D'Walla Burke conducts University Choir during 2009 spring concert.
D’ Walla Simmons Burke, director of choral and vocal studies at Winston-Salem State University, who was originally invited by MidAmerica Productions to return to Carnegie Hall as guest conductor of John Rutter’s Requiem, January 17, 2010, has instead been asked to consider conducting the Winston-Salem State University Choir, highlighting music of African-American composers, on Jan. 18, 2010, the date of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday observance. The WSSU Choir would be the featured spotlight performance of the evening.
Burke’s Carnegie Hall debut performance was April 20, 2008, when she directed Gabriel Faure’s Requiem to a near capacity audience. Select members of the University Choir accompanied Burke in 2008. For the 2010 engagement, the entire choir will perform.
Burke had called the 2008 opportunity “a once-in-a-life-time experience that could not have happened without the support of her students, administrators, faculty/staff at Winston-Salem State University and the community of Winston-Salem.”
“When I walked onto the stage, Carnegie Hall looked like K. R. Williams Auditorium because I saw faculty, staff, administrators and many members of my church in the audience,” Burke recalled. “I turned to look at the orchestra and chorus (with people from Arizona, New York and Arkansas), I saw no one but my students from Winston-Salem State University! They gave me the green light with a wink or a smile!”
It appears that Burke will get that support and more with her own choir in front of her.
Over the past 23 years, MidAmerica Productions has brought together conductors, choruses, soloists, and orchestral musicians for performances at some of the world’s greatest venues, especially New York’s Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall. In addition to presenting classic choral and instrumental works, MidAmerica Productions has championed the works of contemporary composers. MidAmerica’s series in Carnegie Hall and at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall has presented approximately 31 world premieres, 16 United States premieres, and 50 New York premieres.
The Winston-Salem State University Choir traveled to the Czech Republic in November 2006 to perform with the Dvorak Symphony Orchestra of Prague at the invitation of conductor/composer, Maestro Julius P. Williams. WSSU’s choir was also asked to perform and record Maestro Williams’ premiere Classical Gospel CD. While in Prague, the choir taped and performed Joe K. Westmoreland’s Somewhere Far Away with the Dvorak Symphony Orchestra, which has recorded soundtracks for a number of Hollywood’s major motion pictures.
