East Palo Alto: School hosts African American classical concert

By Joe Rodriguez jrodriguez@mercurynews.com
POSTED:   01/26/2014 07:43:41 PM PST | UPDATED:   ABOUT 20 HOURS AGO
If she isn't on the watch for police brutality or investigating hate crimes, you can often find LaDoris Cordell singing jazz or playing classical music on a grand piano. And there she was Sunday afternoon, on a stage introducing and performing some of the best, contemporary African-American classical music at a concert at Eastside College Preparatory School.

"LaDoris is phenomenal," said Michael A. Robinson, a vocalist and drummer. "She could have been anything she wanted -- classical pianist, a composer, anything!"

Instead, the former Santa Clara County judge and current San Jose independent police auditor, chose a career in justice and civil rights. But all that time she also pursued her passion for classical music, especially the compositions of black American composers whose contributions rarely got the attention they deserved on stage, academia or in the recording industry.

Some years ago, Cordell started the African American Composer Initiative and a concert series to showcase the masterpieces of black composers from decades past and new works by contemporary artists. Sunday's concert, the fifth in the increasingly popular series held at the charter school's sparkling performance hall, was a hit judging by the rousing applause after each number.

The concert was a sellout, with Cordell promising the audience that "every dime" would go to the school. Eastside Prep specializes in preparing low-income black, Latino and Asian students for four-year universities. Almost all of them, she said, would be the first in their families to go to college.

Musically, politically and socially, the concert appeals to composers like Valerie Capers and John Robinson, two classical veterans who performed at the concert. The featured work was the premiere of Capers' "Ruby," a four-part piece inspired by the story of Ruby Bridges, one of six black children in 1960s New Orleans to pass the test that determined whether or not they could go to all-white schools. Bridges went to one such school by herself.

"I said, 'Oh, I have to do this,' " Capers said during an interview before Sunday's concert. "It touched my heart."
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