History will be made at Carnegie Hall next year, as an all-Black classical symphony orchestra is slated to make its debut.
In 2022, an all-Black classical symphony orchestra will perform at New York’s Carnegie Hall for the first time in the concert venue’s 130-year history.
The Gateways Music Festival Orchestra, under the baton of star US conductor Michael Morgan, will perform a world premiere of a new commission by jazz composer Jon Batiste, who recently scooped an Oscar for his original music in Disney’s Soul.
Batiste’s work will feature alongside the music of classical greats, including Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Florence Price’s Third Symphony, and Sinfonia No. 3 by George Walker, the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, whose centennial falls next year.
The finale of the concert, taking place on 24 April 2022, is an orchestral rendering of James V. Cockerham’s Fantasia on ‘Life Every Voice and Sing’, a song with a deep history of Black pride.
Lee Koonce, president and artistic director of Gateways, says the ensemble’s “journey to Carnegie Hall has been 28 years in the making”.
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