Forbes Center, Furious Flower Poetry Center collaborate for concert

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The Forbes Center for the Performing Arts and the Furious Flower Poetry Center are joining forces at James Madison University for “Lineage: The Margaret Walker Song Cycle.” This collaboration features the vocal talents of Broadway sensation Aurelia Williams and the award-winning JMU Chorale, the instrumentals of acclaimed composer Randy Klein, and a photographic montage of African American history. The performance takes place on Saturday, April 2, at 8 p.m. in the Forbes Center Concert Hall.

“‘Lineage’ appeals to audiences who enjoy classical or contemporary music, who appreciate poetry, or who want to learn more about African American history,” says Joanne Gabbin, executive director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center.

During the show, the JMU Chorale will sing the world premiere of “For My People,” a gospel/bluesy-style setting of a longer text by Walker for piano, jazz/gospel combo, chorus and soloist. According to conductor of the chorale, Dr. Patrick Walders, “this concert was inspired by an initial collaboration between the JMU Chorale and the Furious Flower Poetry Center in 2010, and the continued joint effort is driven by the anticipation of 2015, the centennial year of Walker’s birth.”

Walker (1915-1998) was an award-winning African American educator, novelist, poet and activist. She was born in 1915 in the Deep South, the granddaughter of slaves and the child of a minister. In her writing, Walker recounts the hardships of slavery, the turmoil of reconstruction and the inequity of the sharecropping era. She confronts lynchings and murders, chronicles sit-ins and civil rights marches, and illuminates the pain and beauty of African American’s everyday lives.

Aurelia Williams has performed in many Broadway shows both regionally and in New York City, including “Dreamgirls,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” “All Shook Up,” “Menopause the Musical,” “Caroline or Change” and “Nunsense.” She is currently on tour with the new musical “Madagascar LIVE,” a stage adaptation from the DreamWorks hit movie. In addition to the theater world, Williams keeps one foot in the recording industry. She has worked with various composers and producers on recording projects and continues to make strides with her own songwriting efforts.

Pianist, composer and record producer, Randy Klein is the president of Jazzheads, an independent record label featuring improvised jazz. He has performed in concerts throughout the world, at venues including Birdland, Klavierhaus, Trumpets, the Berklee Performance Center in Boston and the historic Union of Composers Club in Moscow. Klein is the recipient of the 2011-2012 Simons Public Humanities Fellowship at the University of Kansas and the 2009 BMI Foundation Jerry Harrington Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Musical Theatre. He has received four Southern Regional Emmy Awards and three USA Songwriting Competition awards.

The JMU Chorale is the premier large choral ensemble at James Madison University. Comprised of 60-70 freshmen through graduate-level students, the touring ensemble is dedicated to performing choral/orchestral masterwork literature, and smaller pieces ranging from Renaissance motets to spirituals and vocal jazz charts. The JMU Chorale performs at schools and churches throughout the region. The group competed at the 2009 International Musical Eisteddfod in Wales and took first place in the Youth Choirs (up to age 27) category. They have collaborated with the National Philharmonic to perform Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” and Brahms’ “Requiem,” and were chosen to perform at the 2006 Virginia Music Educators Association State Conference and 2008 Virginia All-State Concert.

The Furious Flower Poetry Center strives to advance the genre of African American Poetry by providing opportunities for education, research and publication. The center serves as a resource for the campus and local Harrisonburg community. It hosts visiting poets, sponsors poetry workshops for emerging poets, holds an annual poetry camp for children in the community, and produces scholarly texts, videos and DVDs on African American poetry. Furious Flower has sponsored two decade-defining conferences celebrating the African American poetic tradition.

The Forbes Center for the Performing Arts is comprised of the Dorothy Thomasson Estes Center for Theatre and Dance and the Shirley Hanson Roberts Center for Music Performance and houses five state-of-the-art performance venues: the Mainstage Theatre (450 seats), the Concert Hall (600 seats), the Recital Hall (196 seats), the Studio Theatre (200 seats) and the Earlynn J. Miller Dance Theatre (200 seats). It also includes classroom, rehearsal and office facilities.

Tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for seniors and JAC cardholders, and $8 for JMU students and youth 18 and under. For tickets, visit jmu.edu/JMUarts or call the Forbes Center Box Office at (540) 568-7000. Contact Jen Kulju, public relations/marketing specialist at the Forbes Center, at (540) 568-4394 or by e-mail at kuljuja@jmu.edu for further information.

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