YOU CAN SEE A VIDEO OF EPITAPH FOR EUGENE BY CLICKING HERE.
Epitaph for Eugene Williams
(for double chorus and string quartet)
Grace Chorale of Brooklyn and the Apollo Chorus of Chicago
On Sunday, July 27, 1919, thousands of Chicagoans sought relief from the brutal heat on the shores of Lake Michigan. Among them was Eugene Williams, a seventeen-year-old African American who was on a raft with some friends. They inadvertently drifted across an invisible line that divided the waters by race a few yards out from a “white” beach at 29th Street. Beachgoers witnessed George Stauber, a twenty-four-year-old white man, hurl stones at the boys until Eugene Williams fell off the raft and drowned. The eight-day race riot that ensued was one of the many conflicts during the Red Summer of 1919.
Epitaph for Eugene Williams is a distillation from “A Stone to the Head,” a GCB commissioned piece composed by Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa and Flannery Cunningham in 2019. Their new version joins Grace Chorale of Brooklyn with The Apollo Chorus of Chicago in a performance with a string quartet.
Note: The actual premiere of Epitaph for Eugene Williams took place on June 13, 2021 and included Eugene’s story as recounted by Chicago historian Julius Jones, Assistant Curator at the Chicago Museum. It also included a discussion by the composers, Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa and Flannery Cunningham, about their inspiration and aspiration for the music. Grace Chorale of Brooklyn and The Apollo Chorus of Chicago concluded the program, accompanied by the moving music of a string quartet.