We attended a talk recently on ‘The Impact of African Music on Classical’.
The presenter, Gillian Spragg, had some interesting points to make. She started with Chevalier St George (‘The Black Mozart’) and discussed, among others, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (who has been called ‘The Black Mahler’). Along the way she also talked about the music of Ignatius Sancho, Dvorak and Delius.
I always feel that if I come away from any presentation having learnt one new thing, the time has not been wasted. Gillian’s talk introduced me to the music of Delius, someone I’d heard of but knew little about. A white composer, born in Leeds of German parents, there was a surprising twist to his life story involving an illegitimate child with a Black woman in Florida. You can find the story in his Wikipedia entry if you want to know more.
Gillian was badly let down by the library’s IT which steadfastly refused to co-operate in spite of much cajoling. IT is the bane of every presenter’s life. I recall an event where my sole responsibility was to play a DVD. It worked perfectly in the trial run but then, for reasons known only to itself, played at the wrong speed when the audience was watching. I didn’t notice at first but when we got to a bit where Arthur Torrington, CBE, was being interviewed to camera on the DVD he came out sounding like Mickey Mouse after an unfortunate accident with some helium. To make it even more embarrassing Arthur was in the room watching.
As any good presenter must, Gillian soldiered on, not allowing the problems to faze her and it was a pleasure to chat to her afterwards.