MercuryNews.com: New SF streaming piano series adds focus on Black composers

Mike Derer/Associated Press archives

Pulitzer Prize winner George Walker is among the Black composers who will be spotlighted in a new piano recital series.  

By Georgia Rowe | Correspondent, Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: August 5, 2020 

A new online music series featuring solo piano works is showcasing Black composers alongside their mostly better-known White counterparts.

Piano Break, presented by the Ross McKee Foundation, is offering an attractive lineup of solo recitals curated and performed by Bay Area pianists. Performances will be streamed each Friday at 5 p.m. on the Ross McKee YouTube channel until the end of September.

In recent months, the classical music world has been increasingly criticized for overlooking the work of Black composers. The new series aims to address that oversight, with works by composers including 19th-century prodigy Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins; Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Walker, and Arkansas-born Florence Price, who was the first African-American woman to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra.

Nicholas Pavkovic, the executive director of the Ross McKee Foundation, says that Piano Break was conceived in part to highlight these composers’ neglected gems.

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Each program runs 30 to 45 minutes. Most are pre-recorded from the performers’ homes.

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Here’s the Piano Break performance series schedule. Many of the performances will be accessible after the initial concert.

Aug. 7: Monica Chew, works by Bongani Ndodana-Breen, Jason Moran, Undine Smith Moore, Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins, and Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou.

Aug. 14: Daniel Glover, works by Muzio Clementi, Carl Maria von Weber, and Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins.

Aug. 21: Louise Costigan-Kerns, works by Debussy, Gershwin, and H. Leslie Adams.

Aug. 28: Audrey Vardanega, works by Brahms, Chopin, and Mozart.

Sept. 4: Jennifer Peringer, works by Chopin, Robert Schumann, J.S. Bach, Paula Dreyer, Chus Alonso, and Tania León.

Sept. 11: Laura Magnani, excerpts from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Twenty-Four Negro Melodies,” Op. 59, along with works by Beethoven and Chopin.

Sept. 18: Ian Scarfe, works by Chopin, Debussy, Florence Price, and William Grant Still.

Sept. 25: Rachel Kim, Works by Beethoven, Barber, and Florence Price.

PIANO WORKS

Presented by Ross McKee Foundation

When: 5 p.m. Fridays through Sept. 25, most concerts will remain available after the streaming event

How much: free, but donations encouraged

Where: www.rossmckeefoundation.org/pianobreak