A Musical Evening With Langston Hughes

TACOMA, Wash. – A Musical Evening With Langston Hughes, featuring internationally known singer Awilda Verdejo, will be presented at University of Puget Sound on Feb. 19, giving Tacoma the rare opportunity to hear the well-loved African American writer’s poems set to music by a variety of 20th-century composers. The performance, part of the university’s celebration of Black History Month, will begin at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Feb. 19, in Schneebeck Concert Hall. Ticket information is below.

“I have never done a concert with the poetry of one man put to music by so many diverse composers,” Verdejo (below) said. “I can truly say it is one of the most exciting projects I have ever taken on. I am honored and humbled to sing the emotional richness of poetry and music so exquisitely expressed by both poet and composers.”

Hughes (1902–67) was one of the crucial writers of the Harlem Renaissance movement of the 1920s and 1930s. A native of Missouri who attended Columbia University and graduated from Lincoln University, Hughes was among the first American writers to adapt blues and jazz culture to literature. His poetry has drawn the attention of such composers as Elie Siegmeister, Rickey Ian Gordon, Florence Price, and Cecil Cohen. Hughes also collaborated with Elmer Rice and Kurt Weill on the Broadway production of Street Scene. More than 200 of his poems have been set to music.

In a 1926 essay in The Nation, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” Hughes encouraged African American writers to embrace their own experiences. He wrote, "No great poet has ever been afraid of being himself. … We younger Negro artists now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they aren't, it doesn't matter.”

A Musical Evening With Langston Hughes was developed by Keith Ward, director of the School of Music, and Hans Ostrom, James Dolliver NEH Distinguished Teaching Professor in the English department. Ostrom has studied Hughes’s work and published A Langston Hughes Encyclopedia in 2002.

“Hughes is an enduring, beloved American writer who was especially attentive to the struggles, joys, and sorrows of ordinary people,” Ostrom said. “In addition to writing poetry, he produced works in many other genres, including the musical theater.”

Ward said the concert “will be a celebration of a poet whose works have inspired composers from across the musical spectrum. There will be something for everyone to enjoy—performed by one of the Pacific Northwest’s finest artists.”

Awilda Verdejo, dramatic soprano, has performed internationally in title roles in operas including Madam Butterfly, Jenufa, Tosca, and Aida. While at The Juilliard School in New York, she was a member of the American Opera Center, and subsequently sang at New York City Opera, the Kennedy Center in Washington, Los Angeles Music Center, and the Stuttgart Opera in Germany. Originally from Puerto Rico, Verdejo has performed in Salzburg, Munich, Mexico City, Vienna, Rome, Brazil, and Cairo. From the late 1990s, she began to sing spirituals, an experience, she said, that “stripped me naked,” as she sang on a bare stage with no costumes or set. She went on to record a CD of spirituals and today sings across both genres.

The accompanists for the performance will be Hartwig Eichberg on piano and Ron Welch on cello. Co-sponsors of the event, which is part of the Jacobsen Concert Series, include the Dolliver NEH Professorship, the African American Studies Program, the university’s Race and Pedagogy Initiative, Black Student Union, and chief diversity officer.

Admission is $12.50 for the general public; $8.50 for seniors (55+), non-Puget Sound students, and Puget Sound faculty and staff. It is free for current Puget Sound students. For tickets contact Wheelock Information Center, or order by credit card by calling 253.879.3419. Any remaining tickets will be available at the door. A public reception will be held after the event in Room 106 in the Music Building.

For directions and a map of the campus: www.pugetsound.edu/directions.xml 

Press-quality photos of Awilda Verdejo can be downloaded from: www.pugetsound.edu/pressphotos.xml

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