#ClassicsaDay #BlackHistoryMonth Week 4 2024

Classical music originated in Western Europe, but it's not exclusive to dead, white European males. The challenge for February is to post videos of classical music either written or performed by musicians of color. 

There's a lot to choose from. I decided to focus on composers, but there are plenty of conductors and performers going back farther than you might think. Here are my posts for the fourht and final week of #BlackHistoryMonth 

02/26/24 Shawn Okpebholo: There is Always Light

This trio for clarinet, bassoon, and marimba was composed in 2021. The title comes from the spiritual "Hold On."

 

02/27/24 Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson: Worship A Concert Overture for Orchestra

Perkinson wrote classical music and founded the Symphony of the New World. He also composed for Max Roach, wrote film scores, and did arrangements for Marvin Gaye.

 

02/28/24 Zenobia Powell Perry: Echoes from the Journey

Perry was a composer and civil rights activist. Many of her compositions reference the Black Experience. In this work, she uses spirituals to illustrate that experience from Reconstruction through the 1960s.

 

02/29/24 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Ballade in A minor for Orchestra, Op. 33

This work was composed the same year his cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast was premiered, 1898. It was one of 92 works he published before his death at age 37.

 

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