Vester Curates Concert for SoNA on Southern Black Cultural Traditions

Director of Contemporary Music, Coordinator for Conservatory in the Community and Assistant Professor of Contemporary Music Rod Vester, Ph.D., curated a concert inspired by “The Dirty South” (an exhibition currently on display at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art) for the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas (SoNA) last month. Considered the symphony’s “most ambitious concert to-date” by SoNA Executive Director D. Riley Nicholson, the concert examined and presented the aesthetic and musical traditions of southern Black culture in the past century and its influences throughout the American South, as well as contemporary American art and culture. The performance included a mixture of chamber orchestra, vocal music and chamber music.