“Last summer, as Black Lives Matter protests heated up the streets, it seemed like every American orchestra sent out press releases condemning racism,” writes A.Z. Madonna in Thursday’s (2/11) Boston Globe. “Black composers have long been treated as an afterthought or novelty by much of the concert-music world. But recently, a new wave of ensembles (and listeners) has begun to explore this music in earnest, treating it with the gravitas it has always deserved. Four local Black musicians with roots in the classical tradition spoke … about composers they think deserve more attention.” Included are interviews with violist Ashleigh Gordon (who recommends Scott Joplin and Chevalier de Saint-Georges), vocalist Nedelka Prescod (Richard Smallwood, Twinkie Clark, Kirk Franklin), countertenor and Handel and Haydn Society programming consultant Reggie Mobley (Florence Price, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Ignatius Sancho), and composer and conductor Julius Williams (Ulysses Kay, Undine Smith Moore, Clarence Cameron White, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, TJ Anderson, Tania León, William Banfield, Olly Wilson, Adolphus Hailstork). Says Julius Williams, “We have so many that I’m just afraid of missing anybody…. They’re not seen. People may read about them in books, but the music needs to be heard and played by different orchestras.”
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