Brussels Philharmonic, Kazushi Ono & Abel Selaocoe

The American composer Jessie Montgomery combines exhilarating music with a profound social awareness. Especially for festival artist Abel Selaocoe, she wrote the cello concerto These Righteous Paths, in which she mourns her deceased mother. The composition looks both ahead and behind: at the ancestral influence of the African diaspora on the African-American experience, and at new hopes and memories. In addition to the Belgian premiere of this brand-new concerto, Brussels Philharmonic will also perform Montgomery’s vibrant Coincident Dances, and musical stories by Florence Price and Carlos Simon. The symphonic dances from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story round off this outstanding orchestral evening.

Introduction

18:15 by Sander De Keere (EN) with Jessie Montgomery - Flagey Foyer 2 (included in your ticket)

estimated end of the concert at 21:00

programme

Florence Price (1887-1953)

Ethiopia’s Shadow in America 

1. Introduction and Allegretto: The Arrival of the Negro in America when first brought here as a slave 
2. Andante: His Resignation and Faith 
3. Allegro: His Adaptation, a fusion of his native and acquired impulses 

Carlos Simon (1986)

Songs of Separation 

• I. The Garden 
• II. Burning Hell 
• IV. We Are All the Same 

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

West Side Story: Symphonic Dances

1. Prologue 
2. Somewhere 
3. Scherzo
4. Mambo 
5. Cha-Cha
6. Meeting Scene 
7. Cool 
8. Rumble 
9. Finale

interval 

Jessie Montgomery (1981) 

These Righteous Paths: Cello Concerto (Belgian premiere) 

1. All the Ancestors and I
2. Another Train Poem: Part 1, Georgia and the Foreman; Part 2, Up South
3. A New Song

Coincident Dances 

Abel Selaocoe © Phil Sharp