Even with centuries of classical music available to us, Black composers and their works are still underrepresented, both on the opera and concert stage. It’s time we celebrate and bring in the voices of Black composers who have helped influence our musical landscape!
In February, we celebrate Black History Month, a time for us to honor the triumphs and struggles of African Americans throughout U.S. history. Even though we are only highlighting five composers in this blog post, there have been hundreds of notable Black composers throughout American history, and thousands more we may never have the opportunity to learn about. We invite you to make William Grant Still, Francis Johnson, Margaret Bonds, George Walker, and Joseph Bologne the beginning of your next musical listening journey.
William Grant Still
William Grant Still was the composer of nearly two hundred works, including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, over thirty choral works, art songs, chamber music, and works for solo instruments. Born in Mississippi in 1895, he grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. Because of his close association and collaboration with prominent African-American literary and cultural figures, Still is considered to have been part of the Harlem Renaissance. Still has been referred to as the “Dean of Afro-American Composers,” and was the first American composer to have an opera produced by the New York City Opera. Still is known primarily for his first symphony, Afro-American Symphony(1930), which was, until 1950, the most widely performed symphony composed by an American. He was the first African-American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra, the first to have a symphony (the first one he composed) performed by a leading orchestra, the first to have an opera performed by a major opera company, and the first to have an opera performed on national television.
Suggested listening: Afro-American Symphony
Francis Johnson
Born in 1792, Francis Johnson was a prolific musician and composer during the Antebellum period. African American composers were rare in the U.S. at this time, but Johnson was among the few who were successful. He was a virtuoso of the (now rare) keyed Kent bugle and the violin, and he wrote more than two hundred compositions of various styles; operatic airs, patriotic marches, ballads, cotillions, quadrilles, quicksteps and other dances. Only manuscripts and piano transcriptions survive today. Johnson was the first African American composer to have his works published as sheet music. He also was the first African American to give public concerts and the first to participate in racially-integrated concerts in the United States. He led the first American musical ensemble to present concerts abroad, and he introduced the promenade concert style to America.
Suggested listening: Victoria Gallop
Margaret Bonds
Margaret Bonds was an American composer, pianist, arranger, and teacher. One of the first Black composers and performers to gain recognition in the United States, she is best remembered today for her popular arrangements of African-American spirituals and frequent collaborations with Langston Hughes. Bonds was born in Chicago in 1913, where her family was deeply involved in the civil rights struggles of the time. Bonds connected her father’s political activism with her mother’s sense of musicianship, doing much to promote the music of Black musicians in her lifetime. Her own compositions and lyrics addressed racial issues of the time. Among Bonds’s works from the 1950s is The Ballad of the Brown King, a large-scale work for chorus, soloists, and orchestra, which was eventually televised by CBS in 1960. As a pianist, she performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a historical moment, marking the first occasion a Black performer had performed with them as soloist. In addition, many well-known arrangements of African-American spirituals were created by Bonds.
Suggested listening: Spiritual Suite
George Walker
Born in 1922, George Walker was an American composer, pianist, and organist. He was the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, which he received for his work Lilacs in 1996. Walker’s first major orchestral work was the Address for Orchestra. His Lyric for Strings, an elegy dedicated to his mother after her passing, is his most performed orchestral work. He composed many works including five sonatas for piano, a mass, cantata, many songs, choral works, organ pieces, sonatas for cello and piano, violin and piano and viola and piano, a brass quintet and a woodwind quintet. He published over 90 works and received commissions from the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and many other ensembles. Walker was the recipient of six honorary doctoral degrees.
Suggested listening: Lyric for Strings
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges
While technically not from the United States, we’d be remiss if we didn’t introduce you to the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, whose story will soon be told on the big screen! The French Creole virtuoso violinist and composer was also conductor of the leading symphony orchestra in Paris. Saint-Georges was born in 1745 in the then-French colony of Guadeloupe, the son of Georges de Bologne Saint-Georges, a wealthy married planter, and an enslaved Senegalese African woman named Nanon. At the age of seven he was taken to France where he first came to fame as the best fencer in the country. He is only known to have lost one match.Little is known of his training as a violinist or as a composer. He began his professional career as a musician with Les Concerts des Amateurs, first as a violinist, then a soloist, then as its conductor. Under his leadership, it became regarded as the finest orchestra in Paris and one of the finest in all Europe. Today, le Chevalier de Saint-Georges is best remembered as the earliest European musician/composer, of full or partial African descent, to receive widespread critical acclaim. He published numerous string quartets, sonatas, and symphonies. In addition to his many violin concertos, Saint-Georges also composed several stage works, a rondeau for two violins, an adagio in F-minor, a harpsichord quartet, and several operas.
Suggested listening: “Enfin une foule… L’Amour, devient propice” from the opera L’Amant Anonyme
We hope you’ll add these composers to your listening list, and that you’ll take the time to get to know more of the many Black composers whose works populate classical music.