Maryville College will present a performance by Trillium and Friends at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 7, in the Harold and Jean Lambert Recital Hall of the Clayton Center for the Arts. Admission is free, and the public is invited to attend.

The performance, featuring the piano trio Trillium with guest flutist Shelby Shankland, will commemorate this year’s historic semiquincentennial by honoring the rich contributions of Black composers to American classical music.

“The program will celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States,” said pianist Dr. Robert Bonham, professor emeritus of music at Maryville College. “For this program, we have chosen to also celebrate the incredibly rich and vibrant contributions of our Black composers.”

Referencing Antonín Dvořák’s 1890s visit to the United States, Bonham explained that the composer recognized the depth of musical material rooted in American soil. Dvořák encouraged American composers to draw inspiration from native traditions — particularly Black spirituals — to shape a distinct national voice.

“The Black composers included in this program had access both to the source materials of the rich Black culture and were as gifted and well-trained as the more well-known men and women,” Bonham said. “They deserve to be heard. We have enjoyed learning their music and are glad to give them voice.”

The program will feature works by R. Nathaniel Dett, Florence Price, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Carlos Simon and David Baker — composers whose music spans symphonic, chamber, operatic and jazz traditions. Several blended spirituals and folk influences with classical forms, while others incorporated jazz idioms and contemporary social themes.

The Trillium ensemble includes:

  • Kari Lapins, violin, who holds degrees in Suzuki Pedagogy and violin performance from Northern Arizona University
  • Alicia Randisi-Hooker, cello, an internationally performing artist and educator whose students have earned national and international recognition.
  • Bonham, a lifelong educator who also received the Maryville College Outstanding Teacher Award
  • Shelby Shankland, flute, former instructor of flute at Maryville College and principal flutist of the Oak Ridge Symphony.

Admission to the March 7 performance is free, and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Maryville College is a nationally ranked institution of higher learning and one of America’s oldest colleges, located in Maryville, Tennessee, between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the city of Knoxville. Maryville College offers more than 60 majors, seven pre-professional programs and career preparation from their first day on campus to their last, in the words of our Presbyterian founder, to “do good on the largest possible scale.”

Karen Eldridge, Executive Director of Communications: karen.eldridge@maryvillecollege.edu.

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