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/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...