The 54th season of the Vineyard Summer Chamber Music Festival continues with flutist/singer Emi Ferguson performing music of Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Franz Schubert, and Harry Burleigh, who summered in Oak Bluffs for 30 years before his death in 1949.
“All these composers are united in their devotion to capturing people, places, and emotions in music,” says Ferguson. “Each gave voice to ‘ordinary people’ and their struggles: Guthrie through folk ballads, Schubert through art songs, Lead Belly through the blues, and Burleigh through spirituals that wove African American traditions into the fabric of Western classical music. They lived in very different parts of the world at different moments in time, but the stories they tell connect them — and us – with our shared humanity.”
Harry Burleigh composed more than 100 songs, and arranged more than 50 African American spirituals. In 1935, Burleigh composed a hymn titled “Martha’s Vineyard” in Grace parish house in Vineyard Haven. He was also the inspiration for “Going Home,” the famous slow movement in Antonin Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony.
Ferguson will perform Burleigh’s “My Lord What A Morning,” “Deep River,” and “Five Songs of Laurence Hope.” The program also includes Lead Belly’s “Goodnight Irene,” Woody Guthrie’s “Pastures of Plenty,” and a selection of works by Austrian composer Franz Schubert. July 26, 4 pm, Old Whaling Church in Edgartown. For more information, visit www.mvcms.org.