RITZ CHAMBER PLAYERS 2026–2027
SILVER JUBILEE SEASON
CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF EXPANDING THE STAGE
A quarter century of opening the repertoire, widening the room, and building what comes next.
Twenty-five years ago, the Ritz Chamber Players began in Jacksonville with a clear purpose: to place exceptional Black classical artists and the repertoire of the African diaspora where they belonged - at the center of serious performance. Named for the historic Ritz Theatre in LaVilla, RCP grew from a city with a deep Black cultural history and built its artistic life around a simple standard: extraordinary music, performed at the highest level, with no need to explain why it belongs.
The 2026-2027 Silver Jubilee Season celebrates that journey through five signature concerts at Terry Concert Hall, Jacksonville University. Each program takes up the word that has defined RCP's first twenty-five years - expanding - and carries it in a different direction: toward discovery, freedom, new work, dialogue, and a fuller American score.
The anniversary year is also a beginning. The Next Stage Fellowship creates a deliberate pathway for young Black musicians. Tea at The Terry deepens RCP's Arts & Mental Well-Being work with the senior community. Free At Last? The Evolution of the American Spiritual launches on home ground and then travels outward with Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole. And the Silver Jubilee Campaign turns the anniversary into lasting capacity for the years ahead.
The season celebrates the first twenty-five years. The tour carries the work outward. The Legacy Fund helps ensure there are twenty-five more.
CONCERT I | EXPANDING HORIZONS
OPENING NIGHT
Saturday, November 21, 2026 · 7:30 p.m.
The Silver Jubilee opens with the spirit of discovery that has defined RCP from the beginning: familiar masterworks placed in conversation with voices and traditions that reveal just how expansive chamber music can be.
Dvořák’s exuberant Piano Quintet opens the season in grand style before the evening moves into the contemporary American imagination of James Lee III and Adolphus Hailstork, with Piazzolla bringing his unmistakable rhythmic fire to the string quartet. Expanding Horizons celebrates the musical world RCP has spent twenty-five years opening wider - and points toward everything still ahead.
PROGRAM
Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)· Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, Op. 81 · for two violins, viola, cello, and piano
INTERMISSION
James Lee III (b. 1975) · Lament. Sing. Arise. · for violin and piano
Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992)· Four, for Tango · for string quartet
Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941)· Summer. Life. Song. · for soprano, clarinet, and string quartet
LOCATION
Terry Concert Hall, Jacksonville University
2800 University Blvd N, Jacksonville, FL 32211
TICKETS
Select General Admission or Pay What You Can at checkout. No explanation required; there is no difference in seating.
CONCERT II | EXPANDING FREEDOM
Coretta’s Freedom Concert | Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend
Saturday, January 16, 2027 · 7:30 p.m.
Inspired by Coretta Scott King’s historic Freedom Concerts, Expanding Freedom reclaims the concert stage as a place of remembrance, resistance, imagination, and human possibility.
Across generations of Black women and the continuing struggle for freedom, Margaret Bonds gives musical voice to the poetry of Langston Hughes, while Nkeiru Okoye’s powerful Songs of Harriet Tubman traces the transformation of one woman into an enduring symbol of liberation. With Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole carrying the larger story of Coretta Scott King and the Freedom Concert tradition, music and history meet as they did in the movement itself: not as decoration, but as a force for change.
PROGRAM
Jessie Montgomery (b. 1981)· Duo for Violin and Cello · for violin and cello
Margaret Bonds (1913–1972)· Three Dream Portraits · texts by Langston Hughes · for soprano and piano
Nkeiru Okoye (b. 1972) · Songs of Harriet Tubman · for soprano, string quartet, and piano
Narrator: Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole
Additional repertoire to be announced.
LOCATION
Terry Concert Hall, Jacksonville University
2800 University Blvd N, Jacksonville, FL 32211
TICKETS
Select General Admission or Pay What You Can at checkout. No explanation required; there is no difference in seating.
CONCERT III | EXPANDING THE LEGACY
The Silver Jubilee World Premiere | Saturday, February 20, 2027 · 7:30 p.m.
Just two days before the twenty-fifth anniversary of RCP’s founding, Expanding the Legacy celebrates a musical inheritance that reaches across generations - and an institution determined to keep adding to it.
The winds take center stage in a program that moves from Courtney Bryan’s contemporary voice and the wit of Strauss to Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s extraordinary Nonet in F minor, an ambitious chamber work whose nearly orchestral palette feels remarkably modern more than a century later. After intermission, the story becomes distinctly RCP: James Lee III’s Night Visions of Kippur leads to the world premiere of the Silver Jubilee Commission, created to carry this legacy forward.
Because legacy is not simply what we preserve. It is what we make possible next.
PROGRAM
Courtney Bryan (b. 1982)· Blooming · for wind quintet
Richard Strauss (1864–1949) / arr. Franz Hasenöhrl (1885–1970) · Till Eulenspiegel — einmal anders!· for violin, clarinet, horn, bassoon, and double bass
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912) · Nonet in F minor, Op. 2 · for oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, double bass, and piano
INTERMISSION
James Lee III (b. 1975) · Night Visions of Kippur · for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano
RCP COMMISSION
WORLD PREMIERE · THE SILVER JUBILEE COMMISSION · COMPOSER AND INSTRUMENTATION TO BE ANNOUNCED
LOCATION
Terry Concert Hall, Jacksonville University
2800 University Blvd N, Jacksonville, FL 32211
TICKETS
Select General Admission or Pay What You Can at checkout. No explanation required; there is no difference in seating.
CONCERT IV | EXPANDING BRIDGES
The Spring Concert | Saturday, April 10, 2027 · 7:30 p.m.
Music has the rare power to carry memory, identity, and lived experience across boundaries where words often fail. Expanding Bridges brings African American, Jewish, Indigenous, and immigrant traditions into conversation - not by erasing their differences, but by listening more deeply to what each carries.
Carlos Simon’s Warmth from Other Suns evokes the movement and longing of the Great Migration, while Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate brings an Indigenous musical imagination into the chamber tradition. Prokofiev and Golijov open another window onto Jewish memory and diaspora, before Shostakovich’s powerful Eighth Quartet confronts memory, survival, and witness with devastating intensity.
Different histories. Different voices. One stage large enough to hear them together.
PROGRAM
Carlos Simon (b. 1986) · Warmth from Other Suns · for string quartet
Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate (b. 1968) · Pisachi (Reveal): Six Epitomes · for string quartet
Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953)· Overture on Hebrew Themes, Op. 34 · for clarinet, string quartet, and piano
INTERMISSION
Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960)· Soprano chamber work to be confirmed · for soprano, clarinet, and string quartet
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) · String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 · for string quartet
LOCATION
Terry Concert Hall, Jacksonville University
2800 University Blvd N, Jacksonville, FL 32211
TICKETS
Select General Admission or Pay What You Can at checkout. No explanation required; there is no difference in seating.
CONCERT IV | CONCERT V | EXPANDING THE AMERICAN SCORE BRIDGES
A Juneteenth Celebration | Season Finale | Saturday, June 19, 2027 · 7:30 p.m.
ENCORE! Free At Last? The Evolution of the American Spiritual · The Silver Jubilee Expanded Edition
It was one of the defining experiences of RCP’s Juneteenth celebration - and we are bringing it back. Bigger.
Following the extraordinary response to Free At Last? The Evolution of the American Spiritual, the Ritz Chamber Players closes its Silver Jubilee Season with an expanded encore presentation of the work that has become one of the most powerful expressions of RCP’s mission.
With Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole as narrator, Free At Last? traces the spiritual from sacred memory and survival through the Black church, the concert tradition, and the Freedom Movement - revealing a musical inheritance that has shaped not only Black history, but the sound and conscience of America.
For this Juneteenth finale, the touring presentation expands on RCP’s home stage, bringing together a larger company and the full force of the Silver Jubilee celebration.
After twenty-five years of Expanding the Stage, the season ends with RCP’s boldest affirmation: The story of American music cannot be fully told without the voices of the African diaspora.
PROGRAM
Free At Last? The Evolution of the American Spiritual · The Silver Jubilee Expanded Edition
ENCORE
Narrator: Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole
Final repertoire, guest artists, and expanded instrumentation to be announced
LOCATION
Terry Concert Hall, Jacksonville University
2800 University Blvd N, Jacksonville, FL 32211
TICKETS
Select General Admission or Pay What You Can at checkout. No explanation required; there is no difference in seating.
Special thanks to Vystar for their support of RCP.
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