FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - New York experimental music ensemble Either/Or (EO) initiates its 2021-22 Season with a special concert at Tenri Cultural Institute in Manhattan. On Tuesday, November 23, the group is proud to present a portrait concert of extremely rare music by African-American composer, educator, and community organizer Talib Rasul Hakim (1940-88) (né Stephen A. Chambers). This event is the opening salvo of an extensive investigation by Either/Or and its Curator Chris McIntyre into the life and music of Mr. Hakim. 

The program comprises pieces from his early career in the 1960’s. He was still known as Stephen A. Chambers (Hakim converted to Sufism and changed his name in 1973.) He was deeply ensconced in study during this time, at NYC institutions including Manhattan School of Music and The New School for Social Research, and with teachers such as Margaret Bond, Hal Overton, Chou Wen-Chung, and Ornette Coleman. He gradually gained recognition within the local avant garde community, especially after his music was performed on the influential Music Of Our Time series at Town Hall in 1964 or ‘65. It was immediately after the period represented on EO’s concert that he joined composers Carman Moore, Noel Da Costa, and several others to co-found The Society of Black Composers in 1968. 

In addition to Mr. Hakim’s works for solo piano (his most performed piece, Sound-Gone from 1967, which he described as “a poetic-philosophical sketch”), trombone and piano (Prelude), mixed quartets (Profiles & Four, from 1964 & ‘65 respectively),  and string quartet (Currents, also from ‘67), the November 23rd program includes a work for flute and piano by colleague (and recent Pulitzer Prize winner) Tania León. Mr. Hakim and Ms. Léon, along with polymath composer/performer Julius Eastman, collaboratively curated and produced the Brooklyn Community Concerts series in the late 1970’s for Lukas Foss’ Brooklyn Philharmonia (as it was then known.)

In addition to EO regulars Jennifer Choi & Pala Garcia (violin), John Popham (cello), Margaret Lancaster (flute), and McIntyre (trombone), the concert features special guests violist Hannah Levinson, trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson, clarinetist Narek Arutyunian, and renowned pianist Adam Tendler.

Biographies

[Quoted from The Black Composer Speaks, 1978]

Talib Rasul Hakim (formerly Stephen A. Chambers) was born February 8, 1940 in Asheville, North Carolina. His educational background includes study at the Manhattan School of Music, New York City College of Music, and the New School for Social Research in addition to private instruction and consultation with Robert Starer, William Sydeman, Hall Overton, David Reck, Morton Feldman, Chou Wen-Chung, Charles Whittenberg, and Ornette Coleman. Formerly a member of the faculty of Pace College, Mr. Hakim currently holds positions at Nassau Community College and Adelphi University.

        Mr. Hakim has been the recipient of a number of honors and awards including the ASCAP Composer’s Award (1967-1973) and fellowships to the Bennington Composers Conference (1964-1969). He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Artists Public Service Program and commissions from the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra and the University of Wisconsin at River Falls. Natalie Hinderas, the Symphony of the New World, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the New York Chamber Orchestra, the Washington D.C. Youth Orchestra, and the Oakland Youth Orchestra are among the artists and ensembles to have performed his compositions. Among his best-known works are Shapes (recorded by the Oakland Youth Orchestra), Sound-Gone (recorded by pianist Natalie Hinderas), and Visions of Ishwara (recorded by the Baltimore Symphony as part of the Black Composers Series produced by Columbia Records).

        A co-founder and past president of the Society of Black Composers, Mr. Hakim is active as a lecturer-panelist on black music and has participated in programs and symposia at a number of educational institutions. He is also a poet; his first book of poems, Forms on #3, was published in 1968 by Afro-Arts, Inc.

Tania León (b. Havana, Cuba) is highly regarded as a composer, conductor, educator and advisor to arts organizations. In 2021, her orchestral work Stride, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music. Recent commissions include works for New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, NDR Symphony Orchestra, Grossman Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, and pianist Ursula Oppens with Cassatt String Quartet. Appearances as guest conductor include Philharmonic Orchestra of Marseille, Gewandhausorchester, Orquesta  Sinfonica de Guanajuato, and Orquesta Sinfónica de Cuba. Upcoming premieres feature commissions for the NewMusic USA Amplifying Voices Program, The Musical Fund Society in Philadelphia to celebrate their 200th anniversary, and for The Crossing chamber choir with Claire Chase, flutist, among others. A founding member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, León instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series, co-founded the American Composers Orchestra’s Sonidos de las Américas Festivals, was New Music Advisor to the New York Philharmonic, and is the founder/Artistic Director of the nonprofit and festival Composers Now. Her honors include the New York Governor’s Lifetime Achievement, awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the ASCAP Victor Herbert Award, among others. She also received a proclamation for Composers Now by New York City Mayor, and the MadWoman Festival Award in Music (Spain). León has received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Colgate University, Oberlin and SUNY Purchase College, and served as U.S. Artistic Ambassador of American Culture in Madrid, Spain. A CUNY Professor Emerita, she was awarded a 2018 United States Artists Fellowship.

Either/Or
Winner of the 2015 CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, Either/Or is a flexible chamber ensemble based in New York City that presents a repertoire of new and recent chamber music informed equally by American Experimentalism and European avant-garde practice, with special emphasis on artists outside the institutional mainstream and on works exploring nontraditional ensemble formations.  Director Richard Carrick and Curator Christopher McIntyre draw on a broader collective of 17 regular soloists (and guests) to realize the unique requirements of each project.  Since its founding in 2004, Either/Or has premiered more than 125 works (as well as dozens of student compositions), toured throughout the US and Sweden, and recorded for labels such as New Focus, New World Records, Starkland, and Sterling Classics.

TICKET INFO
Tickets purchased in advance via Eventbrite

$20 | $10 Students & Seniors
>>No ticket sales at the door<<

Online Resources

• David Baker, Lida Belt Baker, and Herman Hudson; Chapters IV, Talib Rasul Hakim; The Black Composer Speaks,  pp.93-107; Metuchen, N.J: Scarecrow Press, 1978
• Columbia College Chicago, Guide to the Talib Rasul Hakim Collection (2020). CBMR Collection Guides / Finding Aids. 21.

• 4 of the 5 scores on this program were provided by CCC, with permission from the Chambers family.

• 21 October 2021, BBC Scottish Symphony at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall; States of America, includes Hakim’s Visions of Ishwara (1970)
• Aaron Horne; Brass Music of Black Composers: A Bibliography. pp.114; United Kingdom, Greenwood Press, 1996.
  
  

EO UPCOMING

Press Contacts

Richard Carrick, Director

richard@eitherormusic.org | 917-853-8511

Chris McIntyre, Curator

cmcintyre71@gmail.com | 917-676-4585

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