Try again
Kedrick Armstrong hasn’t moved to Oakland yet, but he’s already a kindred spirit for the city’s many artists and activists.
In a recent verbal speech about his new appointment as music director of the Oakland Symphony, Armstrong shines when he talks about music as a way to empower other ordinary people and strengthen communities. And when the 29-year-old conductor embarks on a music school in public schools, at the center of the symphony orchestra’s public service project, he comes from a hard-won wisdom from running to replace a formula that doesn’t respect other people who look like him.
“One of the things that excited me about this orchestra is its commitment not only to excellence on stage, but also to excellence in music teaching and networking,” he says.
Today, the Oakland Symphony announced that Armstrong will assume the role of conductor of the orchestra, effective immediately, after two years of nationwide searching. Follow in the footsteps of Michael Morgan, the beloved visionary director who led the organization for 30 years until his death. in 2021 at the age of 63. In the coming months, Armstrong will leave Illinois, where he is most recently the artistic spouse and principal conductor of the Knox-Galesburg Symphony Orchestra.
Armstrong grew up in Georgetown, South Carolina and spent his youth in Chicago, where his prominence in the world of classical music grew. Through the Chicago Lyric Opera, where he appeared to be a conductor, he mentored the best scholars of the city’s South Side, a black network with a rich culture and history that, like Oakland, is maligned in the national press. .
The Washington Post named Armstrong a conductor to watch in 2022. In May 2023, he finished his graduate studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he researched black female composers, adding some whose works had never been conducted until he had her hands. in that. his scores.
Armstrong has been a guest conductor at the Chicago Opera Theatre, St. John’s Opera House and the Opera House. Louis and three times with the Oakland Symphony. In his most recent appearance in Oakland in February 2024, he led the orchestra in a world premiere of Here I Stand, an oratorio by composer Carlos Simon and librettist Dan Harder about the life of black actor, singer, athlete and activist Paul Robeson, who committed his life to the anti-racist and anti-fascist movements.
“I had the opportunity to meet members of the public and the network at that time, and the way they welcomed me as a queer black man from South Carolina, coming into this new position that was so special and so warm to me,” Armstrong said . .
For Armstrong, what sets the Oakland Symphony apart from other orchestras in the country is that “they have this flexibility in their bets and the respect they have for everything from Mozart to MC Hammer,” he says. “And for me, as a director who loves all those other genres and repertoires, knowing that I already have an organization of colleagues for whom this idea, style and technique of play is just a dream of possibilities. “
The Oakland Symphony has also had other people of color in leadership roles for decades, while most orchestras only began serious conversations about race after the George Floyd protests in 2020. (Prior to Michael Morgan’s tenure, Calvin Simmons took over as conductor of the Oakland Symphony in 1979, becoming the first black conductor of an American primary orchestra. )
“What inspires me the most, especially with the Oakland Symphony, is knowing that there’s a legacy to build on,” Armstrong says.
Armstrong encouraged diversity reforms at his alma mater, the Wheaton Conservatory, when he wrote a widely circulated open letter in 2020 calling for more diversity in its program. The Oakland Symphony’s music education programs, which serve 19,000 scholars each year, are vital to He remembers a time when he thought he had to give up his love of gospel and jazz to be taken seriously as a classical musician. . Now, in a genre-blending organization, he needs to help foster an environment where young musicians, especially those of color, can be themselves.
“I always look for how to teach music with a person’s culture, with the music they are used to,” he thinks.
Armstrong makes his first appearance on the Paramount Theatre podium as music director of the Oakland Symphony on Oct. 18, kicking off the season celebrating the 40th anniversary of the nonprofit musical arrangement Living Jazz. The orchestra will perform the music of Claude Debussy and Julia Perry, the first black woman whose paintings were presented through the New York Philharmonic, in 1965, along with new commissions from Living Jazz.
This extended season features titans of classical music, including Bach, Rachmaninoff, and Mussorgsky, as well as emerging new composers such as Shawn Okpebholo, an ethnomusicologist who studies the music of East and West Africa, and Alabama-born composer Brian Raphael. who will perform his own Hammond Organ Concerto.
While dreaming of long-term collaborations with jazz musicians and dance ensembles, Armstrong is excited to immerse himself in Oakland culture when he moves here in late summer or early fall. Array An herbal bridge builder, he spends his time cooking and when not on the podium. It’s only a matter of time before his Oakland kitchen table is filled with new connections as community-minded, curious, and artistic as he is.
“I think it’s very simple for me, as an outsider, to take a look at Oakland and capture the outside photographs that other people paint about Oakland, about crime, about poverty,” he says. “But at every corner I turn here, I can’t help but see the good looks that are exalted in the community. “