American Music of Our Time was what this concert promised, but with the gospel specialist André J Thomas returning to the podium as an LSO associate artist this was never going to be a showcase for the usual suspects. Instead it spotlit three African American composers, with four works all receiving their UK premieres.
Two mixed music with speech and had something urgent to say. To Awaken the Sleeper, composed in 2020 by Joel Thompson, provides a musical framework for words by James Baldwin; their quiet dignity came across as spoken by Willard White, his cavernous voice slightly amplified. It started with an arresting cacophony sounding like every holiday piece played by a US marching band at once, but settled into something more conventionally supportive, without much push and pull between words and music. Portrait of a Queen, by Carlos Simon, was similar in length but more ambitious. Courtney D Ware’s sparing text, giving voice to a time-travelling, matriarchal figure, was powerfully delivered by Eska: her yell of “Their lives matter!” at the climax hit home. The music subsided into peaceful affirmation, Eska speaking against the distant recorded voice of a woman leading a Pentecostal prayer.
