Noel DaCosta
Noel G. DaCosta ( born 1929 in Lagos ( Nigeria), † April 29, 2002 in New York City ) was an American composer, choral conductor and violinist Nigerian- Jamaican origin.
Life and work
DaCosta, the child of missionaries coming from Jamaica to the Salvation Army, grew up partly in Nigeria, then in Jamaica on before he migrated with his parents in 1940 in the United States and moved to Harlem. In 1952 he ended his visit to the Queens College with a Bachelor and then to study music theory and composition at Columbia University with Otto Luening and Jack Beeson (Master 1956). He continued his studies in Italy with Luigi Dallapiccola to then as a lecturer at the Hampton University and the City University of New York to operate. In 1970 he became a professor at Rutgers University, where he taught at the Mason Gross School of the Arts until 2001.
Dacosta's compositions are characterized by the fact that elements of jazz, Caribbean and African music included in a west - chromatic frame. In addition to chamber music and orchestral instrumentals he also wrote musical settings of some poems by Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Countee Cullen and the famous speech by Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream. DaCosta was one of the founders of the Society of Black Composers, which existed until 1975.
As a violinist, he performed not only his own works and other works of classical music, but could also be heard in jazz context. So he took with Les McCann, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Bernard Purdie, Roberta Flack, McCoy Tyner, Donny Hathaway, Felix Cavaliere, Willis Gator Jackson and Eddie Kendricks, and also wrote the string arrangements for many more albums. Since 1975 he has headed the Triad Chorale, with whom he appeared at Lincoln Center as well as in the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine.
Works (selection)
- Two Pieces for Unaccompanied Cello
- Blue Mix
- Blue Memories
- Ceremony of Spirituals
- Silver Blue
- Three Short Pieces for Alto Flute
- The Singing Tortoise
- Two Songs for Julie Ju -
- Five Verses with Vamps
- Preludes for Trombone and Piano
- Round about the Mountain from Spiritual Set ( 1977)
- I have a dream (1977 )
- Trio Fantasia for Violin, Viola and Cello
- UKom Memory Songs
- Primal Rites (1983 )
- Epitaphs