Randall Goosby in a virtual performance of Florence Price’s Adoration.
“With his newly released debut recording on Decca Classics, [violinist Randall] Goosby says he seeks to ‘amplify the black voices and the voices of those who didn’t have a chance to have their music widely heard and appreciated during their lifetime,’ ” writes Brian Wise in Tuesday’s (11/23) BBC Music Magazine (U.K.). “Titled Roots, the album features composers such as William Grant Still, Florence Price and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, as well as those inspired by African-American culture … ‘I’m in love with Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, the way that so many other violinists and musicians are. But …. I’ve become aware of the fact that there’s a lot of other music out there that we don’t know about that is also great.’ The album features … Florence Price’s Fantasies Nos. 1 & 2 for violin and piano [and] Adoration [and] Still’s 1943 Suite for Violin and Piano.” Goosby discusses his upbringing in Jacksonville, Florida, where he performed with the Jacksonville Symphony at age nine; mentors including violinist Sanford Allen, the first Black member of the New York Philharmonic; upcoming concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and his wish for “more knowledge of the fact that this music really is by and for everyone.”
