Boston Symphony Orchestra: Coleridge-Taylor, Wooten, and Ellington

BSO Artistic Advisor for Education and Community Engagement Conductor Thomas Wilkins is joined by composer and electric bass virtuoso Victor Wooten making his BSO debut. A multi-Grammy winner consistently ranked among the greatest bassists in the world, Wooten puts his own eclectic chops to the test in his concerto La Lección Tres, which continues the musical-philosophical journey of his book The Music Lesson. Anglo African composer Samuel Coleridge Taylor came to international prominence with his 1898 cantata on Longfellow’s epic poem The Song of Hiawatha. In 1912, Coleridge-Taylor recast this popular work as a ballet score; it was his last completed piece. Duke Ellington’s 1970 ballet The River, commissioned by the American Ballet Theatre for choreographer Alvin Ailey, follows an allegorical river’s changing nature from its source to the sea—i.e., from birth to “the heavenly anticipation of rebirth.”

Thomas Wilkins, conductor

Victor Wilkins, electric bass

COLERIDGE-TAYLOR – Suite from the ballet Hiawatha
Victor WOOTEN – La Lección Tres, for electric bass and orchestra
ELLINGTON – Giggling Rapids, from The River Suite