Erik Wiedeman had chosen The River as the topic for his talk at the conference. He gave a very detailed presentation of the work with music examples from in particular the pianoi version and the band version. He considered that Ron Collier had covered the symphonic version well in his presentation the day before.
Wiedeman starts his presentation by given the background to The River, how idea to it came etc and the progress of the work. Only nine part were ready when Alvin Ailey and his American Ballett Theatre premiered it in 1971 and one more part was added when Ailey performed it the second time.
He then goes through the different parts of the music and let the conference audience hear excerpts of them.
It will take to much space to summarise what Wiedeman says. Just sit down and listen to the recording of the presentation. It is about an hour long and there is much to learn from it.
Author: Ulf Lundin