As I’m exploring music in this series #blackcomposers, I am experiencing a weird sense of loss when I realize a composer whose works I admire had lived or worked in the same city as I had at some point in…
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Jul 15 2020
Jul 15 2020
As I’m exploring music in this series #blackcomposers, I am experiencing a weird sense of loss when I realize a composer whose works I admire had lived or worked in the same city as I had at some point in…
Read moreJul 13 2020
Listening to the music of Ed Bland (1926-2013) transports me my youth growing up in New York City in the 70s. His use of texture in instruments and rhythms to build tension and energy is probably the greatest factor, but…
Read moreJul 11 2020
There is a question about the birthplace of Francis Johnson (1792-1844), a performer of the bugle and violin. Some sources cite Martinique, while some say Philadelphia. Regardless, by his early 20s he was building a reputation as a bandleader in…
Read moreJul 11 2020
(condensed from the composer's biography page )
Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork (1941-) born in Rochester, New York, began his musical studies with piano lessons He studied at Howard University and Manhattan School of Music. After returning from service in the U.S…
Read moreJul 11 2020
Errollyn Wallen (1958-) is a Belize-born British composer. She was the first black woman to have a work performed at The Proms ("Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra"). Her output includes eighteen operas, oratorios, concerti, chamber works, large orchestral works, songs…
Read moreJul 11 2020
In the foreword to the 1969 edition of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Musician, His Life and Letters, Blydon Jackson writes:
“American Negroes who were born in the earlier years of this century grew up in black communities where the name of Samuel…
Read moreJul 11 2020
So much has been written about the life of William Grant Still (1895-1974) that I can't do it justice. “I am waiting patiently,” he said in his autobiography, “for that man who wrote the book about how most Negro Spirituals…
Read moreJul 11 2020
In 2017 when Janet Arms and I were running the 20/20 chamber ensemble at the Hartt School, I contacted Eleanor Alberga (1949- ) to see if we could do the U.S. premiere of her work “Animal Banter” for flute, guitar…
Read moreJul 11 2020
Zenobia Powell Perry (1908-2004) was born in what was once a predominantly African American town of Boley, Oklahoma to a physician, Dr. Calvin B. Powell and Birdie Thompson Powell (who had some Creek Indian heritage). Her family was well-educated and…
Read moreJul 11 2020
Ulysses Kay (1917-1995), born in in Tucson, Az (and went to my high school), was the nephew of the New Orleans jazz legend and cornet player, Joe "King" Oliver, who influenced him in his formative years. After finishing his undergrad…
Read moreJul 11 2020
Today’s composer is Undine Smith Moore. (1904-1989) You can read the details of her life by googling her, but here is an excerpt of a speech she made at the First National Congress of Women in Music in 1981:
“I…
Read moreJul 11 2020
Edmund Dédé (1827-1901) was born in New Orleans. His parents were free Creoles of color who moved to New Orleans from the French West Indies around 1809. Dede took his first music lessons from his father who was a bandmaster…
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