Music
Dranoff 2 Piano Fusion opens 40th season with Black composers, new commission
Rebeca Omordia joins Glen Inanga Dranoff 2 Piano Fusion’s 40th anniversary concert celebration on Saturday, Nov. 7 at the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
In 1999, pianists Glen Inanga and Jennifer Micallef traveled the world, competing internationally. One of their stops was the Dranoff International Two Piano Competition in Miami, where they earned a prize for their performance of a newly commissioned composition that competitors had just months to learn and perform from memory.
“We were very young at the time, going from country to country doing competitions, as that was the entry point to getting the necessary recognition or exposure that you needed to be able to build a career,” Inanga said.
Now, 27 years later, Inanga returns to Dranoff, this time with pianist Rebeca Omordia. The duo will premiere another commissioned composition as Dranoff 2 Piano Fusion opens its 40th anniversary season with “Timeless Harmonies: Celebrating 40 Years of Making Music” on Saturday, Nov. 7 at the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center.
Glen Inanga, a laureate of the Dranoff International 2 Piano Competition, returns to Miami after 27 years to perform as a Dranoff featured artist opposite Rebeca
Omordia on Nov. 7 in Aventura. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
Originally founded 40 years ago by Loretta Dranoff as a tribute to her husband, Murray, she began the Dranoff International 2 Piano Competition in Miami to help launch the careers of piano duos worldwide. Although the focus has shifted from competitions, Dranoff continues to champion two-piano performances, as well as commissioning new compositions.
The anniversary concert will feature works by Black classical composers, including Florence Price, William Grant Still, George Walker, Errollyn Wallen and Eleanor Alberga. The program developed by Omordia and Inanga celebrates the traditions and contributions of Black composers and introduces audiences to the work of composers who have historically received less attention on the classical concert stage.
Loretta Dranoff founded The Murray Dranoff Foundation in honor of her
late husband with whom she traveled the world performing as Steinway and Columbia artists. (Photo courtesy of the Dranoff family)
Omordia, a classical pianist, said that the story of Price illustrates how easily the contributions of Black classical composers can be overlooked. In 2009, decades after Price’s death, Omordia said that a collection of the composer’s manuscripts were discovered in the attic of her former summer home in Illinois, including unknown works. This discovery helped renew interest in her music and bring it to concert stages.
“The same way it happened to music by Florence Price, this is the same way it needs to happen to the music by all the other composers that we are featuring in the Dranoff concert,” Omordia said.
She hopes that greater exposure and recognition of these composers will help the next generation of musicians see themselves reflected in the classical repertoire.
“Classical music is not just for the elitist, or just for white people, because we all have contributions by our own composers,” she said. “So that means we also belong on this stage.”
Both Inanga and Omordia have Nigerian roots. Inanga, who lives in Grand Cayman, was born and raised in Nigeria to a Caribbean mother and Nigerian father. Omordia, who lives in London, was born and raised in Romania to a Romanian mother and Nigerian father.
For Omordia, the Dranoff program is particularly meaningful because she has spent years researching Nigerian classical composers and incorporating their works into her performances. After originally being met with some resistance from concert organizers and record labels about her desire to perform certain composers, she tried a different approach.
For Rebeca Omordia, the Dranoff program is particularly meaningful because she has spent years researching Nigerian classical composers and incorporating their works into her performances. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
“Since concert organizers were not interested in programming it, I used to include it as encores at the end of the concerts. And the audience was reacting very enthusiastically about it,” she said.
The audience’s positive response helped Omordia make the case for including Nigerian composers in regular concert programs.
Inanga and Omordia’s program reflects a range of Black musical traditions and influences across Africa and the African diaspora, which includes people of African descent living outside of Africa. Omordia said that African American spirituals are woven into the compositions of Price and Still, Caribbean rhythms characterize Alberga’s music, jazz harmonies can be found in Wallen’s works and Nigerian compositions draw on traditional African drumming patterns and rhythms.
“It’s really unbelievable,” Inanga said. “It’s not very often you get an opportunity to play two piano programs where you’ve had to go around digging for repertoire that you feel is representative of the variety and diversity of music by African composers and African composers from diaspora as well.”
Composer Adam Schoenberg’s cinematic “Scene Study: A Love Story” will feature two pianos, a string quartet and double bass. (Photo by Sam Zauscher)
In addition to featuring Inanga and Omordia’ s program, the concert will also include the world premiere of composer Adam Schoenberg’s “Scene Study: A Love Story,” a Dranoff commission nearly a decade in the making.
Originally commissioned by Dranoff to write a concerto for two pianos and an orchestra, Schoenberg said that the project was delayed by the pandemic and organizational changes. It wasn’t until about two years ago that he said Dranoff Executive Director Emily Cardenas contacted him about reviving and completing the commission.
However, instead of a full orchestral piano concerto, Schoenberg developed a more intimate composition featuring Omordia and Inanga on two pianos, accompanied by the Amernet String Quartet and bassist Paola Garcia.
“It suddenly became something entirely new and different, knowing that it wasn’t going to be a full orchestral piano concert,” he said.
Schoenberg, who works as an orchestral composer and professor of music at Occidental College in Los Angeles, has also composed music for film. He said that he wanted to write a concert piece with cinematic elements.
The Amernet String Quartet, in residence at Florida International
University, will perform in the premiere of composer Adam Schoenberg’s “Scene Study: A Love Story” on Nov. 7 at the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center. (Photo courtesy of The Amernet String Quartet)
“Scene Study: A Love Story” tells a love story through a series of musical scenes that begins with the excitement of a new relationship and moves through dreaming, wonderment, conflict, grief and, finally, reconciliation, Schoenberg said.
“In ‘Romance,’ the material is presented in a quicker way, sort of like the honeymoon phase of a relationship. Everything is heightened and exciting, so the tempo has to be quicker because you’re just excited,” he said.
In the final scene, “Home Again,” the music is slightly slower, although Schoenberg said that it does start to speed up through the last movement. Schoenberg said that while the romance is still there, there is also comfort.
“This is your home, this is your person,” he said.
Although Schoenberg’s imaginary love story is not a portrayal of Loretta and Murray Dranoff’s marriage, the premiere of the piece is presented in Loretta’s honor.
“For anybody who has loved, and who has had a great love, I think people can relate to it,” Cardenas said.
Double bass player Paola Garcia will join the Amernet String Quartet on Nov. 7 to premiere the Dranoff commissioned work by composer Adam Schoenberg. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
Cardenas sees Schoenberg’s commissioned piece as a fitting way to honor Loretta, who championed the two-piano repertoire.
“I think she would love it. I think Loretta would be very proud that the organization continued,” Cardenas said.
As the 40th season begins, Cardenas sees the anniversary concert as a chance to broaden people’s understanding of classical music.
“I hope people leave the theater with an appreciation that classical music is so broad, that it speaks to so many people in so many different ways.”
WHAT: Dranoff 2 Piano Fusion, “Timeless Harmonies: Celebrating 40 Years of Making Music”
WHEN: 8 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 7
WHERE: Aventura Arts & Cultural Center, 3385 NE 188th St.t, Aventura
COST: $45 and $55; $70 VIP; $5 student admission, available at the box office on the day of the performance with a valid student ID.
INFORMATION: 305-572-9900 or www.aventuracenter.org/
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