Join Boston Landmarks Orchestra for the second installment of From the Podium Talks, featuring Music Director Christopher Wilkins.
Maestro Wilkins will discuss the life and work of Julia Perry (1924-1979), a distinguished Black female composer whose music has been nominated for multiple Grammy Awards. Perry was a composer, conductor, singer, violinist, and pianist. She studied composition at Tanglewood and with the legendary Nadia Boulanger. She won two prestigious Guggenheim fellowships a National Arts and Letters Award, and the honor of having her music performed and recorded by the New York Philharmonic.
Sadly, Perry’s work fell into obscurity after her death at age 55. But it has recently been rediscovered, thanks in part to the advocacy of Maestro Wilkins and Dr. Louise Toppin, who has appeared as a soloist with Landmarks. After many years of musical research, genealogical sleuthing, and legal problem-solving, all of Perry’s unpublished work is being published for worldwide distribution by Boosey & Hawkes, perhaps the most important publisher of classical music. Come to hear more about this extraordinary woman and the saga to make her work known.
This talk will also feature a live performance of several chamber works by Perry featuring Philip Lima, baritone and Esther Garcia Moreno, piano.