MUSIC

Home > MUSIC > Cremona Strings Ensemble Too 2011 Summer Concert Series

• Tweet
• Outlook
• ICAL
• PRINT
• Email
• Feedback

• RSS

• Official Website
• Add to My Favorites

Cremona Strings Ensemble Too 2011 Summer Concert Series

Presented by Cremona Strings Ensemble Too at The Rymer Gallery

August 5, 2011

Add Review/Comment
Comment on Facebook

The Cremona Strings Ensemble Too was founded April 1, 2005 to keep Nashville artist Robert ‘Bob’ Holmes’ memory, works, and talent alive. The purpose of the group is to continue performing many of Bob’s compositions/arrangements, as well as, other musical selections for the public at-large. Many invited string artists include former Cremona String Ensemble members, music majors, professional instrumentalists, and others.

Bob Holmes, Nashville composer-arranger-performer-producer, died on December 16, 2000, from heart failure. He had one of the most productive careers in the music business. Holmes worked with a variety of musical artists across the musical spectrum, including such legends as Duke Ellington, Eubie Blake, Quincy Jones, Milt Jackson, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, and Dr. Billy Taylor in jazz; Lucie Campbell, Dorothy Love Coates, and Dr. Bobby Jones in gospel; the Nashville Symphony, D. Antoinette Handy, and Trio Pro Viva in classical; and was one of the first African- Americans to produce music industry recordings in Nashville. His arranging talents have been employed by many of the top recording personalities from gospel to jazz to rock to country to classical. Holmes taught in the Arkansas and Tennessee public school systems, as well as, Tennessee State University and Fisk University where he served as composer-in-residence.

Robert ‘Bob’ Holmes established Nashville’s first black youth string ensemble known as the Cremona Strings Ensemble in the 1960s, comprised of school-aged, African-American children to whom he provided music instruction and mentoring.

Bob has more than a dozen movie scores to his credits with the “Paul Laurence Dunbar: America’s First Black Poet”, and “The Gift of Black Folks”, winning the International CINE Award. His jazz composition “Earth Blossom” merited five stars in Downbeat Magazine. He received two grants in jazz from the National Endowment for the Arts to compose “The Age of Inhibition: 34” and “The Time Capsule” for the Jazz Excursion and Symphony Orchestra. Bob Holmes was honored and recognized at the Country Music Hall of Fame during 2006.

Michael M. Brady, who also arranged and composed musical selections with Bob Holmes for the original Cremona Strings Ensemble, is continuing the tradition by arranging and/or composing many of the musical selections performed by the Cremona Strings Ensemble Too for current audiences.

Please contact Lisa Spells for more information or bookings re the Cremona Strings Ensemble at (615) 226-1265 local, brownpaperticket.com/event, nowplayingnashville.com/search/Cremona Strings Ensemble Too, or laspells5@aol.com. Visit our social media networks below.