As Black History Month continues to honor famous and important, though lesser-known, figures in Black history, the Georgia Symphony Orchestra is presenting music by Black composers in its upcoming concert titled, “You Shall Hear.”
The concert will feature the world premiere of “Liminal: An Atlanta Concerto” for cello and orchestra, co-written by Atlanta cellist Okorie Johnson, A.K.A. OK Cello, and Timothy Verville, music director of the Georgia Symphony Orchestra. The pair joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom to talk more about their new original piece.
Interview highlights:
Expanding classical repertoire with new technology and musical modalities:
“In one way, we’re taking more modern music in terms of – not 20th century atonal or anything like that – but music that is modern in the sense that it was written in the past few years, and putting it in a new medium. But at the same time, we’re also incorporating some non-standard ideas, and having Okorie playing with a looping device on stage. That’s not something that you see too often,” Verville explained. “He’ll play something, and it’s essentially recorded and played back in real time, so then he can accompany himself. And that was something that I thought was important to keep in the context of this concerto where sometimes the orchestra is the loop, but sometimes… the audience will sit there for a minute, minute and a half, and then be struck by this realization that all of the sound they’re hearing is just from one performer on the stage, using this looping recording box.”
A concerto that could only have been composed in Atlanta:
“From the time that I remember being a college student, Atlanta was this place where you really could explore a wide spectrum of Black identity and performance in ways that felt much more narrow and restricted in several other places,” said Johnson. “I’m from Washington, D.C., I love Washington, D.C.. I think I feel like I make more sense in Atlanta than I do in D.C. and several other places around the country. And so for whatever reason, I came to understand and came to experience Atlanta as this fertile ground for all manner… of Blackness, identity, art, creativity, theory and philosophy; and as a result, it’s a place that made me feel comfortable creating this.”
Co-creating a new orchestral piece from a pastiche of previous work:
“There’s an element that’s really engaging in what Okorie does, in the music and storytelling, and I wanted to see what that might look like as a way to present what Okorie does, essentially, to our audiences at the Georgia Symphony, and also to help work on broadening our audiences, to reach out to other people in our community,” said Verville. “We had a meetup, and we were trying to decide, what might this look like? Because we were sort of paving new territory, and we went through a lot of different ideas that could be possibilities, and [‘Liminal’] was one of them.”
“I think the most fun was maybe in November… or maybe October of 2021, we got a chance to get in the same room and to listen to a mini-mockup that [Verville] was working on. It was fun; I had my cello, and I was playing along with it because these are essentially songs that were orchestrated, but we kept the solo parts intact. And then we had some really fun time brainstorming potential for percussion, and then Tim went back and found some beautiful authentic West African percussion rhythms to incorporate into it,” Johnson recalled. “That moment… was kind of a ‘pinch me’ moment. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe this is actually happening.'”
“You Shall Hear,” a concert experience celebrating Black composers and featuring OK Cello and Timothy Verville’s “Liminal: An Atlanta Concerto,” takes place Feb. 25-26 at the Marietta Performing Arts Center. Tickets and more information are available at https://www.georgiasymphony.org/event/you-shall-hear/
