Raise Every Voice: Conductor Malcolm Merriweather on Returning Neglected Composers to the Spotlight
Malcolm Merriweather
For conductor and baritone Malcolm J. Merriweather, artistic inspiration has largely sprung from asking questions related to his identity. What role does his work as a Black musician play within the larger tapestry of music history? Who are the artists of the past who contributed to the legacy he's inherited today?
As director of the New York Philharmonic Chorus and music director of the Dessoff Choirs, Merriweather spends his days bringing to life great choral works from the Renaissance through the 21st century. But two composers — who happened to live 400 years apart — have proved his primary focus over the past several years: Margaret Bonds, a contributor to the Harlem Renaissance; and Vicente Lusitano, an Afro-Portuguese musician who's considered the first published Black composer.
Merriweather has led the Dessoff Choirs in performances of both composers' music, oftentimes programming their work alongside that of their contemporaries. Which, in the case of Lusitano, includes Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Giovanni Palestrina — who also happens to be an important figure in the ensemble's early history.
"It's part of the Dessoff Choirs' mission to bring underperformed and underrepresented music and composers to the concert stage," Merriweather says on the latest episode of the Classical Post podcast. "That's been part of our mission since our founding in 1924 by Margarete Dessoff, a German Jewish immigrant. At that time, she was bringing the music of Palestrina to this country, which had never been heard here."
In this episode, Merriweather and I talk more about his relationship to Margaret Bonds's music, and how his critically acclaimed recordings of her songs led him to London to hear Lusitano's works for the first time. Plus, he shares how the act of baking nourishes his mind and body, why he has to make his bed first thing in the morning, and his favorite restaurant in Harlem for American-Senagalese fusion cuisine.
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