BUENA PARK, CA (Feb. 9, 2005) — The History of America is full of great vision, independence, war and pain. The roots of America and its people begin with patriotism and new ideals, but they also begin with slavery.
February is Black History Month or the time when we celebrate African American culture and the achievements of its leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. However, Black History Month also marks a time when we remember America's past and its hideous history of slavery and inequality. On Feb. 9, 2005, PBS released the first episode in a special miniseries entitled: Slavery and the Making of America. The miniseries depicts the tortures and the history of slavery from the time the first slaves were purchased in America in 1619 to the time the last of the slaves were freed in 1865.
How do you compose music that depicts the 250-year-long history, emotion and the undeniable courage of these figures of our past? It is not an easy task, but Yamaha artist,
Michael Whalen, accepted the job and created a beautiful and moving soundtrack enriched with the history and the musical influences of the slave and African-American cultures.
Using a Yamaha
02R96V2 mixer, Yamaha
01V96 mixer, Yamaha DX-5 synth and a Yamaha
WX-5 MIDI controller, Whalen composed 31 separate tracks for the landmark CD with music from all three shows in the miniseries. Track titles include "The Work Song/Black Women in the Colonies," "From People to Property," "Voices of Change," and "The Road to Freedom."
Slavery and the Making of America is a four-hour televised event airing from Feb. 9-16 that chronicles the lives of individual enslaved men, women and children in order to tell the broader story of American slavery and injustice. This month marks the year that Americans look back and remember how the decades of slavery and inequality also shaped the nation and worked to create the America of today.
