Maud Powell and Music by Black Composers
Even though Maud Powell passed away 100 years ago, I am constantly reminded of the relevance of her legacy. Powell believed that all Americans, men and women of every color, had the right for their voice to be heard as an advocate for universal suffrage. Powell was a passionate advocate for music by Americans, women, and black composers, including the Sierra Leone-English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Powell performed many of Coleridge-Taylor's short pieces for violin frequently, and also commissioned a violin concerto.
After receiving Maud's biography, violinist Rachel Barton Pine wrote: "It was a real revelation — not just because of how she was the greatest woman violinist in the world during her lifetime, and playing the works of black composers when white instrumentalists just didn't do that. It was the values by which she lived her life, playing concerts for communities that had never before had a classical concert, and using the recording technology as a further way to spread great music all over the place to people who had not yet had a chance to fall in love with it."
Rachel Barton Pine's Music by Black Composers project carries on Maud's vision and work. The center of this project is an 8 volume series of music by black composers from North and South America, Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean, accompanied by a coloring book. The featured composers found ways to work within a white-male dominated industry, in spite of extreme prejudice. Besides recordings and sheet music, Pine plans to launch an online database at musicbyblackcomposers.org comprising of all composers of African descent, living and deceased. Music will be searchable by style, length, gender, and other parameters, and users will find links to download the sheet music. “The main purpose of the series” says Pine, “is to inspire and encourage [more] African-American or Afro-European or Latino violinists to hopefully become part of classical music’s future by recognizing that they are actually part of classical music’s past. The secondary purpose is to diversify everybody’s repertoire so that students of all races and ethnicities can play this wonderful music.”
Enjoy this Strings Magazine article on the Music By Black Composers project.
And visit the Music By Black Composers project here.
This is just one example of how white artists can be advocates.
Black Lives Matter. Black Thoughts Matter. Black Art Matters. Black Music Matters. Black Hopes Matter. Black Dreams Matter. Black Futures Matter.
