Project Title: Call and Response
Recipient Organization: San Francisco Contemporary Music Players
Lead Artist: Olly Wilson
Genre and Date Awarded: Performing Arts, June 2000
Presented: April 2003

Two distinguished artists who had long been colleagues on the University of California at Berkeley faculty--composer Olly Wilson and painter Mary Lovelace O'Neal--collaborated with one another and with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players to create a new work for chamber ensemble and a triptych of new paintings. Both the chamber work and paintings were introduced to the public at three concerts in April 2003: at the Mondavi Center on the University of California at Davis campus, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and in Hertz Hall at the University of California at Berkeley campus. Wilson conducted nine musicians of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players in performing the work's premiere.

The artists used the theme of "call and response" both to structure their collaboration and as a theme within the finished works. They began their process with Olly Wilson's composing work in response to several paintings by O'Neal that he selected as "speaking" to him. After Wilson wrote his 25-minute piece, the artists turned the tables. O'Neal visited rehearsals of Wilson's piece and responded to it with a major new three-panel painting. The premiere performances featured slides of the paintings that had influenced Wilson's work and a showing--both through slide projections and "live" presentation--of O'Neal's new work.

For both of the artists, Call and Response represented a new opportunity. Although each had worked in conjunction with artists outside of his or her respective field, neither had done so in such a consciously intimate and interactive fashion, with such finely tuned attention to one another's creative processes. In Mary O'Neal's words, "This kind of collaboration between the two of us is something that we have long spoken about, probably once or twice per year for the last decade or more." Dr. Wilson noted that the project was "...both a continuation of the exploration of ideas that have informed my recent work and, simultaneously, the beginning of a new way of engaging the creative process."

The artists' desire to collaborate stemmed both from admiration of one another's work and from several perceived elements of kinship. Wilson noted, "In many respects, Ms. O'Neal's life experiences are similar to my own. We are both from the Midwest with family roots in Arkansas, approximately of the same generation, have participated in the Civil Rights movement, and have spent most of our professional lives as artists working in a university while simultaneously maintaining active involvement in social issues affecting the African American community."

The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players was entering its thirtieth year at the time the Creative Work Fund grant was awarded. Considered a leader among ensembles in the United States dedicated to contemporary chamber music, the group has receive the prestigious national ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music eight times. They have performed more that 1,000 new works, including 164 United States and world premieres and have brought 50 new pieces into the repertoire through commissioning efforts. In addition to an active performance schedule, which includes a yearly subscription series at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the ensemble has recorded eight albums of its own and contributed recordings to eight others.

For the Contemporary Music Players, the Call and Response project represented a kind of return to its roots. Established in 1971 as "Bring Your Own Pillow," the ensemble spent most of its early years performing in contemporary art galleries and then came into its own by establishing an annual concert series at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. These origins persist in the group's slogan, "Listen to Modern Art."

Born in 1937 in St. Louis, Missouri, Olly Wilson grew up playing jazz piano with local groups in St. Louis and double bass in several orchestras including the St. Louis Philharmonic, the St. Louis Summer Chamber Players, and the Cedar Rapids Symphony. Receiving his B.M. degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1959, he went on to obtain his M.Mus. degree from the University of Illinois, and a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1964. His primary composition teachers were Robert Wykes, Robert Kelley, and Phillip Bezanson. In 1967 he studied electronic music at the University of Illinois, and from 1971-72 lived in West Africa, where he studied traditional music. He has since published several scholarly articles on African and African American music. Wilson has written extensively for chamber, orchestral, and electronic media. He has long been active both as a conductor and an advocate of contemporary music.

After teaching at Florida A&M University (1960-62, 1964-65), and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (1965-70), Wilson joined the composition faculty of the University of California at Berkeley in 1970, where he later served as Chairman of the Music Department (1993-97) and holder of the Jerry and Evelyn Hemmings Chambers Distinguished Chair in Music (1995-98). He also served as Assistant Chancellor for International Affairs at the University from 1986-90.

Selected Commissioned Works

• Episodes, Detroit Symphony (2001)
• Hold On: Symphony #3, Chicago Symphony (1999)
• Shango Memory , New York Philharmonic (1995)
• Of Visions and Truth , Black Music Repertory Ensemble (1991)
• Trilogy, Oakland Symphony (1981)
• Sinfonia, Boston Symphony (1980)
• SpiritSong, Oakland Symphony (1973)
• Voices, Boston Symphony (1970)

Selected Commission Grants and Awards

• National Endowment for the Arts (three awards)
• Fromm Foundation
• Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Fund (University of California at Davis)
• Lila Wallace-Meet the Composer (Youth Symphony Consortium, 1991)
• Pitzer College

Selected Orchestras Performing His Works

• New York Philharmonic
• Chicago Symphony
• Moscow Philharmonic
• All Netherlands Symphony
• Atlanta Symphony
• San Francisco Symphony
• Cleveland Symphony
• St. Louis Symphony
• Minneapolis Symphony
• Houston Symphony
• Louisville Symphony
• Detroit Symphony
• Baltimore Symphony
• Oakland Symphony

Recordings

• Shango Memory, performed by the Detroit Symphony
• Sinfonia, performed by the Boston Symphony
• Akwan , performed by the Baltimore Symphony
• A City Called Heaven, recorded by Boston Musica Viva
• Trio, album by the Francesco Trio
• Sometimes, sung by tenor William Brown, accompanied by electronic sounds
• Cetus , for electronics alone

Selected Awards

• Member, American Academy of Arts and Letters (1995)
• Elise Stoeger Prize, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New York (1992)
• Resident Fellow, Rockefeller Foundation Center, Bellagio, Italy (spring 1991)
• Visiting Artist, American Academy in Rome (1978)
• Guggenheim Fellowships (1977, 1972)
• American Academy of Arts and Letters and National Institute of Arts and Letters Award (1974)

Mary Lovelace O'Neal

Mary Lovelace O'Neal is Professor and Chair of the Department of Art Practice at the University of California at Berkeley, where she has been a member of the faculty since 1979.

Ms. O'Neal's works currently grace more than 40 public and 60 private collections around the world, appearing in such venues as the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.; the National Museum in Managua, Nicaragua; the Ministry of Culture in Rabat, Morocco; the National Museum of Art in Santiago, Chile; and the Contemporary Museum of Art in Chamallieres, France. In addition, since 1972 her paintings have appeared in 40 solo and more than 150 group exhibitions. Nationally she is represented by the Bomani Gallery of San Francisco, the Stella Jones Gallery of New Orleans, the Kenkeleba Gallery in New York City, and the Lew Allen Gallery of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The recipient of an "Artiste en France" award from the French government, O'Neal has represented the United States at arts festivals and biennials in China, Europe, and Africa. From the University of California at Berkeley she has received an Outstanding Achievement Award as well as numerous Faculty Grants and a Regents Humanities grant. She has been commissioned by the City Council and Mayor of Oakland, California, creating canvases for both the Federal Building and the Cultural Arts Division. She and her work have been featured in 15 books and more than 20 articles. Among many creative and professorial activities, O'Neal co-authored the book Colors and Chords, based on the life and work of artist/musician Johnny Otis.