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Overview

A conversation on the subject of Black and brown composers, musicians, and conductors in classical music doesn't usually spark a lively exchange about the latest concerts, published books, or recorded works. More often than not, the reaction is silence or a brief reply, which is not to say that conductors and artists around the world are not performing orchestral commissions and compositions. If the topic of Black and brown musicians comes up, some people will probably think of Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, or maybe James Brown or Public Enemy. But few will think of Francis (Frank) Johnson or William Grant Still or a host of other Black American classical composers. However, several semesters would not be enough to cover the wealth of material produced by classical musicians of the African diaspora. So, what happened to these African American composers, musicians, and conductors who contributed to the classical music traditions of America?

Be ready to:

Identify the lives of notable Black classical composers, conductors, and musical performers.

Demonstrate the concept of the linkage between the music of the "old guard"-musicians of yesteryear-and their impact on the contemporary Black classical musicians and compositions.

Describe the importance of Slave Songs of the United States and Music and Some Highly Musical People to the development of the survey of American music history.

List a few important African American classical singers who were strategic to the early development of establishing the bar for singers of the twentieth century.

Identify classical singers who were influential upon concert life in Black America during the first half of the twentieth century.

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References

African American Composers

The following web pages will help you gain further insight and stimulate your musical appetite for the evolving artists presently in the field of classical music:

Classical Musicians of African Descent

Ten Contemporary Black Classical Composers

Nineteen Black Composers You Should Know

Black American composer, performer, scholar, and critic William C. Banfield states,

I am invisible. I am perceived, I believe, like a ghost passing in a memorable melody, heard rarely and never seen.

(Banfield 2004, 196)

Banfield, who wrestles with this notion of invisibility partly blames mainstream American media and, following closely behind, academia and cultural institutions for not doing enough to extol "important creative cultural/social/spiritual aspects of Black artistic expressive culture" (ibid 196). Banfield states explicitly, "I want to erase the invisibility of Black composers, the men and women who are our 'Black Beethovens'" (ibid 196).

"In this age of P. Diddy, Jay-Z, and Beyoncé, I want to introduce into the scholarly discourse, into the loop representations, the notion of identity and expressions, which have been central to Black American composers since William Grant Still (1895-1978) wrote the Afro-American symphony in 1930, based on the blues" (Banfield 2004, 196). We will explore the importance of this symphonic work later in this lesson.

William Grant Still

William C. Banfield

Can you imagine American music without the work of Black composers or without Black music in general? Still, there is a refusal, a denial, of that reality.

William C. Banfield

We got some Black Beethovens living up in here, and what's most sad is, y'all don't even know it!