Arts and Culture

Oakland Landscape Designer Wins MacArthur Genius Award

Published

5 years ago

October 3, 2019

In the way that life experience can be more circular than linear, so are certain incidents marking MacArthur “Genius” award-winner Walter Hood’s life right now. The West Oakland public artist and landscape designer whose work, he says, strives to retain the cultural memory of places as its residents change, is involved in a project just breaking ground that bears witness to the ugly truth of slavery.

This weekend he is going to reconnect with a college friend, Ford Morrison, the surviving son of the late author Toni Morrison.

Toni Morrison’s famous 1989 statement that there were no known monuments acknowledging the horror of slavery led to ‘the bench by the road’ on Sullivan’s Island, S.C., in 2008, which bears a plaque marking the place where about 40 percent of the Africans entered the maw of slavery in the U.S.

Hood had already been commissioned by the International African American Museum in Charleston, S.C., to design its garden when a side trip to the bench inspired the museum directors to do more. That’s how Hood got the job of creating a monument to honor the memory of those who perished as a result of the slave trade.

His vision for the monument is to create a “place to talk about our ancestors, meditate…a space where people can just be.”

Recent excavations prove that the place is indeed where the slave auction house once stood and where they came and went by the thousands.

To Hood, it is hallowed ground. He envisions a fountain whose base will be an abstract sculpture inspired by depictions of how the Africans traveled in the hulls of the slave ships, stacked upon one another.

Hood expects the project to be finished next year and the museum plans to open in 2021.
To date, most of Hood’s work has been commissioned but the no-strings-attached award of $625,000 will give him some breathing room to perhaps indulge in some fine art as well as public art.

“I would like to do some painting or some sculpture,” he said, adding that he would also like to spend a little more time playing guitar.

The owner of Hood Design Studio was at his office when he learned the news last week. “At first I thought it was a gag,” he initially told the Los Angeles Times. “I was floored. I walked around in a daze.”

Hood, who also teaches at UC Berkeley where he earned a MArch in 1989, is described by the foundation as “a landscape architect bringing social justice concerns and ecological sustainability to his field through a commitment to community and historical memory.”
The Seventh Street Gateway in West Oakland is an example of the 61-year-old’s vision. “We put seven faces of African American heroes over the road as a gateway, but we used the Caltrans signpost to do it,” he told the LA Times.

As West Oakland’s population changes, the Gateway sculpture takes on additional meaning. “Most of my work on any public land is trying to document, and represent culture as cities change,” he said. “How do we imbue our public landscapes with those kind of landscapes that remind the people who live there of themselves?”

His intent was proven when he attended a conference of Black designers on the East Coast and the sculpture was brought up and a young Black man interrupted him.
“That’s your work?” he asked.

The young man told Hood that he worked in San Francisco, and said that passing the sculpture each day on BART “gave him strength” as he prepared to enter a challenging environment. Passing the sculpture on the way home lets him know “that he is home,” Hood said.

Hood will continue to be dedicated public art and is commited to becoming part of an art community that “weaves together a different set of narratives of how we see ourselves, new ways of seeing each other in a given place.”

“Seeing each other” is important to Hood, who has witnessed the West Oakland neighborhood, where his studio is located, change over the last 25 years.

“I’ve watched families grow up here and move away, and other families move in,” he said, tiredness showing in his voice. “We don’t know how to talk about ghettoization of people, the way value is lost when one group of people lives in a place, but value is gained when another group of people moves in.”

Wanda Ravernell

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Arts and Culture

Kedrick Armstrong: New Music Director for the Oakland Symphony

The Oakland Symphony Announced Kedrick Armstrong as its Next Music Director. In addition to conducting the orchestra’s public concerts, Armstrong will also actively participate in the Oakland Symphony’s many education and community engagement programs, designed to inspire a love of music in people of all ages.

Published

1 week ago

April 20, 2024

Oakland Post

Kedrick Armstrong is the new music director for the Oakland Symphony. Photo credit Scott Chernis.

By Post Staff

The Oakland Symphony Announced Kedrick Armstrong as its Next Music Director.
In addition to conducting the orchestra’s public concerts, Armstrong will also actively participate in the Oakland Symphony’s many education and community engagement programs, designed to inspire a love of music in people of all ages.

Armstrong is the successor to previous music director and Conductor Michael Morgan, who passed away in 2021 after a 30-year tenure at the Symphony.

Armstrong will open the Oakland Symphony 2024-2025 season on October 18.

Armstrong, who is 29 and hails from Georgetown, South Carolina, is currently the creative partner and principal conductor of the Knox-Galesburg Symphony.

The Chicago Tribune has praised Armstrong for his ability to “simply let the score speak for itself.” He enjoys a wide range of repertoire, spanning early music to premiering new works, using his joy and curiosity for all music to cultivate understanding and collaboration within diverse communities.
“I am deeply honored and grateful for the opportunity to serve as the new music director of the Oakland Symphony,” Armstrong said. “As a Black conductor, I find it humbling to stand on the shoulders of both Michael Morgan and Calvin Simmons,” the most recent and the first African American music directors of the Symphony, respectively.

Armstrong led three programs at the Symphony between 2022 and early 2024, which showcased his broad knowledge of the classical repertoire and enthusiasm for spotlighting diverse voices.
On his Oakland Symphony subscription debut on Feb. 16, Armstrong led the world premiere of “Here I Stand: Paul Robeson,” an oratorio by Carlos Simon on a libretto by Dan Harder, commissioned by the Oakland Symphony.

Armstrong was selected unanimously by the Oakland Symphony’s board of directors and musicians after an extensive two-year search. “The search committee was overwhelmed by Kedrick’s scholarship and curiosity about all kinds of music, from classical and jazz to gospel and hip-hop,” said. Dr. Mieko Hatano, executive director of the Oakland Symphony. “We are thrilled to have him join us at the Oakland Symphony.”

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Arts and Culture

Faces Around the Bay Dr. Carl Blake, Pianist

Born in Liberty, Missouri, Carl Blake, a virtuoso and respected pianist, made his most recent migration to the East Bay in 1999. One might have seen him performing recently at Noontime Concerts in San Francisco, or at the Piedmont Center for the Arts in Oakland. He is Director of Music at The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. He was also co-organizer and collaborative pianist at Herbst Theater for The Majesty of the Spirituals concert in 2022 and has held several church positions in the Bay Area.

Published

2 weeks ago

April 17, 2024

Oakland Post

Dr. Carl Blake

By Barbara Fluhrer

Born in Liberty, Missouri, Carl Blake, a virtuoso and respected pianist, made his most recent migration to the East Bay in 1999.

One might have seen him performing recently at Noontime Concerts in San Francisco, or at the Piedmont Center for the Arts in Oakland. He is Director of Music at The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. He was also co-organizer and collaborative pianist at Herbst Theater for The Majesty of the Spirituals concert in 2022 and has held several church positions in the Bay Area.

Blake obtained a Bachelor of Music from Boston University and continued post-baccalaureate studies in Jamaica before earning a Master of Arts in Music at San Jose State University. He was the recipient of two Fulbright residencies in Honduras and completed a third residency at the University of St. Petersburg in Russia. He has a Doctor of Musical Arts from Cornell University.

At age 19, Blake, then an undergraduate piano major at Boston University, was “discovered” by Impresario Dr. W. Hazaiah Williams, who is the Founder and Director of Today’s Artists/Four Seasons Arts.

Williams honored Blake by awarding him the first Marian Anderson Young Artist Award. Anderson personally presented the award at the Masonic Auditorium in S.F. Subsequently, Blake was presented by Dr. Williams in his San Francisco debut at The Herbst Theatre. Williams subsidized a year of study abroad for Blake at the Paris Conservatory of Music. Additionally, Williams sponsored Blake’s New York Weill Hall debut, where he has performed twice since. Blake performed several times at the Yachats Music Festival in Oregon.

Blake continues to perform nationally and abroad. His hobbies are reading, baking and travel. He says, “I’m still pumping ivories, as Belgian pianist Jeanne Stark described the disciplined practice of concert piano.”

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Arts and Culture

Oakland Jazz Great Offers Master Class as City Declares “John Handy Day”

World-renowned jazz master saxophonist John Handy, a McClymond’s High School graduate, was presented with a Mayor of Oakland Proclamation declaring Feb. 12, as John Handy Day in the city. Handy is most notably known as the featured saxophonist for Charles Mingus on “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” from the album “Mingus Ah Um” (1959) and on “Hard Work” from his own album “Hard Work” (1976).

Published

2 months ago

February 24, 2024

Oakland Post

(L-R) Del Handy, John Handy, Roger Glenn, and Joe Warner celebrate John Handy Day at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, Oakland. Photo by Lady Bianca.

By Conway Jones

World-renowned jazz master saxophonist John Handy, a McClymond’s High School graduate, was presented with a Mayor of Oakland Proclamation declaring Feb. 12, as John Handy Day in the city.

Handy is most notably known as the featured saxophonist for Charles Mingus on “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” from the album “Mingus Ah Um” (1959) and on “Hard Work” from his own album “Hard Work” (1976).

“John Handy is a jazz icon and an inspiration to musicians everywhere,” said Ayo Brame, a 16-year-old Oakland tenor saxophone player who is enrolled at the Oakland School for the Arts.

In celebration of this day, the reception in downtown Oakland at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle was a gathering of artists, young and old, coming together in his honor and celebrating his 91st birthday.

Handy presented a Saxophone Colossus free masterclass for musicians. This class afforded a rare opportunity to learn about the saxophone from an aficionado. The class was free and open to all – saxophonists, vocalists, aficionados, students, and casual listeners.

“As a longtime friend for over 60 years, and fellow musician who has had numerous opportunities to share the stage with John, it has always been a pleasure performing with him and hearing his creative interpretations of the music and his gift of ease inspiring the next generation of jazz musicians,” said Roger Glenn, a multi-instrumentalist.