Centenary’s Hurley School of Music presents evening of Cajun art songs January 19
SHREVEPORT, LA — Centenary College’s Hurley School of Music will present a concert of Cajun art songs on Sunday, January 19, at 3:00 p.m. in the College’s Anderson Auditorium. The concert features songs in Cajun French and showcases the talents of four Centenary alumni. The event is free and open to the public.
The centerpiece of the January 19 concert is La Délaissée: Songs of Love and Heartbreak from Cajun Louisiana, a group of Cajun French songs collected and adapted by Dr. James Eakin III, associate professor of music at the Hurley School and a 2000 graduate of Centenary. Guest soprano Nancy Carey ’09 will perform the songs from Eakin’s collection accompanied by Dr. Gay Grosz ’90 on piano. The concert also includes a collection of French songs by Centenary alumnus Costas Dafnis ’12.
Eakin’s score for La Délaissée includes sections of both original and newly composed tunes and is based on Jolie Blonde et Aimable Brune: Love Songs from Cajun and Creole Louisiana, a collection of songs compiled by folk musician and educator Roger Mason and published by Centenary’s heritage language press, Les Éditions Tintamarre. Mason captured field recordings of some of the last Cajun-speaking musicians, notated their melodies, and placed them in a comprehensive collection.
To compose La Délaissée, Eakin harmonized the melodies discovered and recorded by Mason and added New Orleans-style jazz accompaniment to the existing tunes. He also composed new “B” sections for each piece using lyrics that would have been set to the original melody.
“It’s hard to put into words how much I adore my home state of Louisiana,” wrote Eakin in the notes for La Délaissée. “It is a melting pot of cultures, where the blending of traditions and languages creates something greater than the sum of its parts. Jazz, Blues, gumbo, Mardi Gras - the list goes on. But in a world that's constantly evolving, some things are at risk of being lost forever. At present, there are approximately 20,000 Cajun French speakers remaining in the world. I fear for the survival of this language that is so heavily tied to the spirit of Louisiana’s great heritage. It is my hope that La Délaissée: Songs of Love and Heartbreak from Cajun Louisiana, will reignite an interest in this dying dialect and serve as a method of preservation for the Cajun language.”