BOX OFFICE 202.785.9727
Free Performance! Our multi-event tribute to the late, great Hazel Scott launches with music, stories, and more courtesy of The United States Air Force Band, piano virtuoso Michelle Cann, and others.
Pianist, actress, and activist Hazel Scott was one of the best-known musicians and celebrities of the first half of the 20th century, famed in the 1930s and ’40s as the “Queen of Cafe Society” (the first racially integrated nightclub in New York City) and in 1950 becoming the first Black American woman to host her own TV show. A true “Renaissance artist,” steeped in both the jazz and classical traditions, she was equally at home performing with a small combo, a big band, or a full orchestra—sometimes even playing two pianos simultaneously. This concert, part of a multi-event Washington Performing Arts “centenary-plus-one” celebration, features music Scott loved to perform plus other chestnuts from her era—including works by George Gershwin, Florence Price, and others.
FLORENCE PRICE - Piano Concerto in One Movement
GERSHWIN - Summertime
GERSHWIN - Rhapsody in Blue
Co-presented with The United States Air Force Band
Hazel Scott 101st Birthday Celebration: Symphony Orchestra is an introduction (and for some, a reacquaintance) to one of America’s preeminent artists, Hazel Scott. A classical pianist, jazz instrumentalist and singer, a civil rights activist and actor, Hazel Scott was one of the most famous women of her era. This program is a journey toward further understanding the breadth of Hazel Scott’s artistic contribution while also exploring the works of other prominent American composers, including the consummate classical work of African American composer, Florence Price.
As Hazel Scott’s biographer, it is especially gratifying to, once again, have the opportunity to speak one-on-one with her son, Adam Clayton Powell III, who shares details not only of his mother’s career on the concert stage—from New York to Hollywood to Paris—but also their lives beyond the limelight. As Hazel would be 101 years old this year, the biography turns ten. It is a monumental occasion, indeed, to unearth the legacy of one of America’s greats and to experience this music through a classical pianist who may easily be considered the heir apparent to legends like Hazel Scott and Florence Price—Michelle Cann. Her pianistic prowess is on full display alongside the United States Air Force Band’s Symphony Orchestra under the leadership of Colonel Don Schofield in a program that reminds us all of the enduring vitality and significance of this great music and the artists who created it.
Michelle Cann
“A compelling, sparkling virtuoso” (Boston Music Intelligencer), pianist Michelle Cann made her orchestral debut at age fourteen and has since performed as a soloist with numerous orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.
A champion of the music of Florence Price, Ms. Cann performed the New York City premiere of the composer’s Piano Concerto in One Movement with The Dream Unfinished Orchestra in July 2016 and the Philadelphia premiere with The Philadelphia Orchestra in February 2021, which the Philadelphia Inquirer called “exquisite.”
Highlights of her 2021–22 season include debut performances with the Atlanta, Detroit, and St. Louis symphony orchestras, as well as her Canadian concert debut with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa. She also receives the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, the highest honor bestowed by the Sphinx Organization, and the 2022 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award. Embracing a dual role as both performer and pedagogue, her season includes teaching residencies at the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival and the National Conference of the Music Teachers National Association.
Ms. Cann regularly appears in solo and chamber recitals throughout the U.S., China, and South Korea. Notable venues include the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing), the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, D.C.), Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles), and the Barbican (London). She has also appeared as cohost and collaborative pianist with NPR’s From The Top.
An award winner at top international competitions, in 2019 she served as the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s MAC Music Innovator in recognition of her role as an African-American classical musician who embodies artistry, innovation, and a commitment to education and community engagement.
Ms. Cann studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Curtis Institute of Music, where she holds the inaugural Eleanor Sokoloff Chair in Piano Studies.
United States Air Force Band
The United States Air Force Band is one of the most respected, versatile, and accomplished musical organizations in the world. From its humble beginnings with only three enlisted musicians to today's 184-member premier musical organization, The U.S. Air Force Band continues the tradition of representing the United States Air Force and its over 686,000 Active Duty, Air National Guard and Reserve members to a global audience. "The United States Air Force Band" is the title of the Air Force's premier musical squadron which consists of 6 performing groups: the Concert Band, Singing Sergeants, Airmen of Note, Air Force Strings, Ceremonial Brass and Max Impact.
The United States Air Force Band and its components have performed live for diverse audiences of over 60 million people. Millions more have heard them through numerous radio and television appearances, internet broadcasts, and innovative videos. By providing a first-hand musical view into American culture, the band fosters a better understanding among global cultures and audiences. The United States Air Force Band is a musical organization that merits its reputation as "America's International Musical Ambassadors," for it is truly one of the most potent instruments of goodwill at the command of the American people.
Karen Chilton
Karen Chilton is a New York-based Writer/Actor whose work has been seen on stage, film and television. A native of Chicago’s South Side, Ms. Chilton received her M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing at NYU-Tisch School of the Arts, and a B.S. degree in Economics from Bradley University.
She is the author of the critically-acclaimed biography of jazz/classical pianist HAZEL SCOTT: The Pioneering Journey of a Jazz Pianist from Café Society to Hollywood to HUAC (University of Michigan Press) which she has recently adapted for the screen. She is co-author of I WISH YOU LOVE, the jazz memoir of legendary vocalist Gloria Lynne (St. Martin’s Press). She was a contributor to the 75th anniversary commemorative edition of AIN’T NOTHING LIKE THE REAL THING: The Apollo Theater and American Entertainment with an essay on blues legend, Bessie Smith.
Her dramatic writing credits include: THE TONGUE & THE LASH in collaboration with renowned pianist/composer, Damien Sneed, commissioned by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis for the 2021 New Works, Bold Voices! Lab; the chamber opera was directed by OTSL Artistic Director, James Robinson and conducted by Daniela Candillari. Additional works for the stage include: AFRODISIAC (Or Let My People Flow!) (Nominated for New York Theatre Workshop-Golden & Ruth Harris Commission; Finalist for the 2020 Goldberg Prize-NYU Tisch); HEIRLOOM (Semi-Finalist-O’Neill Nat’l Playwrights Conference 2019); CONVERGENCE (Winner of the New Professional Theatre’s Writers Festival). She wrote and performed the libretto for THE SOUL NOW SINGS in collaboration with pianist, Damien Sneed, produced by NPR/New York Public Radio (WNYC) in The Greene Space. Her short plays, BLUE CASSIUS and SWITCH! have been produced in the Obie award-winning theater festivals 48 Hours In Harlem and The Fire This Time Theater Festival. She is a fellow for the Liberation Theatre Company’s Playwriting Fellowship (2020-2021).
An award-winning voice artist and narrator, her voice can be heard on dozens of audiobooks and tv/radio campaigns.
Her affiliations include membership in the SAG/AFTRA, AEA, ASCAP, The Dramatists Guild, Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), The Toni Morrison Society, and New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT).
Adam Clayton Powell III
Adam Clayton Powell III is CCLP’s Director of Washington Programs, leading CCLP’s initiative on election cybersecurity, in association with USC’s schools of business, engineering, law and public policy and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. With support from Google, this bipartisan initiative provides in-state training in all 50 states to reinforce election integrity and build defense against digital attacks.
He also coordinates CCLP’s Washington DC programming, which includes monthly public forums on such subjects as public diplomacy, national security and the future of communications.
Before his move to Washington in 2010, he served as USC’s Vice Provost for Globalization, working closely with faculty and deans to advance the university’s globalization initiative, expanding USC’s international presence, opening new USC facilities in Shanghai and Seoul, and promoting the university throughout the world.
Powell previously served as Director of the USC Integrated Media Systems Center, a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center located in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Powell also worked extensively in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the U.S. on training programs in digital media for journalists, educators and policymakers.
Earlier roles include Vice President/Technology and Programs of the Freedom Forum and the Newseum, creating a global Internet education program; Working Group member, Internet Policy Institute, helping develop briefing papers for the President of the U.S. and other policymakers; Executive Producer at Quincy Jones Entertainment; and Vice President for News and Information programming at National Public Radio.
Earlier Powell spent sixteen years at CBS News and at CBS-owned television and radio stations in New York City, including serving as a reporter and producer at WCBS-TV, then News Director of all-news WINS radio, increasing its audience to become the #1 radio station in New York, before returning to CBS network news as Manager of News Operations, then Manager of Special Events and Political Coverage for CBS News for the 1980 election, and finally Coordinating Producer of the CBS Morning News.
Powell is the author of Reinventing Local News: Connecting Communities through New Technologies (Figueroa Press, 2005); co-author of a study of the Internet and politics, Lethargy ’96: How the Media Covered a Listless Campaign (Freedom Forum, 1997), and is contributor to numerous books including Demystifying Media Technology (Mayfield, 1993), Radio: the Forgotten Medium (Transaction, 1995), Briefing the President: What the Next President of the United States Needs to Know about the Internet (Internet Policy Institute, 2000), The Digital Divide (MIT Press, 2001), Democracy and New Media (MIT Press, 2003), America’s Dialogue with the World (Public Diplomacy Council, 2006), and Local Voices/Global Perspectives (Public Diplomacy Council, 2008).
Powell had also written for publications including The New York Times and the Columbia Journalism Review, and he has appeared on broadcasts including CNN and the PBS News Hour.
The winner of the Ohio State Award for a series of reports on Iran for CBS News and of the 1999 World Technology Award for Media and Journalism sponsored by The Economist, Powell is a Senior Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, where he taught the first course in 2003, and is a member of the Public Diplomacy Council of the United States, of which he served as President from 2015 until earlier this year.
Watch More:
- Hazel Scott on Two Grand Pianos
- "Autumn Leaves": Hazel Scott with Charles Mingus and Rudy Nichols (1955)
- What Ever Happened to Hazel Scott? Short video essay by independent filmmaker Eve Goldberg (2016)
- "Into the Sun": The United States Air Force Band’s Airmen of Note with guest trumpeter Sean Jones (posted August 15, 2021)
- United States Air Force Band YouTube channel
- Michelle Cann performs Florence Price’s Piano Sonata in E minor, 2nd Movement (From the Top, May 10, 2019)
- Michelle Cann YouTube channel
- Hazel Scott official website
- United States Air Force Band website
- Michelle Cann website
- Karen Chilton website (Hazel Scott biography page)
- "Jazz's Lost Star" (Library of Congress Magazine, January/Febraury 2022)
United States Air Force Band
Michelle Cann
This web stream is made possible through the generous support of the following sponsors: Lyn and Barry Chasen; Dr. Gary Mather and Ms. Christina Co Mather; and Adam Clayton Powell III and Irene M. Solet.
Washington Performing Arts’s Hazel Scott 101st Birthday Celebration is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, Lydia Micheaux Marshall, and Barbara Myers and Tom Gallagher.
This is one of eleven 2021/22 Season events included in Washington Performing Arts’s World in Our City initiative, which promotes cross-cultural understanding and cultural diplomacy via international performances, globally inspired Mars Arts D.C. programming, and the award-winning Embassy Adoption Program, a partnership with D.C. Public Schools.
Thank you to the following lead supporters of Washington Performing Arts’s mission-driven work in 2021/22: Jacqueline Badger Mars and Mars, Incorporated; Dr. Gary Mather and Ms. Christina Co Mather; the National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs Program and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts; D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities; Barbara Myers and Tom Gallagher; The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; and the Dallas Morse Coors Foundation for the Performing Arts.
Additional sponsorships are available for this web stream and for a number of performances in the 2021/22 season. Contact Elizabeth Racheva, Chief Advancement Officer, at Sponsorship@WashingtonPerformingArts.org or (202) 533-1862 to learn more.
