classical musicians; and, since January 2023, Gateways Radio, a one-hour syndicated radio program showcasing Black classical artistry on stations across the United States. For complete Spring Festival information, please visit www.gatewaysmusicfestival.org.
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