What Texas City is a National Cultural Showcase?

For the past decade I have enjoyed the privilege of regularly collaborating in “Dvorak and America” festivals with Kevin Deas, one of the supreme African-American concert artists of our day. His performances of “Goin’ Home” and the “Hiawatha Melodrama” invariably make a great impression.

Kevin’s self-evident generosity of spirit is as vital to his appeal as his luscious bass-baritone. But he has his foibles, one of which is a chronic reluctance to sign CDs.

For the recent El Paso “Dvorak and America” festival, I instructed both the El Paso Symphony and the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) to purchase hundreds of CDs for signature and sale. The CD in question is “Dvorak and America” (Naxos), featuring Kevin Deas singing “Goin’ Home” and the “Hiawatha Melodrama,” plus a number of startling Dvorak-related novelties.

Kevin invariably predicts that no one will purchase “Dvorak and America.” Knowing El Paso, I knew otherwise. I managed to goad him into venturing into the lobby of the Plaza Theatre at intermission, where a table stacked with CDs awaited his attention. He discovered a line of customers so long that it disappeared around a corner. They were young and old. Many were Hispanic. Some were first-time concertgoers. They all had something they wanted to tell him. And they wanted to buy signed CDs.

In fact, El Paso is the perfect place for a Dvorak festival. Serendipitously, the El Paso Symphony is the only American orchestra with a Czech conductor. His name is Bohuslav Rattay and he is terrific. The orchestra enjoys a following both hungry and diverse. The orchestra roster includes 18 Hispanic musicians.

As for UTEP, I have never encountered more eager or absorbent students. Of UTEP’s 22,800 students, 78 per cent are Hispanic. More than 60 per cent of UTEP graduates are the first in their family to earn a B.A. One-third of all UTEP students report a family income of $20,000 or less. They disclose no sense of entitlement. The faculty is distinguished – pedagogues who savor the opportunity at hand. The school is a launching pad. Its purposes and effectiveness are inspirational and obvious.

El Paso itself, with a population of 650,000 (80 per cent Hispanic), is a perfect size for communal cultural endeavor. The orchestra, the university, the public schools partner easily. The various departments of the university are seamlessly collaborative. For the Dvorak festival, a fabulous scholar of nineteenth century American literature, the Melville specialist Brians Yothers, boned up on Longfellow and vitally participated in our explorations of the impact of The Song of Hiawatha on the New World Symphony.

The Dvorak topic is protean, actually inexhaustible. His ecumenical conviction that African-Americans and Native Americans were emblematic Americans, crucial to any valid notion of American identity, remains provocative and timely.

The El Paso festival began with a presentation at Chapin High School that was streamed to other public schools. I lectured for three large UTEP classes, connecting with a mixture music and non-music undergraduates and graduate students. Kevin and I performed our “Harry Burleigh Show” for a gathering of all UTEP music majors and grad students. The multi-media El Paso Symphony concerts  featured the Hiawatha Melodrama and a visual presentation for the New World Symphony. The pre-concert speaker was Brian Yothers on Longfellow – his range of influence, his shifting reputation.

Finally, there were two concerts on the UTEP campus. Lowell Graham led the UTEP Orchestra in an arresting program of music from Dvorak’s America by George Chadwick, Edward MacDowell and Dudley Buck. The UTEP Chorale offered spirituals and rare “Indianist” works. Here, the main event was Arthur Farwell’s 16-part a cappella “Pawnee Horses,” an American choral masterpiece that remains virtually unknown,  brilliantly prepared by UTEP’s Elisa Wilson.

More than 300 UTEP students attended the El Paso Symphony concerts. Many had never before heard an orchestra.

Two indispensable factors were Frank Candelaria, a visionary music historian who also serves as UTEPs Associate Provost, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, which supported the festival as part of its Music Unwound orchestral consortium.

Next February I return to El Paso for “Copland and Mexico,” which will use Aaron Copland’s Mexican epiphany as a starting point for exploring the Mexican cultural efflorescence of the 1930s. In that decade, it was not only Berlin and Paris that lured American artists and intellectuals abroad. Copland, Paul Strand, John Steinbeck, and Langston Hughes were among those flocking south of the border. Mexican’s own cultural vanguard included a composer of genius still insufficiently recognized: Silvestre Revueltas. The iconic Mexican film Redes, scored by Revueltas with cinematography by Strand, will be the centerpiece of “Copland and Mexico.” UTEP, the El Paso Symphony, the El Paso Film Festival, and the El Paso Museum are already on board.  There is a strong push to include events across the Rio Grande in Juarez. The opportunities at hand are inexhaustible.

More than any other American city I know, El Paso deserves to be recognized as a national showcase for the ways in which cultural and educational institutions can work together to instruct, inspire, and unite.