Podcasts · Episode

Ulysses Kay

Program: NoteWorthy
Aired: Monday, August 5, 2024
Hosted by Loki Karuna

If you've attended an orchestra concert, you've probably had the opportunity to see a concerto, or a work that features a soloist in front of the orchestra. While most of these works do, indeed, showcase one lone player, it is possible to write a concerto that features more than just one musician. As a matter of fact, some composers went as far as to write concerti for the entire orchestra! Hi, I'm Loki Karuna, and on this edition of Noteworthy we'll spend a little time with a really great example of a concerto for orchestra – one by the late great Ulysses Kay.

Born in 1917, Ulysses Kay was a composer who played a big role in the development of what's known as the post-war era of western classical music. Encouraged by a fellow Black composer, William Grant Still, Ulysses Kay explored a neoclassical approach to composition, or music that takes really old frameworks and incorporates new ideas into them, with his 1948 Concerto for Orchestra serving as a great example. Maybe you can hear the really old meeting the then, really new, in this excerpt from his concerto for orchestra.

Ulysses' neoclassicism extended well beyond orchestral music, with 5 operas, chamber works, and even choral compositions to his credit. Performances of his works have greatly increased since he died in 1995, making him not only one of the 20th century's most important Black composers, but also, one of history's most Noteworthy.

Noteworthy is a production of WDAV classical public radio.

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