‘Musics Alive!’ Will Showcase African American Selections

In a sense, it will be a cultural homecoming when the “Musics Alive!” series concludes its third season Sunday with “Africa-America Alive!”

Other concerts in the series--sponsored by the New West Symphony--have dealt with music from cultures beyond U.S. borders and how it influences contemporary Western music. However, in this program at Ventura City Hall--which features the Viklarbo Chamber Ensemble and Mystique D’Afrique--the subject is an inherent part of the American musical grain.

African Americans have long worked in--and against--the orthodoxy of the classical, concert, music world. Certainly jazz and gospel have played a generous role in the evolution of 20th-century music. Classical music owes an enormous debt to African-American input, as does pop music.

While classical composers borrowed--or stole--from black culture, a double standard was in effect. Jazz composers such as Scott Joplin and Duke Ellington strived in vain to gain respect (and sustenance) in the button-down realm of the concert hall.

One composer who managed to break through classical music’s racial and stylistic barrier was William Grant Still (1895-1978). The Suite for Violin and Piano by the man dubbed the dean of African American composers will be performed by the Viklarbo Chamber Ensemble on Sunday. The featured pianist will be Wendy Prober.

Born in Woodville, Miss., Still studied music and played in jazz bands, including one led by early legend W.C. Handy. But he veered toward classical music, studying privately with eminent avant-garde composer Edgar Varese in the early ‘20s. But Still’s own instincts were more for creating consonant, “pretty” music, which helped earn him attention from musical institutions of the day.

He was the first black American to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic in 1933. He set another record by conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in 1936, on a program of his own works. Still’s opera “Troubled Island,” about Haitian liberator Jean Jacques Dessalines, was written in 1938 and it finally hit the boards of the New York City Opera in 1949.

Still’s talents, particularly in arranging, were tapped by Hollywood, and he worked on such projects as “Lost Horizon” and TV’s “Gunsmoke,” all the while building up his body of “serious” work. Still found ingenious ways of marrying European classical music with indigenous strains of folk and gospel, as in his “Afro-American Symphony” and the suite to be played in Ventura.

The Viklarbo Chamber Ensemble also will perform “Echoes for Clarinet and Electronic Tape,” by UC Berkeley-based composer Olly Wilson. Wilson’s musical language carves a path between classical conventions and electronic experimentation, with detours into jazz phrasing.

Dealing more directly with the African diaspora, the Los Angeles-based Mystique D’Afrique is an ensemble whose members boast resumes that include work with Sting and Janet Jackson. In this context, though, the accent is on the infectious, polyrhythmic force of West African drumming, singing and dance.

* “Africa-America Alive!” at 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the atrium of Ventura City Hall, 500 Poli St. in Ventura. Tickets are $25, including refreshments. Call 643-8646.

Sublime Spectacular: Brahms’ “A German Requiem” comes to Thousand Oaks on Sunday as the Los Robles Master Chorale continues its season in the spacious confines of the Civic Arts Plaza. The sweeping and profound masterwork will be led by guest conductor Vance George, who recently won a Grammy for a recording of the Requiem by the San Francisco Symphony Chorus.

George, who was in Thousand Oaks a year ago to lead “Carmina Burana,” will take the baton from James Stemen. Notable guest conductors, including George and the late Roger Wagner, have played a key role in the history of the Los Robles Master Chorale (and its earlier incarnation, the Moorpark Master Chorale). It seems that Brahms will be in good hands Sunday.

* Los Robles Master Chorale, conducted by Vance George, 4 p.m. Sunday at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks. Tickets are $8-$25. Call 449-2787.