THE RACHEL BARTON PINE FOUNDATION’S
MUSIC BY BLACK COMPOSERS
LAUNCHES NEW FREE DIRECTORIES OF
REPERTOIRE FOR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA AND UNACCOMPANIED VIOLIN
WRITTEN BY BLACK COMPOSERS
LAUNCHES NEW FREE DIRECTORIES OF
REPERTOIRE FOR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA AND UNACCOMPANIED VIOLIN
WRITTEN BY BLACK COMPOSERS
CHICAGO
– The not-for-profit Rachel Barton Pine (RBP) Foundation’s Music by
Black Composers (MBC) project has launched its first free online
directories of classical music written by Black composers: Repertoire
for Violin and Orchestra, and Repertoire for Unaccompanied Solo Violin. MBC works to rectify historic and ongoing racial injustices in the classical music sphere.
MBC’s repertoire
directories establish a central location for existing music by Black
classical composers. They are a free resource for performers,
conductors, concert programmers, students, and teachers seeking existing
music, as well as for researchers and scholars of classical
music. Whenever possible, the directories include instrumentation,
length, links for acquiring the sheet music, links to recordings, and
other helpful information to aid in programming. Additionally, the works
in the directory for violin and orchestra are sortable by piece
(composition date, orchestration, length) and composer (gender and
geographical region). Built to be ever-expanding, MBC asks that users
alert them as to any missing works by emailing editor@musicbyblackcomposers.org.
“We’ve been hearing from conductors and orchestra managers who want to diversify their programming, but they do not have a definitive list of what repertoire exists and where to find it. MBC has created these directories so that anyone, anywhere can learn about repertoire by Black classical composers, get the music, and program it. Our team is really excited for conductors, orchestras, and soloists to start discovering these incredible concertos and concert works. It’s our hope that these compositions will become part of our standard repertoire, as they should have been all along,” says Pine, a leading violin soloist, who is president of RBP Foundation and Executive Editor and Music Editor for MBC. Pine and Megan E. Hill, Ph.D., Managing Editor, Head Researcher and Writer for MBC, compiled and edited the directories.
The directory of Repertoire for Violin and Orchestra currently features 38 compositions by 19 composers (four women and 15 men), which were composed between 1773 and 2020. In contrast, the website most frequently used by conductors, orchestra administrators, and librarians, Daniels' Orchestral Music Online, only includes 15 works by seven Black composers (two women and five men).
The directory of Repertoire for Unaccompanied Solo Violin currently features 36 compositions by five women and 23 men, which were composed between 1868 and 2020. The category of Unaccompanied Solo Violin is defined as works intended for a solo performer. The vast majority are unaccompanied, but may include electronics, narration, or other auxiliary actions performed by the soloist.
MBC is currently working on further directories of music for violin and piano and music for multiple violins. In addition, MBC is collaborating with colleagues to build directories of music for viola, cello, bass, string quartet, piano, organ, recorder, school band, school orchestra, and symphony.
MBC also aspires to function as a hub for existing resources by linking to directories created by others. A directory of Repertoire for Classical Guitar, compiled by Ciyadh Wells and Neil Beckmann, is now linked to MBC’s website. It includes data about sheet music, recordings, composers’ biographies, composition length, and the year written. The works are categorized as chamber classical guitar, solo electric guitar, chamber electric guitar, solo “other plucked string,” and chamber “other plucked string” music. The directory features 139 compositions by four women and 16 men, which were composed between 1973 and 2020.
MBC’s repertoire directories serve as companion resources to MBC’s free, sortable directories of Living Black Classical Composers (currently more than 300) and Historic Black Classical Composers (currently more than 150). These directories are one of the ways MBC makes the music of Black composers available to everyone, so that it may bring greater diversity to the ranks of classical music performers, composers, and audiences.
In 2018, MBC published MBC Violin Volume I, the first in a series of pedagogical books of music exclusively by Black classical composers; The Rachel Barton Pine Foundation Coloring Book of Black Composers featuring 40 prominent Black composers from around the world; and a timeline poster featuring more than 300 Black composers spanning four centuries. MBC Violin Volume IIand MBC Carillon Volume Iare currently being edited for publication.
Currently, the Music by Black Composers website hosts a number of free resources aimed at spreading awareness of classical music written by Black composers. There is a list of children’s books about Black classical music making, a bibliography of reference books on Black classical music composers, a discography of works by Black classical composers, and a list of podcasts and radio programs that celebrate Black composers. The website also offers Digital Resources for MBC’s instrument books which include recordings (audio and video) for each published piece to help students learn to play the music, and many links for further reading about the article topics featured in the books. For more information about other current resources and future plans, please visit MBC’s Projects Timeline.
MBC’s Board of Advisors includes Aaron Dworkin, Sphinx Organization Founder; Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE, double bassist and founder of Chineke!; Lee Koonce, President & Artistic Director, Gateways Music Festival; Mike Wright, Founder and Chair, International Society of African to American Music; Henry Fogel, Dean of Roosevelt University’s College of Performing Arts; Toni-Marie Montgomery, Dean of the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University; Dr. Fred “FredO” Onovwerosuoke, composer; conductors James Blachly, Philip Greenberg, and Michael Morgan; pianist Awadagin Pratt; violinists David Caines Burnett, Terrance Gray, Mariana Green-Hill, Ed Kreitman, Diane Monroe, Arnold Steinhart, and Almita Vamos; violists Robert Fisher and Dr. Juliet White-Smith; cellists Dr. Tanya L. Carey and Anthony Elliot; Dr. Barbara Wright-Pryor, Former President, Chicago Music Association, Branch No. 1, NANM, Inc.; Sheila A. Jones, Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association and Director of Community Stewardship/African American Network; historian and journalist William J. Zick; and Lee Newcomer, owner of Performers Music.
Serving on the Honorary Board for MBC are trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis, violinist Joshua Bell, actor Leslie Odom, Jr., jazz bassist and composer Stanley Clarke, mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, pianist and composer Billy Childs, television commentator Gretchen Carlson, pianist and pedagogue André Watts, Kevin Sylvester, and Wilner Baptiste from Black Violin, and violinist and composer Daniel Bernard Roumain.
The idea for MBC started with a recording Rachel Barton Pine made for Cedille Records in 1997 titled Violin Concertos by Black Composers of the 18th and 19th Centuries. The album contains historic compositions by Afro-Caribbean and Afro-European composers from the Classical and Romantic eras that had long been underrecognized. Soon after its release, Pine found herself sitting on diversity panels and receiving numerous inquiries from students, parents, teachers, and colleagues about where to find more works by Black composers. She quickly discovered that much repertoire by Black composers is out of print or only exists in manuscript. So, in 2001, her not-for-profit Rachel Barton Pine Foundation committed to its Music by Black Composers project. Over the past two decades, MBC has collected 900+ works by more than 450 Black composers from North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania, written by men and women from the 18th to the 21st centuries.
Pine is an award-winning, chart-topping violinist who performs with the world's leading orchestras and has recorded 39 acclaimed albums. Her performances are heard on NPR and stations around the globe. She has appeared on The Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, CBS News, CNN, PBS NewsHour, and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and in media outlets around the world. In addition to the MBC project, the 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.
“We’ve been hearing from conductors and orchestra managers who want to diversify their programming, but they do not have a definitive list of what repertoire exists and where to find it. MBC has created these directories so that anyone, anywhere can learn about repertoire by Black classical composers, get the music, and program it. Our team is really excited for conductors, orchestras, and soloists to start discovering these incredible concertos and concert works. It’s our hope that these compositions will become part of our standard repertoire, as they should have been all along,” says Pine, a leading violin soloist, who is president of RBP Foundation and Executive Editor and Music Editor for MBC. Pine and Megan E. Hill, Ph.D., Managing Editor, Head Researcher and Writer for MBC, compiled and edited the directories.
The directory of Repertoire for Violin and Orchestra currently features 38 compositions by 19 composers (four women and 15 men), which were composed between 1773 and 2020. In contrast, the website most frequently used by conductors, orchestra administrators, and librarians, Daniels' Orchestral Music Online, only includes 15 works by seven Black composers (two women and five men).
The directory of Repertoire for Unaccompanied Solo Violin currently features 36 compositions by five women and 23 men, which were composed between 1868 and 2020. The category of Unaccompanied Solo Violin is defined as works intended for a solo performer. The vast majority are unaccompanied, but may include electronics, narration, or other auxiliary actions performed by the soloist.
MBC is currently working on further directories of music for violin and piano and music for multiple violins. In addition, MBC is collaborating with colleagues to build directories of music for viola, cello, bass, string quartet, piano, organ, recorder, school band, school orchestra, and symphony.
MBC also aspires to function as a hub for existing resources by linking to directories created by others. A directory of Repertoire for Classical Guitar, compiled by Ciyadh Wells and Neil Beckmann, is now linked to MBC’s website. It includes data about sheet music, recordings, composers’ biographies, composition length, and the year written. The works are categorized as chamber classical guitar, solo electric guitar, chamber electric guitar, solo “other plucked string,” and chamber “other plucked string” music. The directory features 139 compositions by four women and 16 men, which were composed between 1973 and 2020.
MBC’s repertoire directories serve as companion resources to MBC’s free, sortable directories of Living Black Classical Composers (currently more than 300) and Historic Black Classical Composers (currently more than 150). These directories are one of the ways MBC makes the music of Black composers available to everyone, so that it may bring greater diversity to the ranks of classical music performers, composers, and audiences.
In 2018, MBC published MBC Violin Volume I, the first in a series of pedagogical books of music exclusively by Black classical composers; The Rachel Barton Pine Foundation Coloring Book of Black Composers featuring 40 prominent Black composers from around the world; and a timeline poster featuring more than 300 Black composers spanning four centuries. MBC Violin Volume IIand MBC Carillon Volume Iare currently being edited for publication.
Currently, the Music by Black Composers website hosts a number of free resources aimed at spreading awareness of classical music written by Black composers. There is a list of children’s books about Black classical music making, a bibliography of reference books on Black classical music composers, a discography of works by Black classical composers, and a list of podcasts and radio programs that celebrate Black composers. The website also offers Digital Resources for MBC’s instrument books which include recordings (audio and video) for each published piece to help students learn to play the music, and many links for further reading about the article topics featured in the books. For more information about other current resources and future plans, please visit MBC’s Projects Timeline.
MBC’s Board of Advisors includes Aaron Dworkin, Sphinx Organization Founder; Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE, double bassist and founder of Chineke!; Lee Koonce, President & Artistic Director, Gateways Music Festival; Mike Wright, Founder and Chair, International Society of African to American Music; Henry Fogel, Dean of Roosevelt University’s College of Performing Arts; Toni-Marie Montgomery, Dean of the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University; Dr. Fred “FredO” Onovwerosuoke, composer; conductors James Blachly, Philip Greenberg, and Michael Morgan; pianist Awadagin Pratt; violinists David Caines Burnett, Terrance Gray, Mariana Green-Hill, Ed Kreitman, Diane Monroe, Arnold Steinhart, and Almita Vamos; violists Robert Fisher and Dr. Juliet White-Smith; cellists Dr. Tanya L. Carey and Anthony Elliot; Dr. Barbara Wright-Pryor, Former President, Chicago Music Association, Branch No. 1, NANM, Inc.; Sheila A. Jones, Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association and Director of Community Stewardship/African American Network; historian and journalist William J. Zick; and Lee Newcomer, owner of Performers Music.
Serving on the Honorary Board for MBC are trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis, violinist Joshua Bell, actor Leslie Odom, Jr., jazz bassist and composer Stanley Clarke, mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, pianist and composer Billy Childs, television commentator Gretchen Carlson, pianist and pedagogue André Watts, Kevin Sylvester, and Wilner Baptiste from Black Violin, and violinist and composer Daniel Bernard Roumain.
The idea for MBC started with a recording Rachel Barton Pine made for Cedille Records in 1997 titled Violin Concertos by Black Composers of the 18th and 19th Centuries. The album contains historic compositions by Afro-Caribbean and Afro-European composers from the Classical and Romantic eras that had long been underrecognized. Soon after its release, Pine found herself sitting on diversity panels and receiving numerous inquiries from students, parents, teachers, and colleagues about where to find more works by Black composers. She quickly discovered that much repertoire by Black composers is out of print or only exists in manuscript. So, in 2001, her not-for-profit Rachel Barton Pine Foundation committed to its Music by Black Composers project. Over the past two decades, MBC has collected 900+ works by more than 450 Black composers from North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania, written by men and women from the 18th to the 21st centuries.
Pine is an award-winning, chart-topping violinist who performs with the world's leading orchestras and has recorded 39 acclaimed albums. Her performances are heard on NPR and stations around the globe. She has appeared on The Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, CBS News, CNN, PBS NewsHour, and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and in media outlets around the world. In addition to the MBC project, the 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.
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