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daily nebraskan
page 11
orts.&
'Messiah' set
for Sunday
"A good part of the reason we perform
The Messiah every year," said UNL music
professor Earl Jenkins, "is because it is a
self-renewing work."
This year's performance of George
Frederick Handel's Messiah. 3 n m SnnHav
in the UNL Coliseum, is the 85 th renewal of
an annual School of Music tradition. The
free concert combines the nearly 200
member Oratorio Choir, conducted by
Jenkins, with the 93-member UNL orches
tra, conducted by Robert Emile.
Handel wrote Messiah during the 18th
century and conducted it with about 60
singers and instrumentalists, Jenkins said.
But over the years, the popular oratorio
has been produced by larger numbers of
performers.
"No matter how many engage in
Messiah it is still a masterwork," he said.
Part of the annual tradition, Jenkins
continued, is selection of soloists from
UNL's junior and senior voice majors.
"We bring in a judge every year from
outside the campus," he said. "This year it
was the chairman of the Music Dept. at the
University of Nebraska at Omaha, Robert
Cowden."
Selected to sing solo parts this year are
soprano Suzan Covolik, mezzo-soprano
Patti Moran, tenor Mally Patrick Keelan
and bass Richard Crom.
Already looking to next spring when the
Oratorio Choir will sing with the Lincoln
Symphony, Jenkins said he welcomes au
ditions for the April performance of
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. :
Free Christmas concert
Ji
The owner
of the stage
I have to be careful not to preach
I cant pretend that I can teach,
And yet I've lived your future out
By pounding stages like a clown.
And on the dance floor broken glass,
The bloody faces slowly pass,
The broken seats in empty rows,
It all belongs to me you know.
Tha Punk meats tha Godfatttar
Written by Pete Townshand
Copyright 1973 by Fabulous Music Ltd.
Photo by Kevin Higiey
Roger Dal trey at the Who's concert in Kansas City, Dec. 1
Hot Licks
Scott-Heron music tells political tale
By Deb Gray
G3 Scott-Heron and Brian JacksonFrom
South Africa to South Carolina Arista
$6.98
Choristers to sing Sunday
The East Campus Choristers, directed
by Adelaide Spurgin, will present a free
concert of Christmas music 2:30 p.m. Sun
day in the UNL East Campus Activities
Bldg.
The concert's first half features tra
ditional carols from as Jong ago as the ISth
century, Spurgin said, including Russian,
French and Spanish songs. The second half
features songs by American composers, she
said, including "Jazz Gloria," by Natalie
Sleeth. A flute trio will perform during in
tcmiission, she said.
The East Campus Choristers give a con
cert every Christmas and spring, Spurgin
said. Concerts are the culmination of a se
mester's work in a unique music ensemble
class, she said.
"It's the only accredited music program
on East Campus," Spurgin said. The one-credit-hqur
course, listed in UNL's catalog
as Oratorio Choir 242, is "a kind of step
child" of the School of Music on city cam
pus, she said.
"We're closely associated with the
people downtown," she said, "but I'm
strictly on East Campus."
The class, with about 100 students,
meets twice a week in the Biochemistry
and Nutrition Bldg. auditorium, she said.
As many as 160 students have taken the
class during her 14 years as instructor, she
added.
Society needs people like Gil Scott
Heron. Unfortunately, like other artists
who use the medium of music to express
political messages, his music isn't com
mercially accepted and it rarely outlives
the time for which it was written.
So Scott-Heron remains in obscurity.
This is our loss-I consider Scott-Heron one
of the best, if underrated, black musicians
now recording.
His music never falls into the jive-riffing
mold perpetuated by a host of Sly Stone
imitators. It is distinctive and fresh, pri
marily influenced by African rhythms,
early rhythm and blues and the bop jazz
school.
It seems that in this, his fourth album,
Scott-Heron has mellowed. His hatred for
white oppression, which once condoned
violence to elicit social change, has melted
into a general anger for injustice, regard
less of race. There's also a bleak resignation
-that not only, to quote the title of an
earlier song, will "the revolution not be
televised" but the revolution will not even
happen.
"Whatever happened to .the people
who gave a damnOr did that just apply to
dyin in the jungles of Vietnam?" he sings
in "South Carolina," a song protesting an
atomic factory in that state.
"The Summer of '42" satirizes the wide
spread preoccupation with nostalgia: "The
past is past, you have to move on" is the
message.
The most optimism is found in "Jo
hannesburg," which celebrates black resis
tance to white oppression in South Africa.
A surprising cut, considering Scott-Heron,
is "A Lovely Day." The theme is simplis-tic-an
ali-things-must-pass, behind-every-cloud-is-a-silver-lining
sentiment. An
anthology of songs could be accumulated
about the subject.
The song is a welcome addition to that
collection-the arrangement is beautiful,
primarily because of Brian Jackson's flute
playing. Jackson is a sensitive musician,
who graces any track with a haunting, crys
talline beauty.
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