“Reverend Jack,” a movement from Horace-Alexander Young’s extended work titled “Distant Voices: A Jazz Suite,” will be performed by WSU faculty at the Celebrating Excellence Recognition Banquet on Friday, March 24.
Gerald Berthiaume, director of the School of Music and Theater Arts and a member of the Academic Showcase committee, said the committee was very intentional about encouraging more participation from faculty in liberal arts, and creative arts in particular.
“I think it is most important the arts are involved,” he said. “The arts are really central to the life of the students, the university and the broader community as well.”
Young, WSU associate professor of music, said the piece is a tribute to Rev. Jack Yates, a Houston pastor and the first significant black social and political leader in the post-Civil War era. Young, a native of Houston and a 1973 graduate of Jack Yates High School, said “Reverend Jack” is part of a seven-piece suite based on themes he originally composed as incidental music for a stage play of the same name, “Distant Voices” by Celeste Bedford Walker. That play deals with the preservation of African American culture as it is experienced in a particular Houston neighborhood, Young said, and his compositions are deeply rooted in the genres of blues and gospel that were specific to Texas from about 1840 to 1960.
Young said he was pleased to see the arts being recognized as part of the Showcase celebrations. “We have very talented faculty in various art areas on campus,” he said, and he would love to see more opportunities for the arts faculty to be involved in large-scale, campus-wide events. And, he said, he’d love to see more funding for the arts.
“For us to really make the World Class. Face to Face impact that we need for recruitment and to keep us on the global landscape of recognition, we need greater funding,” he said, “plain and simple.”
