Renowned clarinet and piano duo bring a complete programme of music by black composers to Firth Hall.
Programme:
The Song Also Rises
Bass Clarinet – Sarah Watts
Piano – Kim Davenport
6 Sorrow Songs – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
The Mindlessness of it All – Malcolm J. Solomon
Interval
6 Songs – Florence Price
And Then … – David Baker
The Song Also Rises is a performance of music by black composers. The Album was recorded in Tacoma, USA, and released in August 2025. This performance brings the complete album to a live UK concert setting,
“The Song Also Rises is as literal an album as it is a play on words, an overdue elevation of forgotten or underperformed (recently discovered) masterworks from composers of the past and present who share lived experiences, social conditions, and an innate ability to integrate musical stylings of their time that continue to provide the foundation for music being written in the classical tradition for the 21st century. Watts and Davenport rise to the musical occasion by performing on the shoulders of luminaries Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Florence Price, David Baker, and Malcolm Solomon. Between the four composers, listeners are privy to the musical and social conversations from people of African descent spanning 150 years. These musical conversations – reflecting the cyclical nature of society – fuse Negro spirituals, romanticism, and post modernism with poetry in a manner that gives listeners an unseen and perhaps, unheard hope for a future that forges a new song/social cycle. One that reveres the once despised. One that honors the once disdained and elevates the once downtrodden”.
– Joshua Thompson
Bass clarinet specialist Sarah Watts has gained an international reputation as an artist, teacher and researcher on the instrument. She has received numerous awards during her career, from being awarded the Exxon prize for best classical music student at Rotterdam Conservatorium to Winning the UK Howarth Clarinet competition. As well as an impressive solo performance career, Watts also performs with Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble, rarescale and SCAW. Recently, she joined forces with composer Dr Elizabeth Kelly to create a musical tribute to the iconic cooling towers of the now-decommissioned Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire. Watts performed their two works inside one of the cooling towers – a feat that earned a feature on Classic FM.
Kim Davenport is a pianist, teacher, writer and composer based in Washington. As a soloist and collaborative artist, she is committed to exploring and sharing works by under-represented composers, with a particular focus on music by black composers. She was active for nearly 20 years in the critically acclaimed Duo Alea, the bass clarinet and piano duo she formed with her father. The Duo’s performances and recordings brought local and world premieres of several important works for bass clarinet and piano. In 2020, following her father’s passing, Davenport reinvigorated the Alea catalog with a focus of underrepresented composers, and established the Dolphy prize for new works for bass clarinet by black composers.
