Currently
housing nearly 4,000 songs and more than 1,200 symphonic works, the
database will continue to grow through new submissions and continued
research
Monday, July 26, 2021– Ann Arbor, MI: In September 2019, after decades of researching and consolidating vocal works by African Diaspora composers, Dr. Louise Toppin launched the African Diaspora Music Project (ADMP) database, which currently offers nearly 4,000 songs by composers of African descent.
Toppin, a professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance explains:
“As
artists increasingly look to diversify their programming, they are
faced with unexpected challenges. While living composers often update
their websites, many pieces by previous generations of African Diaspora
composers are not published, and it takes hours of research to find
publisher information for others. This is compounded by a lack of
performance history for many pieces, which have been historically
underperformed, have been neglected for decades, or were never
premiered.”
“My
father's passion for history as a public historian--not someone who
spent his time just writing works for an academic audience, but hosting
television and radio shows, writing for newspapers, finding ways to
reach a wide audience—has deeply informed my approach and scope for this
project. It has shaped me,” Toppin stated
about the legacy of her father, Edgar Allan Toppin, Sr. A public
historian and an African-American professor of history specializing in
Civil War, Reconstruction, and African-American history, one of his many
accomplishments was becoming Board President of the Association for the
Study of Afro-American Life and History, where he was instrumental in
turning Black History Week into Black History Month in 1976.
Trained
as an archivist, first by her father and later as a doctoral student at
the University of Michigan, Toppin learned the difficulty of locating
and bringing together repertoire. Her project began informally while at
the University of Michigan while working as a research assistant to
music scholars George Shirley and Willis Patterson, and later while
organizing the works of Florence Price owned by scholar Ray Linda Brown.
As she traveled to the National Association of Negro musicians, the
country's oldest Association of Black professional musicians, she had
the opportunity to meet and perform with Black composers who freely
shared their works with her. Overtime, she amassed one of the largest
personal collections of composers of African descent.
Designed
as a living and growing database that will strengthen as more works are
submitted and discovered, African Diaspora Music Project supports
Toppin’s ongoing mission to help bring this music to concert halls
around the world. The database is designed with conductors and artistic
administrators in mind, making it extremely user-friendly. Users can
search by ensemble size and length of work, allowing them to find many
pieces for their programming needs, and with perusal PDFs of scores and
recordings provided whenever possible. ADMP is a free resource created
as a repository for music, providing access to scores, and encouraging
research, exploration and performance of new works.
Lee Koonce, President and Artistic Director, of Gateways Music Festival shares:
“African Diaspora Music Project provides a transformational resource at
a time when individual artists and performing arts organizations are
making a more serious effort to reflect the broadest communities and
constituencies possible.”
“ADMP
has introduced me to a host of composers and works unknown to me
beforehand and I have already begun a journey with this wonderful music
that will not only help in providing material for future recording
projects, but will also inspire interesting and creative programming
ideas,” American operatic tenor Lawrence Brownlee
shares. “I’ve only just scratched the surface of this extremely
impressive website, but I look forward to the new discoveries I’ll find
in this ever-expanding database.”
ADMP
includes access to works in various languages and from across the
globe, such as Pende from the Republic of Congo, French Creole,
Portuguese from Brazil, and more. Works span from H.T.
Burleigh, the first prominent Black composer in America born at the end
of the Civil War to millennial composer Brandon J. Spencer, and from
well-known artists to compositions waiting to be fully appreciated and
performed. It’s not
hyperbolic to note that ADMP may change the very voice of American music
as the works of Black composers can now be accessed easily in one
user-friendly database.
Susie Park, Chair of the Minnesota Orchestra
Artistic Advisory Committee, has used the database’s searchable
composer, length, and instrumentation features while selecting composers
for season programming: “African Diaspora Music Project Database is an
invaluable tool in finding works by Black composers, not only for our
season programming, but for our upcoming Anti-Racist Learning Project.
As the database grows as a repository, I can only imagine how it will
serve to be even more indispensable to musicians and administrators
searching for music by Black composers, and effectively expand the canon
and face of classical music as we know it."
American Baritone Thomas Hampson
concurs: "One of the most exciting and important resource databases to
appear in a long time is the African Diaspora Music Project. With the
heightened and enlightened curiosity for all things African American,
especially in the myriad and fascinating canon of classical music, this
resource is indispensable. Let us all move forward together.” The latest
Hampsong Foundation project “Song of America:
A Celebration of Black music” at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg was
brilliantly formed with the guidance of Dr. Louise Toppin and her
African Diaspora Project.
In
2020, when Conductor James Blachly approached Toppin with the
possibility of adding an orchestral component to the site, she jumped at
the opportunity:
“When
James reached out to me I realized that this was the right moment and
the right collaborative partner to move the database into phase II. We
hope that this iteration provides an even better user experience for
those researching both vocal and orchestral repertoire. Together James
and I hope that we can help transform the experience of musicians
interested in incorporating the work of African Diaspora composers."
“With
1,200 entries so far, we expect this resource to help people program
with far greater breadth than they would doing their own research with
limited time,” said Associate Editor James Blachly.
“But we want this to be a resource that represents our ongoing efforts
as a field, and for musicians, historians, orchestras, conductors,
artistic administrators, and others to continually update it with new
recordings and listings as our collective knowledge and research
continues to expand.”
Testimonials:
"Louise
Toppin has been a leading and guiding force in the promotion and
documentation of living and past composers of African descent. Her
tireless advocacy is a beacon for this important work. She not only
leads as an innovative entrepreneur, educator, scholar but as well as a
leading proponent of contemporary performance practice and concertizing.
In my 30 + years as a composer and author, there would simply not be
the current information and celebrations of our works as Black concert
artists without the dedicated work of Louise Toppin." said Dr. Bill Banfield, composer, author
Artistic director/Conductor Berklee Contemporary Symphony Orchestra
President of the International Conductors Guild
Boston Symphony Orchestra Composer-in-Residence
Julius P. Williams
said “Louise Toppin has been on the forefront championing African
American composers for many years with her work with Videmus and the new
database. I have collaborated on many of these projects and recorded
with her two CDs that emphasizes the music of black composers i.e,
“Heart on the Wall” and our newest release songs of ‘Love and Justice’
which will be out later this year on the Albany record label. She is
one of the few people that I see to have true credibility on this
subject and has spent years curating the Black Music repertoire,
existence and excellence in concert music.”
“I
spent a lot of time at ADMP listening and learning. A couple hours in
fact. And a big chunk of time with Bill Banfield’s music. This literally
wouldn’t have been possible even a month ago. Such an amazing
accomplishment. Thank you both so much. This resource is going to make
real impact in the industry.” explained James Barry.
Biographies:
Dr. Louise Toppin has
received critical acclaim for her operatic, orchestral, and oratorio
performances in the United States, Europe, South America, Asia, New
Zealand, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. She has appeared in
recital on many concert series including Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center,
Broadway’s Hudson Theater, and Lincoln Center.
Represented
by Joanne Rile Artist Management, she toured in "Gershwin on Broadway"
with pianist Leon Bates and currently tours in that show with Joseph
Joubert, piano and Robert Sims, baritone. She has recorded eighteen
compact disks of primarily American Music including solo CDs Songs of Illumination, (Centaur Records), and on Albany Records Ah love, but a day, He’ll Bring it to Pass, (Joseph Joubert, piano), Witness with the Czech National Symphony, Heart on the Wall with the Prague Radio Symphony and La Saison des fleurs, CDs with three publications including A Hall Johnson collection from Carl Fisher publisher. Her newest releases due out in 2021 are Songs of Love and Justice and Summer.Life.Songs (two CDs of songs for soprano by Adolphus Hailstork); Duos (with countertenor Darryl Taylor on African American vocal chamber music) and The Soprano Songs of T. J. Anderson with pianist John McDonald.
Most recently she has edited scores for publication. Her recent publications Rediscovering Margaret Bonds: Spiritual Suite and four volumes of Songs by Adolphus Hailstork
(Deux Chansons, Sacred Songs, Songs with harp and Chamber works) were
released in the summer of 2020 by the publisher Classical Vocal
Reprints. Her anthology of Rediscovering Margaret Bonds: Art Songs was released March 1, 2021 from
Classical Vocal Reprints and her Margaret Bonds choral work “St.
Francis’ Prayer” for SATB with Hildegard Press will all be released
later in March.
Her
recent performances include the 150th celebration of the ratification
of the 13th amendment for Congress and President Obama at the U.S.
Capitol; a performance in Havana, Cuba with the women’s orchestra
Camerata Romeu and the opening of the Smithsonian’s African American
Heritage Museum.
As a scholar, she has lectured on the music of African American composers and has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered (Margaret
Bonds); for many national conventions and on many college campuses
including Harvard, Tufts, and Duke. As the co-founder and director of
the George Shirley Vocal Competition that focuses exclusively on
repertoire by African American art song, and Videmus (a non-profit
organization that promotes the concert repertoire of African American
and women composers), she encourages the performance and scholarship of
African American compositions by students and scholars. She is also the
founder of the Africandiasporamusicproject.org that is a research tool
to locate the repertoire of composers of the African Diaspora from the
1600s to the present.
Previously,
Dr. Toppin was the Distinguished University Professor of Music and
Chair of the Department of Music at the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill. She is currently Professor of Music (Voice) at The
University of Michigan. www.louisetoppin.com
James Blachly
is a Grammy®-winning conductor dedicated to enriching the concert
experience by connecting with audiences in memorable and meaningful
ways. His world premiere recording of English composer Dame Ethel
Smyth’s 1930 masterpiece The Prison, released on Chandos Records, won a
2021 Grammy Award and was widely acclaimed by The New York Times, The
New Yorker, Gramophone, San Francisco Chronicle, Financial Times, The
Guardian, and many others.
James
Blachly serves as Music Director of the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra
and of the Experiential Orchestra, and is in increasing demand as a
versatile guest conductor in diverse repertoire, including his debut
with the New York Philharmonic in March 2022. Since 2020, Blachly has
served as Associate Editor and Orchestral Liaison for the African
Diaspora Music Project, directed by Dr. Louise Toppin.
