When clarinetist Alexander Laing first performed in Rochester with the Gateways Music Festival—an organization that presents and supports classical musicians of African descent—in 2001, he had an unnerving experience. Laing was an exceptional player on the cusp of securing a principal position in the Phoenix Symphony, but every time he looked up and saw the musicians on the stage, he stopped counting.
In reflecting on the performance on the plane ride home, he asked himself, “What have I come to think of as normal such that when I see myself reflected everywhere, it literally scrambles my brain?”
It was an experience that he says changed his life artistically, personally, and professionally. “It was the first time that I had made classical music in a context that was so culturally affirming.”
Delivering on the promise of the name—Gateways—he says the performance opened the gates for what the artform could be and mean for him. And the experience spurred him to ask important questions: “How can I realize this music—which I love and have dedicated myself to and tattooed its codes to my nervous system—in a way that is also affirming to me personally as a Black person and to Black people? How can this idea, the experience of classical music, be a thing that can bring me closer to Black people and Black culture?”
Alexander Laing, President and Artistic Director of Gateways Music Festival. Laing holds a clarinet. Photo by Jared Platt.
Those are questions Laing is poised to answer as Gateways’ new president and artistic director this season. Over the years, the balance of performing and administrating shifted as Laing started non-profits (The Leading Tone), joined boards of directors (Gateways, Arizona School for the Arts), and served as teaching staff for organizations dedicated to diversifying the field (such as in the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s El Sistema-based, free music education program called Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, among others). His efforts won him the Sphinx Medal of Excellence in 2018, which recognizes extraordinary classical Black and Latinx musicians with a $50,000 career grant.
Gateways’ season is in two parts, with performances in the fall and the spring, both at Eastman School of Music. The fall festival from October 14 to 18 celebrates Black classical artistry through smaller ensembles, recitals, and educational and collaborative programs. Thought-provoking musicians Joshua Mhoon, a classical pianist who has brough his playing into the mainstream, and Josh Henderson, a genre-crossing polymath musician and composer, give recitals: Mhoon on Tuesday, October 15 at 7:30 p.m. in Hatch Recital Hall (part of the George Walker Center Recital Series), and Henderson on Wednesday, October 16 at 7:30 p.m. in Hatch Recital Hall.
Gateways Brass Collective—the festival’s flagship chamber ensemble—performs the closing concert on Friday, October 18 at 7:30 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall, part of the Eastman Presents concert series. The ensemble includes two Eastman School of Music alumni: Herb Smith ’91E on trumpet and Isrea Butler ’04E, ’06E (MM) on trombone. Smith is a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and conducts several youth and collegiate ensembles across Rochester. Butler is the director of the University of Nevada, Los Angeles’ School of Music.
Other offerings include a film screening of The Harlem Hellfighters, which tells the story of how the 369th Infantry Regiment of all-Black soldiers during World War I introduced jazz to Europe, on Thursday, October 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Hatch Recital Hall. In attendance for a panel discussion will be Nobel Sissle, Jr., son of the famous lyricist and jazz composer Noble Sissle, who organized the Harlem Hellfighters regimental band during World War I. The festival will also partner with the American Composers Orchestra’s EarShot CoLABoratory Residency, a program that supports underrepresented composers, to workshop a piece by composer Jordyn Davis on Wednesday, October 16 at 2 p.m. in Hatch Recital Hall. The concert features the Gateways String Faculty and Brass Collective. See a full list of events below.
The spring festival demonstrates the ways Black musicians and performers have shaped classical traditions. In the festival’s main concert on Thursday, April 24 at 7:30 p.m. in Kodak Hall, the Gateways Festival Orchestra performs Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony, in which Dvořák’s integrated Czech folk tunes, a way to bridge symphonic music with the music of his people. After an intermission, they’ll perform William Levi Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, in which Dawson took the same approach: using African American spirituals as the source and inspiration for his symphony, expressing his culture and people through the symphonic genre. Composed in 1934, Dawson expressed how he hoped the work would be unmistakably heard as the work of a Black man, to be a piece of Black classical music.
“Here we have this incredible artist and creator and composer using classical music, its language and its forms in the symphony, which he was thoroughly versed in, to express and explore Black American culture,” says Laing, emphasizing how the work is close to Gateways’ mission.
In between the two symphonies, Grammy-winning mezzo-sorpano J’Nai Bridges will sing selected songs and spirituals.
In a contemporary synthetization of cultural influences, Grammy nominee and Eastman alumnus Curtis Stewart ’08E, ’08 performs his work Seasons of Change, his re-composition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons as an Afrofuturist meditation on climate change, class, and the nature of digital memory, on Tuesday, April 22 at 7 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall. Audiences that take part in the pre-concert community discussion will also end up in the concert: elements of the conversation will be recorded and weaved into the work, using live-performance digital tools.
The spring programs will be given a reprise in New York City on Friday through Sunday, April 25 through 27, culminating with a Carnegie Hall performance on Sunday, April 27. Although Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony was premiered in Carnegie Hall back in 1934, it will be “realized for the first time in that space with an all-Black orchestra,” says Laing. “There’s a real sense of an unbroken circle or completing that circle 90 years later.”
A grassroots orchestra started by the Juilliard-trained African American pianist Armenta Hummings Dumisani, the festival’s footprint has grown enormously since its start in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1993. The festival moved to Rochester, NY early on when Dumisani joined the Eastman School of Music faculty in 1994. The Eastman School of Music formalized its partnership with Gateways in 2016. Nonetheless, it took until 2022 for the festival orchestra to have its debut in Carnegie Hall. It sold out. With recent performances in Chicago and Washington, DC, one of Laing’s goals is to continue expanding the festival’s reach.
“What’s magic about live music is that it demands that you come together with people and share vibrating air,” says Laing. “That’s the magic trick. And so, we’re excited to bring the festival to new places, and we feel compelled and called by our mission to do that.”
But the festival was always about more than just performance: it was also about bringing Black musicians together. He says that Michael Morgan, the festival’s music director and conductor from 1993 until his death in 2022, would refer to the festival as a family reunion with instruments. “It turns out that the family reunion with instruments creates a unique performance experience that’s infused with joy and surprise,” says Laing, who knows first-hand through his own involvement as a musician with the festival.
“We see Gateways Music Festival as an abundant and joyful home for black classical artistry, participation, and collaboration,” Laing concludes. “I think we are this incredible story of grassroots support, with the community of Rochester, University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, and most importantly, the talents, abilities, and joyful determination of this incredible community of artists. I think we’re making something truly unique in this tradition on planet Earth, and it’s happening here. We’re excited to build on our connections and possibilities here in Rochester, and at the same time, we’re excited to share what we’ve made here with the world.”
Gateways Music Festival 2024–25 Season
FALL 2024 | Oct 14-18, 2024
Monday, October 14
6:00 p.m. | Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre
Young Musicians Institute Concert
Tuesday, October 15
7:30 p.m. | Hatch Recital Hall at Eastman School of Music
As part of Eastman’s George Walker Center Recital Series, pianist Joshua Mhoon presents a program of works by Rachmaninoff, Gershwin, Joplin, Bonds, Kapustin, and Eric Nathaniel.
Wednesday, October 16
2:00 p.m. | Hatch Recital Hall
EarShot CoLABoratory Residency performance: Jordyn Davis
Gateways String Faculty & Gateways Brass Collective, with the American Composers Orchestra
Wednesday, October 16
7:30 p.m. | Hatch Recital Hall
Gateways Showcase Concert: Josh Henderson and Friends
Gateways String Faculty, featuring Josh Henderson, violin, viola, and electric bass
Thursday, October 17
7:30 p.m. | Hatch Recital Hall
Film screening: The Harlem Hellfighters
Panel discussion with Isrea Butler ’04E, ’06E (MM) and Noble Sissle, Jr.
Performance: Gateways Brass Collective
Friday, October 18
7:30 p.m. | Kilbourn Hall
Eastman Presents: Gateways Brass Collective
Featuring Courtney Jones and Herbert Smith, trumpet; Larry Williams, horn; Isrea Butler, trombone; and Jerome Stover, tuba.
SPRING 2025 | April 21–24, 2025
Monday, April 21
7:00 p.m. | Kilbourn Hall
Recital pianist TBA — presented in collaboration with Eastman’s George Walker Center for Equity and Inclusion.
Calendar Listing (details to come)
Tuesday, April 22
7:00 p.m. | Kilbourn Hall
Violinist, composer and four-time Grammy nominee Curtis Stewart ’08E, ’08 performs Seasons of Change—his re-composition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons as an Afrofuturist meditation on climate change, class and the nature of digital memory.
Calendar Listing (details to come)
Thursday, April 24
7:30 p.m. | Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre
Anthony Parnther leads Gateways Festival Orchestra in a thoughtfully curated program of Antonín Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony, William Levi Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, and selected songs and spirituals featuring Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges.