CITIZEN JOURNALISM: ‘Wildly American’ music

Darin Atwater, like Beethoven, one of his musical muses, started playing piano at the age of 4. Beethoven left school at 11 to become an assistant organist; Mr. Atwater’s first arrangement came at the same age, when he wrote a rendition of the gospel standard “Blessed Assurance” for the choir of the Third Street Church of God in the District.

Beethoven received his first music lessons from his father, who was a tenor in the choir of the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, in Bonn, Germany. Mr. Atwater, mainly self-taught, learned music from listening to Beethoven on his grandmother’s wooden gramophone and playing on her upright Wurlitzer.

There the similarities between the 18th-century and 21st-century pianists and composers may end.

“Everyone has wanted to be accepted by embracing the European [musical] standard. But I’m embracing our standard. Let’s be wildly American, which means going back to our roots anyway,” Mr. Atwater said about drawing most of his material from black music forms, beginning with drumbeats and slave spirituals.

The 38-year-old composer, conductor and pianist, who has a background in classical, jazz, gospel and sacred music, continues to raise his musical stature by blending these genres in an innovative mix that is uncharacteristic of his generation.

“We’re beginning to make some new inroads in the music arena, and not just in gospel,” Mr. Atwater said in a recent interview. “We’re taking music to a new level; we’re elevating music. We perform from Motown to Duke Ellington to pop, and we take music and celebrate it in a grand way.”

His gospel concertos, which combine a spiritual and classical sound, have been well-received, but audiences jumped to their feet when Mr. Atwater’s Soul Symphony performed its signature “The Sounds of Motown” program at the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda in May.

Not sure what to expect, members of the business and professional sorority Gamma Phi Delta - who were meeting in the area for their annual convention - seemed surprised as they watched Mr. Atwater heartily conduct the Motown review as a lineup of performers imitated the original acts.

Some of the women said they were taken back to Detroit of the 1950s and 1960s, as their sorority was founded directly across the street from Hitsville USA, Motown’s original recording studio, on West Grand Boulevard.

“It really took them back” said Donna Harrell, Eastern regional director of the sorority. “Hips were shaking all over the theater, and some hand-danced in the aisles. It was wonderful.”

“There’s just nothing like it,” Ms. Harrell said, praising Mr. Atwater and the Soul Symphony. “Usually we see only a few African-Americans in concert, with even less in the audience, but for the recent show at Strathmore, African-Americans were there in great numbers, and so were others. To be on the stage playing this beautiful music, composed and conducted by a black composer, surrounded by all of these very talented African-American musicians is just amazing, and [it] made us all very proud.”

In fact, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO), which operates Strathmore, partnered with Mr. Atwater to increase attendance by black patrons, according to the Baltimore City Paper.

Touted for his imaginative style by such music greats as jazz trumpeter andcomposer Wynton Marsalis, Mr. Atwater has conducted sold-out performances worldwide, arranging recordings and accompanying such singers as Richard Smallwood, Kirk Franklin, Yolanda Adams, Shirley Caesar and the Winans on the gospel concert circuit since his 20s.

“We’ve crossed musical genres by writing works and arranging concert shows for [gospel artists],” said Mr. Atwater, who also has conducted the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO), the BSO and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

“It was very exciting. We would prepare the music of the gospel artists in a rare opportunity. Most gospel artists don’t have a full-scale orchestra,” he said.

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