Wayne Marshall

Errollyn Wallen made history in music nearly thirty years ago: In 1998, she was the first Black woman to appear at the BBC Proms. In 2025, she delivered a lavish symphonic poem, ›The Elements‹, in which jazz fuses with Latin American influences. Her sound world may remind some of George Gershwin’s music – the famous ›Rhapsody in Blue‹ or the imaginative brass arrangements of ›Porgy and Bess‹. Unlike Wallen, however, Gershwin and Kurt Weill’s glamorous suite from ›Lady in the Dark‹ lead us not into the present but into the glittering world of pre-war New York City.