“The Ballad for Trayvon Martin” Opens at Princeton University

No one will ever mistake ‘The Ballad for Trayvon Martin’ with the ‘Ballad of Davey Crockett.’

Princeton University Orchestra, conducted by Michael Pratt, and the University Concert Jazz Ensemble will play the ‘Ballad for Trayvon Martin’ Thursday and Friday. Hmm, the purpose of this is to exploit pay homage to victims of racial violence. You mean like the “killing fields” in Chicago?

Trayvon Martin continues to be a subject of intense interest for the academic elite. The Princeton University Orchestra and the University Concert Jazz Ensemble is set to debut “The Ballad for Trayvon Martin” today, NJ.com reports.

The goal of the music, according to its composer, noted jazz artist Anthony D.J. Branker, is to pay homage to victims of racial violence.

“I simply want to make a connection,” Branker said, “whether it’s on a level of social consciousness, or music and expression.”

The Daily Caller reports:

The director of the jazz studies program at Princeton University has written a ballad for Trayvon Martin.

If you happen to be in the area, you can catch the world premiere of “Ballad for Trayvon Martin for Orchestra and Jazz Quartet” Thursday and Friday night at Richardson Auditorium on the Ivy League campus.

Tickets are just $15 (and $5 for students), reports The Star-Ledger.

The composer, Anthony D.J. Branker, said he was moved “to the core” by the death of Martin in February 2012.

Martin, a 17-year-old black teenager, was shot by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old mixed-race Hispanic, in Sanford, Fla.

Branker, who founded Princeton’s jazz program 25 years ago, said the incident reminded him of an incident in his own life that occurred right after he graduated from the elite school.

“I was stopped by police at gunpoint because it was believed I broke into someone’s home,” he told The Star-Ledger. “I fit a profile. Police surrounded my car.”

Branker said the piece isn’t an angry musical screed. Noting that it incorporates a fugue and Brazilian style, he describes the jazz number as “a form of healing and something that could be seen as a composition of hope.”