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Whisper of a Shadow: An Homage to Louis Moreau Gottschalk

  • Bard College Richard B. Fisher Center 60 Manor Avenue Annandale-on-Hudson, NY (map)

French trumpetist & composer Yohan Giaume and New Orleans-based clarinet master Evan Christopher will lead a jazz nonet in this Catskill Jazz Factory exploration of the musical world of New Orleans Creole composer and pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk. The music offers a contemporary vision of the imprint of Gottschalk's time, examining in new compositions, Afro-Creole rhythms, and the melodies of the Crescent City.

Enchanted by the Afro-Creole traditions of his native New Orleans, the prodigious Gottschalk trained in Paris only to return to the United States to study and celebrate the rich and diverse musical heritage of his native city. This homage builds upon Gottschalk's interest and celebration of life, love, and death by utilizing many of the same imprints that inspired Gottschalk such as folk melodies from France and the Caribbean, syncopated rhythms from the Americas, European Salon music and poetry. His virtuosic work within these multicultural influences heralded a new musical era that embodied, among other things, the roots of early jazz, guiding the works of Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, Ernesto Nazareth and beyond.

Tickets from $25; subscriptions $95 for all four Spring 2017 Catskill Jazz Factory events at the Fisher Center.


This project has been made possible through the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region (France), French-American Jazz Exchange, a joint program of FACE Foundation and Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, with generous funding from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Florence Gould Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Institut Français, Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication and Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs de Musique (“SACEM”).

Later Event: May 13
Celebrating 100 Years of Jazz