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Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016
For Immediate Release
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Special Black History Month Edition
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Achievement vs. Service: Dr. Wilfred Delphin - Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient
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by Timothy David Ray, Guest Columnist
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Awards are usually given to those who have contributed something consequential in a particular field or category, but a Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes the totality of the recipient's career - most often, it is unofficially reserved for those who live their lives in the spotlight. However, classical pianist
Dr. Wilfred Delphin
, recipient of the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award presented by
Gambit Weekly's
Foundation for Entertainment Development & Education
, feels his meaningful contribution to the field of the performing arts has been helping shine the spotlight on others; namely his students at
Xavier University of Louisiana
(where he serves as Artist-in-Residence) and colleagues in the classical arts - noted voices such as
Dr. Valerie Jones-Francis
,
Ms. Dara Rahming
,
Mr. Ivan Griffin
, and
Opera Creole
.
Dr. Delphin's career as a world-renowned concert pianist is legendary; filled with great triumph and tragedy. Delphin began his career as part of the famous piano duo known as "Delphin & Romain". He and his partner, the late Edwin Romain, performed to sold-out audiences in the most iconic cities and concert halls around the world. Their great talents landed them a debut at the coveted Carnegie Hall in 1977. Delphin and Romain became the first African-American duo to perform on the professional circuit.
At a critically-acclaimed concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., unbeknownst to the duo, the social secretary for then President Jimmy Carter was among the fans cheering in the audience. As fate would have it, President Carter would host a State Dinner later in 1980 for President Moi of Kenya. Delphin and Romain were tapped to perform a private concert for President Carter and his guests in the East Room of The White House. The duo was also invited to remain for the dinner where they were seated with President Carter and dined with his guests, which included: Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Congressman Charlie Rangel, Mayor Marion Barry, and ragtime and Broadway legend, Eubie Black - with whom Delphin and Romain would later perform and become friends.
Delphin would later meet and perform with Min. Louis Farrakhan - whom Delphin remembers as a great concert violinists. Delphin was invited to help Farrakhan prepare for a performance, but because of some public statements Farrakhan made, Delphin almost declined the invitation. After reconsidering, Delphin traveled to Chicago and had dinner with Farrakhan and was struck by how "charming" and "non-dominating" he was. Delphin offered his professional critique of Farrakhan's performance and, much to his surprise, received a gracious letter from Farrakhan thanking him for his candor and offer to assist him in improving his technique.
With Delphin and Romain having already achieved greatness by most standards, many thought their career could only ascend. However, in 1995 tragedy struck when Edwin Romain passed away. Delphin and legendary actor and singer, the late William Warfield - a friend of Romain - would perform a tribute concert in Romain's honor. Soon after, Delphin would pause his career as a professor and concert pianists. He joined the Peace Corps., serving across the African continent until he returned to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to check on family and volunteer at his alma mater, Xavier University.
After a storied career, Delphin chose to remain at Xavier because he saw an opportunity to serve. Having had his "time in the spotlight", as he phrases it, he took a serious interests in helping other performers reach their highest potential. Delphin regularly accompanies students and professors alike. Today, he maintains a rigorous rehearsal and performance schedule, but not as the main performer, but as an accompanists. Delphin is usually found seated at the piano away from center stage, accompanying soloists or ensembles. Delphin's presence on the piano has been described as "a one-man orchestra".
When asked what he would choose as the single-most highlight of his career, Delphin quickly tells about when he and Romain accepted teaching positions on the faculty at Southern Illinois University Carbondale in Illinois, they invited their families and close friends to join them for a weekend of activities. One of the activities was a formal concert (complete with formal dress by all of their guests). He and Romain performed for their families and friends in a special room in their home that was to become a recording studio. It was not just their performance in their home that made this moment special for Delphin, but after the concert there was a second-line (complete with a brass band) where Delphin, Romain, and their guests danced and enjoyed the night. As Delphin recalls, it was "one of the happiest moments".
"Achievement versus service" is how he defines the dichotomy of his career. Noting
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Delphin with XU Student Gregory Dixon and Professors Dr Dan Shore and Ms Dara Rahming photo cred Shira Pinsker
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a "separation of audiences", Delphin now feels a duty to help other artists; minority artists in particular. Delphin laments at the lack of recognition some minorities receive when he feels their talent is worthy of more recognition. Delphin is "generous" with his performances - which are almost exclusively as an accompanist - in an effort to try and show other performers in their best light. Delphin is both appreciative and compelled by receiving Gambit's Lifetime Achievement Award. He is appreciative in the sense that he recognizes the high esteem in which the classical arts community holds him, yet he feels compelled to do all he can to make sure other performers achieve their goals. Delphin views his "service", not as a duty, but as a choice and an investment; an investment in the arts and in the artists he performs with. In returning to New Orleans and to Xavier, Delphin remarks, "It's been a wonderful circle in my career".
Timothy David Ray, a native of New Orleans, is a classical, jazz, and gospel musician who earned his Juris Doctorate from Loyola University of New Orleans, College of Law. Timothy is also a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in print and online. He may be reached via email at
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LOCAL COMPETITION FOR SPOT IN NATIONAL SPELLING BEE TO BE HELD SATURDAY, February 27, 2016
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Winners to compete in national competition in Washington, D.C.
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NEW ORLEANS - The New Orleans Chapter of The Links, Incorporated and The Times- Picayune will co-host the local competition of the 28th AnnualScripps National Spelling Bee on Saturday, February 27, 2016 at Xavier University (1 Drexel Dr, New Orleans, La, 70125). Students in the fifth through eighth grades from public and non-public schools in a seven-parish area, including home-schooled students, have registered to participate. The winner will receive an all expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C. to compete in the 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee from May 26 through June 1, 2016, courtesy of The Times Picayune. Prizes will be awarded to the top three spellers. Schools can still register with Scripps (www.spellingbee.com) to participate in the 2016 Bee until January 28, 2016. There is a $211 enrollment fee associated to participate.
In order for students to participate in the Bee, they must attend school, public or non-public, in one of the Louisiana parishes of Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist or
St. Tammany. Home schooled students are also welcome to participate.
In addition to improving students' spelling skills and increasing their vocabularies, local bee coordinators, Verdie Richburg and Robyn McCormick, noted "the Bee also helps students develop correct English usage and it provides a valuable experience in developing poise--- a necessary skill for success in public speaking and the performing arts."
About the New Orleans Chapter of The Links, Incorporated
Since it was chartered on November 20, 1957, chapter members have engaged in implementing program services through the five National Program Facets: Services to Youth, International Trends and Services; National Trends and Services; Health and Human Services; and the Arts. The chapter's major initiatives include co-sponsoring the local competition for the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee; hosting Childhood Obesity Day; a partnership with Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary School of Literature and Technology;
and Law Day, in which students are trained in legal proceedings and participate in a mock trial. The main focus areas are: education and youth activities to assist youth in fulfilling their intellectual potential; addressing issues affecting the African American community through health and wellness projects; fostering cultural appreciation through the arts; and collaborating with other Link chapters to provide services and assistance to global friends. Verdie Farmer Richburg is the president of the chapter.
About The Links, Incorporated
The Links, Incorporated is an international, women's non-profit, social welfare and service organization of over 12,000 members in 282 chapters across the United States, and the Bahamas. It was founded in 1946. From its inception, the organization's members have been developing and implementing programs that target issues affecting its members and communities. Community service has been the corner stone of the organization's outreach with members contributing more than 500,000 documented hours of community service annually. For the past 60 years, The Links, Incorporated has been internationally known for its programs that are focused on topics such as health, economics and education, youth, and policy efforts. Please visit
http://www.linksinc.org for more information.
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Sybil Haydel Morial: Witness To Change
From Jim Crow to Political Empowerment
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BY KATIE O'REILLY, Michigan Quarterly Review
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| Available at Amazon.com, Garden District Bookshop, Community Book Center, and other establishments... |
There are memoirs-internal, divulgent, and often confessional-and then there are autobiographical accounts of history. Debut author Sybil Haydel Morial's
Witness to Change: From Jim Crow to Political Empowerment (John F. Blair Publisher, October 2015), employs these alternating forms deftly, ultimately evading classification.
The Jim Crow South serves as backdrop to the author's childhood in an African-American household in New Orleans. But as the book opens, we hear more about Morial's school memories, of the singular tastes and aromas of Nola, and of her close relationship with her sister, Jean-a young woman suffering from a mysterious and ultimately fatal genetic condition. The personal becomes political as Morial accounts her horizon-broadening college years in Boston, as well as her experience of falling for the late Ernest Nathan "Dutch" Morial, an activist lawyer who in 1978 went on to become the first black mayor of New Orleans.
A compassionate storyteller, Morial's story focuses on the Civil Rights Movement specifically as it affected New Orleans. As a child, she notices the irony of being a member of the black professional class, an experience marked by lavish debut rituals and intellectual pursuits, in a city besieged by the insults of Jim Crow. Later, she tests
Brown v. Board of Education by unsuccessfully attempting to enroll in graduate programs at Tulane and Loyola. As a young mother and public school teacher, she writes of pursuing activism "from the sidelines," rallying women's organizations to register disenfranchised Negroes. As a teacher and university admin, she founds Louisiana-based civil liberties projects, and fights for affordable housing. As the first lady of New Orleans, she travels to Liberia to investigate the slave trade underscoring her ancestry. Later, she helps create the Afro-American Pavilion for 1984's Louisiana World Exposition, and she
produces a documentary about the state's Civil Rights Movement. After her husband's death, Sybil Morial herself is asked to run for mayor, an opportunity she declines, preferring to continue her personal work on selected causes.
Throughout the book, Morial's observations stem from thoughtfulness. Her tone strikes the gentler side of rightful indignation. She navigates scenes and time at a brisk pace, weaving civic and intellectual insights in with sweet stories about her five children-one of whom, Marc Morial, served as mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002, and currently presides over the
National Urban League. Throughout her book, Morial revisits charged moments-from Martin Luther King Jr.'s very first sermon, to NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers' murder in Mississippi, to Hurricane Katrina-that have defined not only her own life, but that of the nation's black community.
In the wake of yet another tragic display of anti-black racism-the
June 17 massacre of nine African-Americans at Charleston's Emanuel AME Church-it feels more necessary than ever to trace our steps through the history of this nation, a place so progressive yet simultaneously oppressive. Reading
Witness to Change
provided me with a fuller and more nuanced understanding of America's evolution of laws and attitudes regarding race. To compound that, I recently had the pleasure of an illuminating phone conversation with Sybil Haydel Morial herself about writing, race, and current events.
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