CMC Coming to Yerba Buena Gardens Festival

Composer and CMC faculty member Maestro Curtis, PhD (courtesy of Scott Horton Communications)

So many free performances are scheduled for the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival that it is almost impossible to keep up with them. Indeed, just knowing when the Festival begins is a sometime thing; and this year it will continue through October 10. However, not counting the ongoing one-hour Dance Outdoors with Rhythm & Motion series, which takes place every Wednesday at 11 a.m., it appears that the first “Festival-specific” event will take place on Saturday, April 23; and this may be the first time that the Community Music Center (CMC) has contributed to the Festival.

The 90-minute program will be the world premiere performance of A Song of Triumph: The History of Black Music, composed by CMC faculty member Maestro Curtis. The performance will be by his Curtis Family C-Notes, joined by a rich array of special guests, including Dorothy Morrison, Bishop James Adams, Juan Escovedo, Pastor Gerald Gordon, Ken Little, Larry Douglas, Ricardo Scales, Tony Boulevard, and Neil Stallings. The work was commissioned by CMC as part of its Black Music Studies Program, which was launched in the midst of the COVID pandemic in the fall of 2021.

Over the last four weeks Curtis and his guests have been conducting community-based residencies to preview this event. Each visit involved performing excerpts from the new composition, supplemented with discussion about the historical and cultural contexts that inspired the music. The overall scope of that music in impressively broad. As Curtis described it:

Music developed in the church gave birth to the blues, barbershop, gospel, jazz, country, early bluegrass, folk, rock and roll, RnB, funk, reggae and hip hop bringing antistatic expression, beauty and genius to the entire world.

At the very least, it is likely to be interesting to see how so much diversity will be rubbing shoulders over the course of only 90 minutes.

As is the case with all Festival events, there will be no charge for admission to this performance. It will begin at 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 23. Yerba Buena Gardens is located between Mission Street and Howard Street and between Third Street and Fourth Street. A limited amount of seating is usually available, but many visitors bring a blanket to put on the ground, often synthesizing the experiences of a concert and a picnic. Those attending should also bear in mind that financing the Festival is greatly facilitated by voluntary donations from the audience.