Daily Classical Music Post

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/4cNE8prdcJA Throughout February, I have highlighted works by Black composers throughout history, and although I have spent my life studying classical music, I discovered many composers who I had never heard of. The classical music curriculum has to change.  A great example of someone who should be in every music history textbook is Ignatius Sancho (c. 1729–1780). Sancho was born on a slave ship. His early life was spent working as a slave in a well-off household in Greenwich, England. Encouraged in his studies by a neighbor, the Duke of Montagu, Sancho was emancipated and was employed as a butler in the Montagu house. When he retired from that position, he owned and ran a small grocery shop in Westminster. Brycchan Carey says, “Sancho composed musi...

  This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/ZasNkYyrEJQ Adolphus Hailstork (born 1941) spent most of his childhood in Albany, NY, where he sang in a church choir. This early exposure to choral music can be heard in all of his works, not just his vocal music, through melodic lines and harmonies. He began studying the violin when he was eight years old but soon switched to piano and organ. He quickly became interested in composing: “I liked the piano because I could sit and improvise for hours, and that's when I decided I preferred to improvise rather than to practice my scales and arpeggios. That's when I decided ‘Hey, maybe I better go on to Composition!’ I love making up stuff!” James Reel says, “ Hailstork studied composition with Mark Fax at Howard University, where he earned his b...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/Izi5Jc9yeEo The music of Brittany J. Green (born 1991) has been described as “cinematic in the best sense.” As she says on her website ( http://www.brittanyjgreen.com/ ), her music “is centered around facilitating collaborative, intimate musical spaces that ignite visceral responses. The intersection between sound, movement, and text serves as the focal point of these musical spaces, often questioning and redefining the relationships between these three elements.” Green was encouraged by her high school band director to arrange and also compose works for the band. She said, “Having feedback and validation at such a young age, I think, was important and gave me the foundation and confidence to continue to compose and share my work. I’ve been fortunate t...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/6As16bev638 https://youtu.be/_dx3LXTgADI https://youtu.be/EwArv7q3wCU Daniel Bernard Roumain (born in 1970) blends funk, rock, hip-hop, and his classical music training in his compositions and performance pieces. His list of works includes everything from orchestral pieces to chamber works to solo violin to opera to . . . well, the list is endless. He is also highly regarded as an educator. His live performances are wonderful and exhilarating.  DBR’s String Quartet No. 5, “Parks,” was composed in 2005 and is dedicated to Rosa Parks. DBR said about this work, “As a Haitian-American composer, I was raised by immigrant parents from Haiti, who experienced American life both before, and after, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Their views were informed by l...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/4W7QIosbSdM Joyce Solomon Moorman (born 1946) has composed works for orchestra, chamber groups, choirs, vocal and instrumental soloists, and also has written an opera, Elegies for the Fallen , which commemorates the Soweto Massacre. She has won numerous awards, and from 1997 to 2000 she served on the Advisory Music Panel for the New York State Council on the Arts. A Tone Poem for Victims of Racism and Hatred (1998) was commissioned by Vienna Modern Masters. Moorman said that she got the idea for the work following Abner Louima’s torture at the hands of the police in New York in 1997: “The work was written with the hope that it might give emotional release to someone who had suffered a physical attack because of racism or other forms of hatred.” It is ...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/by0xgq_Pu8k Mary Watkins (born 1939) is known for her jazz works as well as classical compositions. She began studying music when she was four, and her earliest compositions date from when she was eight. Watkins said, “I started this musical journey in Pueblo, Colorado, as a little piano student. I was not quite four years old and didn’t have any idea why I was being given piano lessons. . . . From the very beginning I was admonished to confine my piano playing to the written notes on the page because it was of great importance that I be ‘literate.’ . . . For that reason, I was not interested in piano lessons though I did as I was told. Not until I dared to cross that forbidden line (using my ear), did I really become interested in music.” She received...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/wCOqwVk2uUI Hale Smith (1925–2009) studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music (BMus and MMus). His distinguished career is detailed by a former student, Marilyn Harris, on her website ( http://www.marilynharris.com/ ). His early training on the piano included jazz as well as classical music, and this is evident in many of his compositions. His first jobs following graduation were in the music publishing business as an editor. He worked for several different publishers in New York City in the late 1950s and 1960s. He once described himself as “one of America’s most famous unknown composers.” His compositions reveal a wide range of knowledge of many different styles, ranging from serial works like his Contours for Orchestra to lyrical works like The Val...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/3Zw-7AJ0MbQ https://youtu.be/eOyis867p24 https://youtu.be/pLiNMe8gIGM José Silvestre de Los Dolores White y Lafitte (1836–1918), most usually known as either José Silvestre White or Joseph White, was born in Cuba and received his early musical instruction from his father, who was an amateur violinist. Josephine Wright says of his first public concert in Cuba at the age of 18, “His accompanist was the famous North American pianist-composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk . . . who encouraged him to pursue further violin studies in Paris and raised money for him to travel there.” During White’s time studying at the Paris Conservatoire, he won many awards and came to the attention of Rossini, who wrote to White in 1858: “Allow me to express to you all the pleasur...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/1acBKW9qCis Hannah Kendall (born 1984) studied at the University of Exeter, the Royal College of Music, and Columbia University. Her music has been described as ‘intricately and skillfully wrought,” “dramatically intense and atmospheric,” and “teem(ing) with passages of brilliant instrumental colors . . . and harmonies boast(ing) surprising edges and a rich inner life.” Here is what the composer has to say about today’s post, The Spark Catchers: “Lemn Sissay’s incredibly evocative poem, The Spark Catchers, is the inspiration behind this work. I was drawn to its wonderful dynamism, vibrancy, and drive. Specific words and phrases from the text have established the structure of the work, and informed the contrasting musical characteristics created within ...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/VeIeC2ur-0s Harry T. Burleigh (1866–1949) was well known in his late teenage and early adult life in his hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania, as a classical baritone. He was in great demand as a soloist in churches as well as the local Jewish synagogue. When he was 26, he won a scholarship to the National Conservatory of Music in New York. He was at first rejected by the Conservatory; however, when Frances MacDowell, the mother of the composer Edward MacDowell, encouraged him to try again, he was admitted with the scholarship. Interesting. The director of the Conservatory, the composer Antonín Dvořák, learned a great deal about spirituals and folk songs of America from the songs that Burleigh sang for him. Dvořák said (speaking about his vision for a truly ...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/0xJ-YfqpvkQ H. Leslie Adams (born 1932) is best known for his vocal music but he also has composed many instrumental works. He studied both piano and voice growing up and then at Oberlin, California State University-Long Beach, and Ohio State University. He has won numerous awards. His music incorporates many elements; describing his piano etudes, Maria Corley said, “They are highly representative of his compositional language, including jazz-inflected syncopations, neo-romantic harmonies, and the strong melodic sense one would expect of such a brilliant composer of songs.” The Wider View, for voice and piano, contains six songs. The program notes given on the composer’s website say: “The Wider View is a panoramic portrait of human emotions, from songs...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/037MmUz29_0 Undine Smith Moore (1904–1989) was known as “the Dean of Black Women Composers.” After beginning her undergraduate music studies at Fisk University, she was the recipient of the first scholarship granted to a Fisk student by Juilliard. After graduating, she received her Master’s from Columbia's Teachers College. She also studied composition with Howard Murphy at the Manhattan School of Music. Her cantata “Scenes From the Life of a Martyr,” written in 1981 in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Only one-quarter of her compositions were published in her lifetime. Moore composed “Before I’d Be A Slave” for piano in 1953. She wrote on the title page: “It follows a program which I would hope is evident in the...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/IjXhgKlFSOc George Walker (1922–2018) was the first Black composer to win a Pulitzer Prize in Music (Scott Joplin’s posthumous award in 1976 notwithstanding). Walker won in 1996 with Lilacs, for soprano and orchestra. He also was the first Black instrumentalist to solo with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Walker first studied piano and organ at Oberlin, and after graduating went to Curtis, where he studied piano, chamber music, and composition. He was the first Black musician to graduate from Curtis, receiving his Artist Diplomas in piano and composition in 1945. He later studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger on a Fulbright Fellowship and a John Hay Whitney Fellowship. Jeffrey Mumford recalled, “[Boulanger] was so impressed with his musicianship that she w...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/xbTiOIHftdk James Lee III (born 1975) began piano lessons at the age of 12 and quickly realized that music was what he wanted to do with his life. He has said, “I want to compose music to reach to the inner soul of the listener that elevates them irregardless of race and religious affiliation.” He earned his degrees at the University of Michigan and also was a composition fellow at Tanglewood Music Center in 2002. His list of compositions on his website includes orchestral works, concertos, band music, chamber music, piano music, and choral works ( https://www.jameslee3music.com/list-of-works ). Performances of his music have been met with acclaim, and he has won many awards. His piano piece Souls of Alkebulan: Warrior Dance (composed 2012) is an exci...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/9X3j_76VBvI Julius Eastman (1940–1990) brilliantly combined minimalism with pop music. He studied at Ithaca College before transferring to Curtis. He originally was a pianist but switched to composition while at Curtis. He also was an extraordinarily talented singer; here’s a link to him singing Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King : https://youtu.be/JuU9WqnrKOs . Much of Eastman’s music explores both his Black and his gay identity. He increasingly felt that he was not given the opportunities that he should have been given, and he turned to alcohol and drugs. He died homeless, broken, and alone, and his death was not even remarked upon until eight months after he died. Lukas Foss said, “He had an unbelievable voice, and so much talent he di...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/2MRD9XcRTcI Nathaniel Dett (1882–1943), born in Canada but raised in the United States from the age of 11, was well known for the use of African American folk songs and spirituals in his Romantic-style compositions. He was the first Black student to earn a Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin, where he studied piano and composition. He devoted his life to education and furthering knowledge of Black music history. He later received a Master’s of Music from Eastman, and he also studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. In 1918, Dett said, “We have this wonderful store of folk music—the melodies of an enslaved people. . . . But this store will be of no value unless we utilize it, unless we treat it in such manner that it can be presented in choral form, in ...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/CwGd6FXnI0k Ulysses Kay (1917–1995) composed in a mainly neoclassical style. He studied at Eastman and Yale, and one of his main composition teachers was Paul Hindemith. In addition to symphonic, choral, and organ compositions, he composed five operas, all of which were well received at the time, although it doesn’t seem that they have been performed much since their premieres. Kay was described throughout his life as a composer with “unmistakable gifts.” Bernard Holland said of Kay’s opera based on the life of Frederick Dougass: “Mr. Kay's language and style are familiar to those who follow American composition — tonality slightly stretched, the use of sequences moving in half-steps to promote tension, some happy incorporations of traditional 19th...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/z8h34p9tsy4 Alvin Singleton (born 1940) grew up listening to jazz but planned to be an accountant. He did get a job as an accountant but, having decided that he wanted to be a composer, decided to fill some gaps in his musical education before going to graduate school. He said in an interview, “Carman Moore was studying with Hall Overton, so I followed Carman’s advice and began studying with Hall as well. I also wanted to take Vincent Persichetti’s analysis course at Juilliard, however; he was on sabbatical and Roger Sessions was teaching instead. And then at Columbia I took a composition seminar with Charles Wuorinen, he was only a little older than me.” He was accepted to Juilliard, University of Michigan, and Yale, and decided to attend Yale to stud...

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum. https://youtu.be/gBeigjxviQc Edmond Dédé (1827–1901) was born in New Orleans. Following childhood studies on the clarinet and violin, he went to Paris and studied at the Conservatoire. He then became a conductor, mostly for ballet companies and also at the Folies Bordelaises. He continued composing and his works all met with success. Many of his scores can be found in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Lester Sullivan says, “In 1852 Dédé's melody Mon pauvre coeur appeared. It is the oldest surviving piece of sheet music by a New Orleans Creole of color. He supplemented his income from music with what today would be characterized as his day job: he was a cigar maker, as were a number of other local musicians.” Dédé’s Chicago, grand valse à l'américaine was p...