over the weekend i was at my granparents house and i was talkin about this blogger project with them, and told them how i was going to write about classical music and ballet and what not... so my family are originally from haiti...(cant speak french nor creole... i am in total ingorance of my heritage...) and my grandfather always emphasizes the thought that i dont know anything about my culture, and then he told me about a crazy story that haitians compose classical music, and i really dont know if he was telling the truth because he always tells us something crazy about what haitians did, and me being ignorant i was jus laughing at this old man, and was like ok grandpa...
then i deciced to go home and actually google black afrcian american violinists, and the first thing that came up was a creole native violinist who family originated from the french west indies...haiti to my beleif and he was a known prodigy and composer, his name was Edmond Dede. He actually learned his skill from a free black man, Constanin Debergue who conducted free creoles in the south. He began studying music with an italiam native Gabici, but it angered a lot of whites in the south that a black man was participating in the classical arts...so many haters...
Dede was a typicial starving artist, working low income jobs just to keep his funds steady to participate in the art of violin such as making cigars, and playing an instrument is not a cheap thing to participate...from personal experience. During his cigar making time he composed a melody called "mon pauvre couer" (nope cant pernounce it...still very sad), and this is the oldest known sheet music composed from a black person. he later went to france and married a french woman and son, who also became a composer like his father.
2 comments:
I have linked to this post from http://AfriClassical.blogspot.com Edmond Dede is one of 52 classical composers and musicians of African descent who are profiled at www.AfriClassical.com Haitian composers at the website include Ludovic Lamothe, Occide Jeanty, Solon Verret and Justin Elie. I am happy to have discovered your blog, because it deals with classical music by composers of African descent. I will add your blog to my Favorites list. Best wishes.
Because of your interest in classical music by composers of Haitian descent, I would like to tell you about a Haitian classical pianist who was featured in AfriClassical in July. Her name is Suki Guerrier. Here is a link to my post: http://africlassical.blogspot.com/2008/07/suki-guerrier-dreams-of-haiti-review.html
If you would like to make contact with Suki, you can send her E-mail at sukipiano@gmail.com
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