New Recording by Lamont Faculty Inspired by George Floyd
Commission is a response to the murder of George Floyd and features poet Jovan Mays
On January 23, Summit Records released Flood. This new recording features Lamont's own trombone faculty, Richard Harris, and a commission by Conrad Kehn, who teaches Music Technology and leads the Lamont Summer Academy. Also featured is trombonist Steve Wilson and poet Jovan Mays.
Mays provides the narration on FLOOD, written by Conrad Kehn, which was composed in response to the murder of George Floyd. This powerful work is two sections, combining two of Mays’s poems. The first section features a great deal of dynamic and rhythmic contrast with narration focused on the violence inflicted on the black community at the hands of the police in recent years. The second section is quiet and introspective with the narration focused on racial injustice of the past. The piece is for two trombones, electronics, and spoken word artist.
The recording is rounded out with chamber music by Charlie Small, Vladislav Blazhevich, Michael Davis, and Daniel Schnyder.
About Jovan Mays
Jovan Mays is the first ever poet laureate of Aurora, Colorado and a tour de force in the spoken word field. He is a National Poetry Slam Champion, TED speaker and the Youth Voice Coordinator of Aurora Public Schools. Mays has worked with well over one million students through poetry outreach in his program, Your Writing Counts.He is the author of 3 books: Pride, The Great Box Escape, and This Is Your Song. The Pilgrimage, Button Poetry, and Write About Now have published his work. He is a graduate of Chadron State College, where he played football, wrestled, and earned a degree in Secondary History Education. (Watch Jovan Mays perform "Black Like")
About Richard Harris
Whether its performing on OSCAR wining soundtracks such as "Joker," the GRAMMY award winning album "Twelve Little Spells" with Esperanza Spalding, or recording solo and chamber music CD's, Richard Harris has crafted an eclectic musical career. As a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral performer, educator and advocate, his performances have taken him all across North & South America, Europe and Asia.
Richard is currently on faculty at the University of Denver and is the former Assistant Principal Trombone of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He is a regular guest with many of the US’s top symphony orchestras, including the Seattle Symphony, Boston Symphony, The Metropolitan Opera, Colorado Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic and is a former member of the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra in New York City, where he also performs with many other Broadway productions. (Read more)
About Conrad Kehn
Conrad Kehn is a composer, performer, educator and arts administrator. He is the founding director of The Playground, a chamber ensemble dedicated to modern music. An award-winning composer, Kehn's genre-crossing output includes traditional and contemporary chamber music, experimental and multi-media works, and popular music. His work has been performed across the US in numerous concert halls, festivals, clubs, galleries and underground warehouses including Issue Project Room (NY), Audio Inversions (Austin), the Brick Elephant (NY), Mile High Voltage Festival (Denver), Pendulum New Music (Boulder) and Rhinoceropolis. Recent commissions include the Colorado State Music Teachers Association, violinist Susan Jensen and members of the Colorado Symphony. In 2012 Conrad was composer-in-residence with the Boulder Symphony. (Read more)
About Steve Wilson
Steve Wilson has been active nationally and internationally as a soloist, as a member of the Continental Trombone Quartet, and as a member of the Jim Widner Big Band. He has given recitals and master classes at the Midwest Clinic, the Jazz Educators Network National Conference, the International Association of Jazz Educators National Conference, the International Trombone Festival in Brazil and China, the American Trombone Workshop in Washington, D.C., the International College Music Society Conference, the International Vernacular Congress, the Texas Band Masters Association Convention in San Antonio, the Texas Music Educators Association Convention, the Brazilian National Trombone Association, and at numerous universities across the United States. (Read more)
