The Center at West Park Presents ENSEMBLE PI: REPARATIONS NOW!

Reparations NOW! is Ensemble Pi's new project, inspired by Ta-Nehisi Coates' congressional testimony and Ibram X. Kendi's best-seller book, How to Be an Antiracist - both of which offer powerful and compelling arguments in support of reparations for the African-American community.

Focusing on social justice, the new-music collective Ensemble Pi has presented concerts in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and opposing police brutality and systemic racism since 2015. This new project features works from a diverse group of talented composers, including world premieres by Allison Loggins-Hull, Angélica Negrón, and Trevor Weston, and a composition by Courtney Bryan - all commissioned by Ensemble Pi.

It also includes Georg Friedrich Haas' I can't breathe (In memoriam Eric Garner), a musical improvisation, Requiem for Elijah, based on the last words of Elijah McClain, and the reading of an excerpt from Kendi's book, narrated by Damian Norfleet with percussion accompaniment.

Reparations Now! is presented by The Center at West Park, where Ensemble Pi are artists-in-residence this fall. The concert premiere will be streamed on Thursday, October 29 at 7 pm. This streaming premiere is free with a suggested donation of $10. Register online at https://www.centeratwestpark.org/events/ensemble-pi-reparations-now

In addition, the streaming will be available on https://www.ensemble-pi.org until November 30.

The Center at West Park is a community performing arts center based in the historic West Park Presbyterian Church, a New York City landmark. This concert is presented as part of the Center's new Virtual Performance residency program, which provides artists with safe and socially-distant space for media production, marketing and fundraising support, 100% of the proceeds from ticket sales and donations, and connection to an interdisciplinary creative community. Learn more at www.centeratwestpark.org.

PROGRAM:
Courtney Bryan: Elegy (2018)
Piano, clarinet, violin, cello

Georg Friedrich Haas: I can't breathe (In memoriam Eric Garner) (2014)
Solo trumpet

Allison Loggins-Hull: Pattern (2020, World Premiere)
With text from Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow
Piano, flute, clarinet, percussion, violin, cello

Angélica Negrón: Conversación a distancia (2020, World Premiere)
Piano, clarinet, percussion, violin, cello, accordion

Trevor Weston: Pinkster Kings (2020, World Premiere)
Piano, clarinet, percussion, violin, cello, narrator and conductor

Requiem for Elijah (2020)
Improvisation for any combination of instruments and/or voices, based on Elijah McClain's last words.

Reading of an excerpt from Ibram X. Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist
Narrator and percussion

Idith Meshulam (piano), Allison Loggins- Hull (flute), Moran Katz (clarinet), Wayne duMaine (trumpet), Bill Trigg (percussion), Airi Yoshioka (violin), Alexis Gerlach (cello), and Damian Norfleet (narrator), with Trevor Weston (conductor).

Courtney Bryan's Elegy (2018) was written as a response to Abel Meeropol's composition Strange Fruit. Made famous by the iconic 1939 Billie Holiday recording, Strange Fruit is a protest song symbolizing the brutality and racism of the practice of lynching in the United States in the early part of the 20th century. Divided in three sections - "A lament," "spirit journey," and "the ascent" - Bryan's Elegy seeks to honor the spirits of past victims, as well as present ones, through imagining the transition of the spirit from the body to the beyond.

I can't Breathe (In memoriam Eric Garner) (2014) by German composer Georg Friedrich Haas is a solo trumpet in memory of Eric Garner who died in the NYC borough of Staten Island, after being placed in a chokehold by police. It begins with a dirge within the world of twelve tones; the intervals start contracting until the song suffocates, ending in a sixth-tone scale.

The Pattern (2020) by composer/flutist Allison Loggins-Hull is a piece for chamber ensemble which features texts from Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow projected through video. The composition serves as a case for reparations, focusing on the white supremacy's toxic pattern of blocking Black Americans from progress since the end of the Civil War through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, and Black Lives Matter. The music moves into a section expressing the hope and optimism felt by Black Americans but also the looming and inevitable attack from white supremacy. It suggests that history will repeat itself and putting an end to this abuse is a much needed and overdue form of reparations.

Conversatión a distancia (2020) by Puerto Rican-born composer/multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón is inspired by Conversación, a danza from Puerto Rican composer, Juan Morel Campos (1857-1896). Using field recordings from Ponce, where Campos was born, the piece is also motivated by the composer's personal realization of the erasure of Afro-latinx in Puerto Rico, Latin America and the diaspora, and the histories lost along the way.

With Pinkster Kings (2020), composer Trevor Weston delves into the little-known Afro-Dutch traditions in New York and New jersey in the 17th-19th centuries. During the colonial period, the Dutch celebration of Pentecost led to a week-long Black celebration, which included a procession of the king and dancing. Using historical texts with music, Weston simulates an imagined celebration of Pinkster (Anglicization of the Dutch word for Pentecost) to illuminate the important contributions of Africans to the formation of New York.

Composers and performers will come together for the improvisation, Requiem for Elijah, honoring Elijah McClain who died in August 2019 after being placed in a chokehold by police and sedated by paramedics. The piece will include McClain's last words: "I can't breathe. I have my ID right here. My name is Elijah McClain. That's my house. I was just going home. I'm an introvert. I'm just different. That's all. I'm so sorry. I have no gun. I don't do that stuff. I don't do any fighting."