“The Elgin Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Quartet at the Café’ combines spoken-word poetry, visual art and classical music,” writes Yvonne Boose in Thursday’s (11/5) WNIJ/WNIU (DeKalb, Illinois). “Erik Malmquist … the executive director of the orchestra … said his interest was piqued by Elgin’s poet laureate program. Chastity Gunn, who is African American, became the city’s first poet laureate almost two years ago. ‘Chasity and I had an initial conversation about the idea of working together and putting together some kind of an intimate program,’ he said. ‘And it kind of snowballed from there.’ He mentioned that he wanted the orchestra to have a program with Dvořák’s American Quartet…. He wanted to compare a 19th century European perspective to a 21st century Black American woman’s point of view.… The [Nov. 8] program also features muralist Melina Scotte and the orchestra’s string quartet. Malmquist said … the public will be able to see the show via a free livestream Dec. 1 through the 15th on the symphony’s Facebook page.” In addition to the Dvořák quartet, the program featured a string quartet of principal musicians from the orchestra performing Jessie Montgomery’s Strum and original spoken-word poetry with cello improvisation.
Change font size
