National Symphony Orchestra, Kennedy Center & Gianandrea Noseda - George Walker: Five Sinfonias (2023)

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National Symphony Orchestra, Kennedy Center & Gianandrea Noseda - George Walker: Five Sinfonias (2023)

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The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) will release an album of George Walker’s five sinfonias, conducted by Music Director Gianandrea Noseda, on September 8, 2023. The recording project celebrates NSO’s connection to Walker—the first African American composer to receive a Pulitzer Prize and a D.C. native—and honors his centennial, which was in 2022.

These recordings were taken during the live performances in January 2022, and May and June of 2023 in the Concert Hall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The physical booklet also contains portraits taken by Frank Schramm during the last 14 years of the composer’s life. On the release of this CD, the first that encompasses all five of Walker’s sinfonias, Gregory Walker, George Walker’s son, said, “The National Symphony Orchestra’s unprecedented recording offers an opportunity to experience my father’s compositional evolution in context for the first time. Peter Laki’s text, Frank Schramm’s photography, and, of course, the committed artistry of Maestro Noseda and the musicians make a compelling argument for this music’s enduring significance.”

“The sinfonias of George Walker have been an extraordinary musical discovery for me,” said Music Director Gianandrea Noseda. “They are concise in expression, rigorous in structure, and they have their own unique sound world. I am certain that these performances confirm that George Walker is one of the great composers of recent times.”

A native of Washington, D.C., George Walker was a child prodigy. He enrolled in Oberlin Conservatory at age 14 and received his Bachelor of Music degree with highest honors at the age of 18. He subsequently studied piano with Rudolf Serkin and composition with Rosario Scalero at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he became the first Black student to receive the Artist Diploma (in both piano and composition) in 1945. This accomplishment marked the beginning of a steady procession of “firsts” that has followed Walker throughout his career, including the first African American composer to receive a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1996. Walker published over 80 works, which comprise music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, chorus, piano, string quartet, voice, and organ. He composed his first sinfonia in 1984 (revised in 1996), and his last in 2016, two years before his death. Although short in duration (all under 16 minutes), they use the full force of the modern orchestra, including voices in No. 5. Dr. Mickey Terry, who edited a critically-acclaimed, multi-volume African American Organ Music Anthology, said, “George Walker is an American composer of genius, one who repeatedly reveals his affinity for elegant structures. We now have the opportunity to experience this quality and deepen our appreciation for Walker’s writing through this very special recording cycle of his five sinfonias.”

The Walker album continues the legacy of the NSO’s rich recording history, which began in the 1970s. In recent NSO history the orchestra released two recordings on its new label, starting in 2020 with a pairing of Copland’s Suite from Billy the Kid and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” Walker Sinfonias Nos. 1 and 4 were previously released digitally in October and June of 2022. The NSO plans to release the complete set of Beethoven symphonies in February, 2024. For its achievement in performances and recordings, the NSO was nominated for the 2023 Gramophone Orchestra of the Year Award.