As a student at Dunbar High School in the 1970s, Regina Harris Baiocchi played French horn, trumpet and guitar, and wrote music arrangements for the school’s jazz, concert and marching bands. She continued with music training at Roosevelt University, studying various musical instruments, but eventually she concentrated on composition.
At a concert in honor of Black History Month Saturday in the Harold Washington Library Auditorium, a chamber ensemble will perform Baiocchi’s music and that of other African-American women composers of serious music: Betty Jackson King, Dorothy Rudd Moore, Irene Britton Smith, Rita Warford, the late Margaret Bonds and Florence B. Price. Smith and Warford live in Chicago, King in Wildwood, N.J., and Moore in New York City. The concert, with funding from AT&T, is sponsored by American Music Composers Midwest Inc., a not-for-profit organization.
Musicians performing in the concert will be Anita Berry, mezzo soprano; Emily Seaberry Graef, flutist; Lori Ashikewa, violinist; Elizabeth Anderson, cellist; Ester Hanviriyapunt and Kit Bridges, pianists, plus the Rita Warford Ensemble: Warford, vocalist; Nate Vincent, reeds player; Jimmy Willis, bassist, and Dushun Mosely, drummer.
“American Women Composers is into its second decade of promoting new music by women composers,” Baiocchi said. ” `Variations in Black,’ this concert’s title, refers to different styles of music composed by women. Rita Warford is a jazz singer as well as a composer. I have written rap and gospel as well as symphonic music.”
Baiocchi said she admires Dorothy Rudd Moore, who works only in music. Not many women composers can support themselves as Moore has, says Baiocchi, who in addition to being composer-in-residence at Mostly Music Inc., an organization that promotes music education for public school students, works as public relations director at the Catholic Theological Union in Hyde Park.
The American Women Composers concert will begin at 2 p.m. Saturday in the Harold Washington Library Auditorium, 400 S. State St. Baiocchi will be master of ceremonies for the concert, which will be followed by a reception. Admission is free. For more information call 312-907-2185.
