"One famous meditation on this theme from the collection is titled "Harlem": What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry uplike a raisin in the sun?Or fester like a sore-And then run?Does it stink like rotten meat?Or crust and sugar over-like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sagsLike a heavy load.Or does it explode?"
"The poems of Montage cover many topics: youthful love, scenes of urban life, economic strife, late night dances, faith, and bebop. Together they form a vivid portrait of pre- and post-war Harlem. One can sense the tension between dreams and realities throughout the collection, representing the ups and downs of life as a Black man in Harlem. Other poems are brief, embodying much with a few words, like a haiku."
Uptown/Downtown is a large-scale, two-movement piano concerto composed by David Schiff for pianist Darrell Grant. The Oregon Symphony will premiere the work in three performances from October 31 through November 2 as part of the Sounds Like Portland Festival celebrating local musicians. The concerto draws inspiration from Langston Hughes's 1951 Montage of a Dream Deferred, especially its recurring theme of a dream deferred and poems that evoke Harlem life. The Montage poems range from brief, haiku-like pieces to vivid portrayals of youthful love, economic strife, late-night dances, faith and bebop. Schiff translated the poems' jazz idioms and urban imagery into a jazz-inflected concerto that depicts a journey from Harlem to Greenwich Village.
Read at Oregon ArtsWatch * Arts & Culture News
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