Thank you for being a part of One Found Sound’s 10th season!
You make each performance so incredible and unique, and we are thrilled to share this amazing music with you tonight.

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Tonight marks the launch of One Found Sound’s Herbert Franklin Mells Project, which includes the world premieres and recordings of four of Dr. Mells’s yet-unpublished orchestral works composed from 1938 to 1945. Born in 1908, Dr. Herbert Franklin Mells was a composer, professor, and choral director, and was the first Black American man to receive a Ph.D. in composition with a focus on orchestral music.

One Found Sound deeply thanks Dr. R. James Whipple and Eugene Perry for their unwavering support, work, and commitment to this important project.

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Horizon features lighting and visuals by Max Savage with Andy Highland and Karen Hu, and artwork by Sharon Virtue

program

Ludwig van Beethoven - Coriolan Overture, Op. 62
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Quinn Mason - Reflection on a Memorial
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Herbert Franklin Mells - Symphony No. 1 in D Minor (world premiere)
I. Moderato
II. Adagio, with quiet languor
III. Scherzo
IV. Allegro, with an adagio introduction

land acknowledgement

One Found Sound respectfully acknowledges that the land on which we are gathered for this performance, and on which we have gathered for our rehearsals, is located on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples—specifically the Yelamu—an independent tribe of the Ramaytush Ohlone that once inhabited what is now known as San Francisco County.

We share our acknowledgement with you to pay our respects to the ancestors, elders, descendants, and relatives of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples; to affirm and promote consciousness of the cultural and sovereign rights of First Peoples; as a step in our continuing efforts to recognize the ongoing atrocities and brutalities of colonialism; and as a step in understanding our place in the process of decolonization and reconciliation as individuals, as artists, as an orchestra, and as a community.

We recognize that the Ramaytush Ohlone Peoples, as the original stewards of this land, understood the interconnectedness of all things and maintained harmony with nature for millennia, and we honor them for their enduring commitment to Mother Earth.

———
Visit the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone online at ramaytush.org

one found sound

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)
Coriolan Overture, Op. 62

Ludwig van Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture was composed as a musical prelude to a play of the same name by Heinrich Joseph von Collin, who is also the work’s dedicatee. The overture was first performed in March of 1807 at the palace of Beethoven’s patron Prince Lobkowitz in Vienna. This performance featured a triptych of premieres: along with Coriolan, it was that evening the world likewise heard Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto and Fourth Symphony for the very first time.

Written by Collin five years earlier, Coriolan was briefly revived in 1807, and was performed only once with Beethoven’s overture in April of that year. Collin’s tragic history play tracks the fall of the Roman general Coriolanus, who dubbed as such following a strategic victory over the Volscians at Corioli. With a full tank of ego, Coriolan returned to Rome where he sought to increase his own political power. There, Coriolanus made no secret of his disdain for the plebian citizenry. His policies and proposals—which favored the ruling class at the expense of the general public—aggravated plebian and patrician alike, and Coriolan was thus exiled from Rome. Coriolan then returned to the Volsci and conspired with them to launch an attack on Rome. While his mother desperately pled with him to stop the attack and rather seek a peaceful reconciliation with Rome, her attempts were in vain. Collin’s play ends with Coriolan, realizing the daftness and impossibility of his situation, taking his own life.

The work was composed at a time when Vienna was under constant threat, and occasional occupation, by Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grande Armée. In its action-packed eight minutes, Beethoven’s theatrical overture delivers a pointed, intimate study on the human relationship to power and self-realization. An impassioned, unison note sparks the overture to life. The music brims with dramatic outbursts, diminished harmonies, descending chromaticism, and desirous melodies, darting twists, and dazzling turns. As Coriolan seals his own fate, the overture whispers to pensive close in a meditative—and no less impassioned—analog to its fervent opening cries. —Georgeanne Banker

Quinn Mason (b.1996)
Reflection on a Memorial

Reflection on a Memorial contemplates the passing of a person or a tragic event and meditates on this idea. In the composition, the listener experiences grief and mourning at first as we ponder and think deeply about events past, and at a brief moment in the climax, an enlightening moment that can be seen as light through darkness and a spark of hope. 

 The composition is scored for string orchestra and begins with a soli for the viola section. I chose the viola section to begin this piece because of the mournful and singing character of the instrument’s sound. Also prominently featured throughout the composition are the voices of the solo violin and cello, which almost take on narrative roles; at the end, a solo cello reprises the viola line heard the beginning as a final mournful statement.

 There are 4 distinct sections in the piece: a somber, melancholy beginning, then a faster, tragic outburst of grief, followed by a calmer reflective passage, which feature hopeful yet intense chords that build up to a light infused climax. This is all brought together with a coda that is a faint memory of an earlier section of the piece, which becomes distant and fades into the abyss.

Another one of my ‘open interpretation’ compositions, this piece can be used to commemorate any event or person, so that it may be performed in a variety of situations.

— Quinn Mason

Quinn Mason is a composer and conductor based in Dallas, Texas. He currently serves as the Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s Artist in Residence. His orchestral music has received numerous performances in the United States by the San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Utah Symphony, NYO-USA, New England Conservatory Philharmonia, in Europe by the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI and many more. He has received awards from the American Composers Forum, Voices of Change, Texas A&M University, the Dallas Foundation, the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra, ASCAP, the Heartland Symphony Orchestra, Arizona State University Symphony Orchestra and was also named as a finalist for 2020’s Texan of the Year. As a conductor, he studied with Marin Alsop, James Ross, Miguel Harth-Bedoya and Will White, and has guest conducted many orchestras around the country. masonianmusic.com

Herbert Franklin Mells (1908 - 1953)
Symphony No. 1 in D Minor (world premiere)

I. Moderato
II. Adagio, with quiet languor
III. Scherzo
IV. Allegro, with an adagio introduction

Dr. Herbert Franklin Mells was a composer, professor, and choral director born in Georgia in 1908. Dr. Mells received a B.S. in biology with a minor in chemistry from Morehouse College in 1932 and received his M.A. in music composition from Indiana University in 1938. In 1944, he became the first African American man to receive a Ph.D. with a focus on orchestral composition, which he earned from Iowa State University. In his short lifetime, Dr. Mells served as the music department chair at Langston University, the Hampton Institute (now Hampton University), and later at Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State University (now Tennessee State University), a position he held until his untimely death in 1953.

In his short lifetime, Dr. Mells composed many vocal and choral works, chamber and instrumental music, and large-scale symphonic works. As a choral director, Dr. Mells led his ensembles on extensive tours, performing at Rockefeller Center, the Jewish Music Festival in Norfolk, VA, on NBC radio, and at Cabell Hall at the University of Virginia, where his ensemble became the first Black choir to perform there. Dr. Mells’s approach to performance repertoire and composition ranges from the ardently sociopolitical to the deeply personal, and “provides a window into a relatively unknown region of Black classical music: music directly inspired by the Harlem Renaissance but written outside Harlem,” writes Mark Clague in the International Dictionary of Black Composers.

“Working in the South and in predominantly Black colleges, Mells created a refuge from discrimination through music. His musical utopia protected and nurtured both his family and his students while providing opportunities for the self-expression, self-representation, and self-respect,” of which Black musicians were often deprived.

While some of Dr. Mells’s instrumental, vocal, and choral works were published by the Handy Brothers Music Company in New York, his symphonic music remained unpublished. Despite Dr. Mells’s best efforts, these works “were continually rejected, however, because, as Dr. Mells was told, there was no market for classical music written by a Black man.”  

In 1938—the year supreme court decision Gaines v. Canada laid important groundwork for future cases central to the civil rights movement, such as Brown v. Board of Education—Dr. Mells completed his master’s degree at Indiana University. His Symphony No. 1 in D Minor, written in partial fulfillment of this degree, is presented in its entirety for the first time tonight, 85 years after its composition.

“My grandfather was a powerful man. He was not your usual person,” Dr. Mells’s grandson Eugene Perry said to the San Francisco Classical Voice. “If you saw the amount of music he wrote, it would blow your mind. Especially because he died at age 44. He had four kids. When did he have time to have so much presence with his family? The piano music underneath the vocal is powerful. The First Symphony is masterful. He conducted the final movement in 1938 in front of Indiana University’s all-white orchestra. He was a Black man, 30 years old. What happened?

“I’m thinking about him and his power and dignity. That’s in the music, so maybe something will come out of this. One Found Sound is getting an amazing opportunity. His music — the color, style, and tone — will differentiate him. The project will show the development of his work while he was a chairman of three universities, traveling, touring during the summers. I’m curious myself to see what will be revealed.”

Despite consistent rejection in his lifetime, Dr. Mells “continued to write for orchestra, and he continued to submit symphonic works for publication, despite the poor chances for performance and the endless series of polite, but unequivocal, rejections,” Mark Clague writes. “While there are many avenues of study that might explain why Mells continued to write orchestral music, possibly the most productive is that he may have felt that his orchestral music served an important social purpose, if not immediately, then in the future.”

Herbert Franklin Mells
The symphonic premieres

One Found Sound’s Herbert Franklin Mells Project includes the world premieres and recordings of four of Dr. Mells’s orchestral works composed from 1938 to 1945.

This exciting initiative launches on March 4, 2023 with the world premiere of Dr. Mells’s Symphony No. 1 in D minor, composed in 1938.

Why is this world premiere happening 85 years late? Despite his own efforts, racist practices prevented Herbert Franklin Mells from having his orchestral works published in his lifetime. One Found Sound’s Herbert Franklin Mells project will bring his large-scale symphonic works to the public stage for the very first time. Over the next five years, this project includes the long overdue performance, recording, and publication of Dr. Mells’s orchestral works.

What does this project mean to us — and what might it mean for you? OFS’s Herbert Franklin Mells project will bring his orchestral music to the ears of the public for the very first time, and seeks to inspire widespread awareness, accessibility, and performance of Dr. Mells’s orchestral music. This encourages a deeper look at our past by addressing the intersection of structural racism and classical music in the United States, and by considering where classical music is coming from—and where it’s going next.

One Found Sound is so incredibly grateful for Dr. Jim Whipple and Eugene Perry, whose unwavering support has made this project possible.

Thank you for being a part of this special performance.

Sharon Virtue

Sharon Virtue is an artist, facilitator, trainer and visionary ‘inspirationalist’ currently based in Fairfax, California, while working internationally in arts and creative community development.

Her work has two strands, one as a dancer and artist, creating paintings and ceramics, and the other as a creative community activator, teaching expressive arts workshops and facilitating community development projects. She has won several awards as an individual artist and her work is published in several art publications.

Travel is her greatest inspiration, and was the catalyst for her expansion from solitary artist into the realm of community. This site was designed to encourage the potential artist in everyone, that it IS possible to make a living with your artwork and make positive change in the world.

Learn more about Sharon Virtue online here.
Follow on Instagram @shabanackle

Thank you for being a part of One Found Sound!

From artist compensation to concert production costs, your support helps our orchestra thrive. All proceeds from tonight’s event will support our 2022-2023 season, helping us bring classical music to wider audiences in our community through unique concert experiences.

Thank you for making your tax-deductible contribution at our performance tonight, or by clicking the link below.

Become a Onesie! Chat with us at the Onesie table tonight, or visit us online, or email Sasha Launer at sasha@onefoundsound.org to learn more about joining our exciting patron program.

our fundraiser is up next - save the date!

One Found Sound’s annual fundraiser is coming up on Saturday, May 13, 2023 at Heron Arts!

This event will celebrate our 10th anniversary with live music—including a world premiere by Nathalie Joachim commissioned by One Found Sound— a silent auction, and many ways to make your gift and help us keep the music playing.

Stay tuned for sponsorship opportunities, tickets, and event details 🎟

Thank you to our Onesies!

One Found Sound thanks our sponsors!

Heron Arts
Hogan Lovells
Lagunitas Brewing Company
Google for Nonprofits
AmazonSmile
Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation
State of California

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