Serving on the Honorary Committee for the RBP Foundation’s MBC project
are trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, violinist Joshua Bell, actor Leslie Odom,
Jr., jazz bassist and composer Stanley Clarke, American mezzo-soprano
Denyce Graves, pianist and composer Billy Childs, American television
commentator Gretchen Carlson, pianist and pedagogue André Watts, Kevin
Sylvester and Wilner Baptiste from Black Violin, violinist Daniel
Bernard Roumain, and double bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku.
Black composers have created masterful classical music for centuries,
yet they are underrepresented in concert programming and in classical
music education, silencing a rich vein of works from global
consciousness. As young musicians seldom have the opportunity to study
and perform classical music by Black composers, aspiring Black music
students struggle to participate in an art form in which they do not
appear to belong, perpetuating a lack of diversity on stage and among
audiences.
With that in mind, over the last 15 years, Pine and her RBP Foundation
have collected more than 900 works by 350+ Black composers from the
18th-21st centuries, representing Africa, North and South America, Asia,
the Caribbean, Europe, and Oceania.
Sheet music book MBC Violin Volume I
MBC Violin Volume I, published by
LudwigMasters, features 22 works for violin (with 2nd violin or piano
accompaniment) by 16 Black composers. These works span 1767 to 2014,
representing the United States, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Ghana,
Nigeria, Switzerland, France, and England. (Please see the end of the
release for a complete list of composers.) The playing level is
comparable to books 1-2 of the Suzuki Method.
Violin Volume I includes downloadable reference violin and piano
recordings of each piece by Rachel Barton Pine and pianist Matthew
Hagle. It also contains biographies of each composer; feature articles
about Black orchestras past and present and about famous African
Americans who played violin - including Solomon Northup, Frederick
Douglass, George Washington Carver, Coretta Scott King, Sheila Johnson;
and profiles of three Black role models in classical music: Sphinx
founder Aaron P. Dworkin, founder-director of the Hyde Park Suzuki
Institute Lucinda Ali-Landing, and concert violinist Tai Murray. Dworkin
also wrote the book’s foreword. Videos of Sphinx laureates Adé Williams
and Clayton Penrose-Whitmore performing each piece will be available
online.
Rachel Barton Pine explains, “In the 15 years since we first
conceptualized Music by Black Composers we have had the opportunity to
speak with many Black musicians about the importance of role models in
the arts. Even today, many aspiring Black students live in a community
where their particular town’s orchestra may not even have a single
player of color in it or leading it. As much as they may love the music,
they don’t see a future for themselves. Our goal is to present a
variety of Black leaders representing professions in the classical
sphere, so that young people may consider the different avenues they may
take in music and see someone who looks like them in that role.”
Violin Volume I is the first in a violin series expected to include
eight volumes, graded by difficulty from beginner to advanced
concerto-level playing. Additional orchestral instruments will be the
subject of multiple future MBC volumes, and subsequent publications will
include works for school orchestras and chamber ensembles.
RBP Foundation Music by Black Composers Coloring Book and Timeline Poster
MBC will also offer a coloring book of 40
prominent Black composers throughout history, drawn by artist and Dallas
Symphony violinist Sho-mei Pelletier, featuring a biography of each
composer.
In partnership with the Sphinx Organization, MBC is also creating a
timeline poster designed by Sphinx’s Julie Renfro that features more
than 300 Black composers from around the world. Both educational tools
will be published by LudwigMasters. Composers featured in the coloring
book include Florence Price, Jessie Montgomery, J. H. Kwabena Nketia,
Daniel Bernard Roumain, José White, Michael Abels, Samuel
Coleridge-Taylor, Wynton Marsalis, Ignatius Sancho, Errolyn Wallen,
Eleanor Alberga, Amanda Ira Aldridge, Tania J. Leon, Adolphus Hailstork,
Alvin Singleton, and Olly Wilson.
Blues Dialogues
Recorded with pianist Matthew Hagle, Pine’s
Blues Dialogues is an album of classical works for unaccompanied violin
or violin and piano with a strong blues flavor written almost
exclusively by 20th- and 21st-century composers of African descent. Five
living composers are represented in the repertoire: Dolores White,
Errollyn Wallen, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Charles Brown, and Billy
Childs. Other composers include Duke Ellington, Coleridge-Taylor
Perkinson, William Grant Still, and Clarence Cameron White. (Please see
link above or the end of the release for a complete list of composers.)
In his program notes for the album, Mark Clague (Associate Professor of
Musicology, American Culture, and African American Studies at the
University of Michigan) writes, “Each track draws strength from the
tradition of Robert Johnson, Memphis Minnie, Blind Willie Johnson, and
Bessie Smith… There are quotes of American fiddle tunes, sonic
references to the signal processing of electronic dance music, repairs
offered to the racist traditions of minstrelsy, gospel hymns and
spirituals, upbeat boogie woogie dance tunes, and screams of anger,
frustration, and despair at the killing of Black Americans by those
charged to protect them. Each composer draws from the cultural
tributaries of the African Diaspora, and each has come to terms with the
power of this heritage to forge an utterly personal expression of
universal community across time, place, and people.”
It is particularly relevant that Pine should release an album in
conjunction with the MBC book and coloring book, as the idea for MBC
started with a recording Pine made for Cedille Records in 1997 titled
Violin Concertos by Black Composers of the 18th and 19th Centuries. The
album features historic compositions by Afro-Caribbean and Afro-European
composers from the Classical and Romantic eras that had been previously
overlooked. Soon after its release, Pine found herself sitting on
diversity panels and fielding questions from students, parents,
teachers, and colleagues about where to find more works by Black
composers. She quickly discovered that most repertoire by Black
composers is out of print or only exists in manuscript. So, in 2001, her
not-for-profit RBP Foundation committed to the Music by Black Composers
project.
Spreading Awareness of and Access to Music by Black Composers
The RBP Foundation’s MBC efforts are part of
a multi-pronged approach to spread awareness of and access to music by
Black composers. The MBC website currently features a directory of more
than 170 living Black composers for use by performers, researchers, and
those wishing to diversify their commissioning. In addition, MBC has
joined forces with the Orchestral Music by Black Composers (OMBC)
project founded by scholar-harpist Dr. Ashley Jackson and conductor
James Blachly, to build an online database of all composers of African
descent, living and deceased, worldwide. The database will feature
information about numerous individual works for solo instruments,
chamber ensembles, and orchestra, including instrumentation, length,
descriptions, difficulty level, where to find the music, links to
recordings, and programming suggestions. MBC Advisory Board members
include Sphinx Organization Founder and University of Michigan Professor
Aaron Dworkin; Guarneri String Quartet violinist, Curtis Institute of
Music Professor, and President of the Board of Directors for Opus
118-Harlem Center for Strings Arnold Steinhart; Concert pianist and
pedagogue at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
Awadagin Pratt; Roosevelt University Professor of Music and Music
Institute of Chicago Violin Faculty Almita Vamos, and Henry Fogel, Dean
of Roosevelt University’s College of Performing Arts and President of
the Board of Directors of Chicago Opera Theatre.
To purchase MBC Violin Volume I, the MBC Coloring Book, or the MBC Illustrated Timeline visit: www.sharmusic.com/musicbyblackcomposers
To purchase Blues Dialogues visit
https://cedille-records.lnk.to/vbXiaCA
List of the 54 composers represented in the
MBC Coloring Book (CB)
Blues Dialogues album (BD), and
MBC Violin Volume 1 (VV1)
[** indicates a female composer]
Michael Abels (1962-), USA – CB
**Eleanor Alberga (1949-), Jamaica – CB
**Amanda Ira Aldridge (1866-1956), United Kingdom – CB
Ephraim Amu (1899-1995), Ghana - CB
David Baker 1931-2016), USA – CB, BD
Basile Jean Barès (1846-1908), USA – VV1
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799), Guadeloupe, France – CB, VV1
**Margaret Bonds (1913-1972), USA – CB
Charles S. Brown (1940-), USA – BD
Harry Burleigh (1866-1949), USA – CB
Billy Childs (1957-), USA – BD
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912), United Kingdom – CB
Will Marion Cook (1869-1944), USA – VV1
Roque Cordero (1917-2008), Panama, USA – CB
Noel Da Costa (1929-2002), Nigeria, USA – BD
Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943), Canada, USA – CB
Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899-1974), USA – CB, BD
Joseph Emidy (1775-1835), Guinea, Portugal, United Kingdom – CB
Felipe Gutiérrez (y) Espinosa (1825-1899), Puerto Rico – VV1
José Mauricio Nunes Garcia (1767-1830), Brazil – CB
**Gonzaga, Francesca “Chiquinha” Gonzaga (1847-1935), Brazil – CB, VV1
**Sister Marie Seraphine Gotay (1865-1932), Puerto Rico, USA – VV1
Adolphus Hailstork (1941-), USA – CB
Francis Johnson (1792-1844), USA – CB
J. Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954), USA – CB
Scott Joplin (1867/8-1917), USA – CB, VV1
Kenneth Kafui (1951-), Ghana – VV1
Ulysses Kay (1917-1995), USA – CB
**Tania León (1943-), Cuba, USA – CB
Wynton Marsalis (1961-), USA – CB
Thomas J. Martin (19th C.), USA – VV1
**Jessie Montgomery (1981-), USA – CB
J. H. Kwabena Nketia (1921-), Ghana – CB
Juwon Ogungbe (1961-), United Kingdom, Nigeria – VV1
**Nkeiru Okoye (1972-), USA – CB
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932-2004), USA – CB, BD
**Florence Price (1887-1953), USA – CB
Amadeo Roldán (1900-1939), Cuba – CB, VV1
Daniel Bernard Roumain (1970-), Haiti, USA – CB, BD
Godwin Sadoh (1965-), Nigeria, USA – VV1
Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780), New Grenada, United Kingdom – CB, VV1
Alvin Singleton (1940-), USA – CB
**Undine Smith Moore (1904-1989), USA – CB
Hale Smith (1925-2009), USA – CB
Fela Sowande (1905-1978), Nigeria, USA – CB
William Grant Still (1895-1978), USA – CB, BD
George Walker (1922-), USA – CB
**Errollyn Wallen (1958-), Belize, United Kingdom – CB, BD
Horace Weston (1825-1890), USA – VV1
Clarence Cameron White (1880-1960), USA – CB, BD, VV1
**Dolores White (1932-), USA – BD
José White (1836-1918), Cuba, Brazil, France – CB
Thomas Greene “Blind Tom” Wiggins (1849-1908), USA – VV1
Olly Wilson (1937-2018), USA – CB
About Rachel Barton Pine
The Music by Black Composers project was
conceived by the award-winning, Billboard chart topping violinist,
Rachel Barton Pine (www.rachelbartonpine.com) who performs with the
world's leading orchestras and has recorded 37 acclaimed albums. She
became the first living composer to be published as part of Carl
Fischer’s “Masters Collection” series with the release of The Rachel
Barton Pine Collection. Her performances are heard on NPR and stations
around the globe and she has appeared on The Today Show four times, A
Prairie Home Companion, CBS Sunday Morning, Bloomberg Television, CNN,
PBS NewsHour and has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, New York
Times, Washington Post and papers around the world. In addition to the
MBC project, her RBP Foundation assists young artists through its
Instrument Loan Program, Grants for Education and Career, and Global
HeartStrings which supports musicians in developing countries.
For more information, please visit rbpfoundation.org, musicbyblackcomposers.org, and RachelBartonPine.com.
About LudwigMasters Publications
LudwigMasters is a family owned and operated
music-publishing business providing the finest selection of music for
band, string orchestra, full orchestra and instrumental music. Call,
email or fax orders in: 561-241-6169, Fax 561-241-6347,
info@ludwigmasters.com
About Cedille Records
Launched in November 1989, Grammy
Award-winning Cedille Records (pronounced say-DEE) is dedicated to
showcasing and promoting the most noteworthy classical artists in and
from the Chicago area. The audiophile-oriented label releases every new
album in multiple formats: physical CD; 96 kHz, 24-bit, studio-quality
FLAC download; and 320 Kbps MP3 download.
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