It has been my pleasure throughout the great Pandemic Summer and Fall 2020 to have been working with a group of British women composers for an upcoming livestream for the Spitalfields Festival. I’d like to feature a few of them…

The second in my series of the new generation of women composers is Bobbie-Jane Gardner. I had the pleasure of working with her on her commissioned piece for solo viola, which was premiered at the Spitalfields Music festival in December…

This piece was performed in our weekly chamber music masterclass at Hartt recently. I'm always thrilled when our students reach make it a priority to play music of living composers. #blackcomposers #womencomposers 

The entry is reposted from the composer's…

Daniel Bernard Roumain, (DBR) born 1970 to Haitian-American parents, is a classically trained composer/violinist and activist. His compositions and arrangements, which have been performed by the orchestras of Dallas, Des Moines, Memphis, San Antonio, St. Louis, the Chicago Sinfonietta, the…

(Excerpted from the composer’s webpage) 

Thomas Jefferson (T.J.) Anderson was born August 17, 1928 in Coatesville, Pennsylvania and received degrees from West Virginia State College, Penn State University, and a Ph.D in Composition from the University of Iowa. He taught…

Mary Watkins (1939-), American composer and pianist, has written for orchestra, opera, chamber ensembles, jazz ensembles, film, theatre, dance, and choral groups.  She was trained classically at Howard University and has received several grants from the National Endowment for the…

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…

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…

(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…

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…

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…

So much has been written about jazz legend Ornette Coleman (1930-2015) that it is much better to read this snippet of an Atlantic article written in 1972, to hear him speaking for himself. 

"I started writing before I started playing,"…