Sylvester Manor, The Jazz Loft, the Rites of Spring Music Festival, and the Shinnecock Indian Nation, present an American Roots concert.
The July 31 concert at Sylvester Manor will feature a wide array of musical styles including jazz classics by Duke Ellington, European music influenced by African-American culture, and indigenous music traditions.
“We are thrilled to be hosting an event that represents the intersection of three important American cultures and music traditions,” Sylvester Manor Executive Director Stephen Searl said in a news release.
“The concert and its world-class musicians reflect the kind of complex, rich, and inclusive history we honor and celebrate here at Sylvester Manor.”
American Roots concert
The schedule for Sunday, July 31 (gates open at 4 PM):
- Shinnecock Indian Nation performers from 5 to 5:30 PM
- Rites of Spring Wind Quintet from 5:45 to 6:30 PM
- The Jazz Loft Big Band from 7 to 8:30 PM
The Rites of Spring Quintet will perform Wiliam Grant Still’s “Miniatures”, a 1948 composition for woodwind quintet. Known as the “Dean of African-American Composers,” his career was comprised of many “firsts.”
He was the first African-American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra, the first to have a symphony performed by a leading orchestra, the first to have an opera performed by a major opera company, and the first to have an opera performed on national television.
In its day, his first symphony, “Afro-American Symphony” (1930), reportedly was the most widely performed symphony composed by an American. Learn more about this beloved composer at www.williamgrantstillmusic.com.
Rites of Spring will also play Antonin Dvorak’s “String Quartet No.12 in F major. Op.96,” popularly known as the American Quartet.
The Stony Brook Jazz Loft Big Band is a 17-piece group led by trumpeter and The Jazz Loft founder, curator, and artistic director Tom Manuel. It will present Duke Ellington’s “Black, Brown & Beige.” The three-part composition is an extended jazz work that Ellington wrote for his first concert at Carnegie Hall in 1943. Ellington described it “as a parallel to the history of the Negro in America. And, of course, it’s a long story.”
Purchase tickets
Tickets are $65 per person (children age 16 and under enter for free, but must be accompanied by an adult). To purchase yours, follow this link to the Rites of Spring Music Festival website.
Please note that this is an outdoor lawn event. Attendees should bring their own blankets or beach chairs for seating. The performances take place festival-style in different locations around the lawn, and the Manor strongly suggests footwear suitable for walking on uneven ground. Also, pack bug spray.
About Sylvester Manor
At its founding by European settlers, Sylvester Manor encompassed all of Shelter Island, which was the hunting, fishing, and farming ground of the indigenous Manhansett people for millennia. Initially used to provision the family’s Caribbean sugar plantations, Sylvester Manor was home to an unknown number of enslaved people and their descendants.
The Manor remained a private estate through 11 generations. In 2014, the family gave it to the nonprofit Sylvester Manor Educational Farm, and, a year later, the property was designated as a federal Historic District of National Significance.
Today, Sylvester Manor is recognized as the most intact slaveholding plantation remnant north of Virginia. The 240-acre historic site along the bank of Gardiners Creek includes a 1737 Manor House, a 19th-century restored windmill, an Afro-Indigenous Burial Ground, and a working farm.
The nonprofit offers educational and cultural arts programming open to all. For more information, visit sylvestermanor.org.
