Pianist Samantha Ege and the Castle of our Skins string quartet present an evening of chamber music from the African continent and diaspora. This concert gives the UK premieres of works by South African composer Bongani Ndodana-Breen (b. 1975) and African American composers Florence Price (1887-1953), Undine Smith Moore (1904-1989), and Frederick C. Tillis (1930-2020).

Safika: Three Tales on African Migration for piano quintet (2011) Bongani Ndodana-Breen
Soweto for piano trio (1986) Undine Smith Moore
Spiritual Fantasy for string quartet (1995) Frederick Tillis

Interval

String Quartet no. 2 in A minor (1935) Florence Price

Castle of our Skins String Quartet: Gabriela Diaz (violin), Mina Lavcheva (violin), Ashleigh Gordon (viola), Francesca McNeeley (cello)

Samantha Ege (piano)
Dr Samantha Ege is a musicologist, pianist, and the Lord Crewe Junior Research Fellow in Music at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. She belongs to a new generation of practitioners who are redefining classical music and illuminating the diversity of its past, present, and future. Samantha released her debut album, Four Women: Music for solo piano by Price, Kaprálová, Bilsland and Bonds (Wave Theory Records) in May 2018. She released Fantasie Nègre: The Piano Music of Florence Price in March 2021 (Lorelt). Fantasie Nègre received critical acclaim in BBC Music Magazine, The Telegraph, New York Times and Washington Post. She gave the world premiere performance of Fantasie Nègre at the London Festival of American Music in September 2021, followed by the second UK performance of Fantasie Nègre and the UK premiere of Vítězslava Kaprálová’s Sonata Appassionata at her Barbican debut in November 2021. Her latest album is called Black Renaissance Woman (Lorelt).

Read more here: www.torch.ox.ac.uk/event/chamber-music-from-the-african-continent-diaspora