Black Composers in Classical Music

The Greenwood encyclopedia of Black music, containing reference materials (volume 1), Afro-American idioms (volume 2), geographical studies (volume 3), and theory, education, and related studies (volume 4).

Biographical Background and A Bibliography of Composers of African Ancestry and Their Brass Music

Contents: The African-American Spiritual: Sources and Substance -- The African-American Spiritual: Origins and Proliferation of the Choral Arrangements -- The African-American Spiritual: Musical Characteristics of Unaccompanied Choral Arrangements

This book, Choral Music by African American Composers: A Selected, Annotated Bibliography, represents considerable research in two important categories of choral repertory: classical sacred and secular compositions, and arrangements of spirituals, published and unpublished.

Contents: Boatner, Edward Hammond -- Bonds, Margaret Allison -- Clark, Edgar Rogie -- Cunningham, Arthur -- Dawson, William Levi -- Dickerson, Roger -- Furman, James -- Hailstork, Adolphus Cunningham -- Harris, Robert A. -- Logan, Wendell Morris -- Moore, Carman -- Moore, Dorothy Rudd -- Price, John Elwood -- Ryder, Noah Francis -- Tillis, Frederick Charles

Spirituals were an intrinsic part of the African-American plantation life and were sung at all important occasions and events. This volume is the first index of African-American spirituals to be published in more than half a century and will be an important research tool for scholars and students of African-American history and music. The spirituals are neatly organized in four indexes: a title index, first line index, alternate title index and a topical index that includes twenty major categories. A bibliography of indexed sources serves as a guide for further research. --from Amazon.com

Following the pattern established with his pioneering works String Music of Black Composers and Woodwind Music of Black Composers, Aaron Horne now presents a comparable work for the piano and related instruments (such as accordion, harpsichord, and organ). Composers from Africa as well as the Diaspora are covered in this volume, the most comprehensive work on the topic yet published. Organized in alphabetical order by composer, each of the more than 200 entries provides information, where available, on the composer's life and career, and then details all works that include piano as well as information about commission, premiere, and composer bibliography and discography. The volume includes a keyboard music index as well as a general discography and a bibliography. --from Amazon.com

The James Weldon Johnson Collection offers a rich archive for researchers seeking to learn about African American music. James Weldon Johnson was a prolific lyricist, who often partnered with his brother, the musician Rosamond Johnson. The most enduring piece written by the Johnson brothers was “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” (1900), which became the official song of the N.A.A.C.P. and is widely known as the “Negro National Anthem.” Along with many other of Johnson’s lyrics, correspondence regarding music, and ephemera such as programs and playbills, the collection houses drafts of Johnson’s poem “National Hymn,” which would become the lyrics to “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.”

Including thirty-nine pieces for voice and piano created since 1968 by eighteen artists, A New Anthology of Art Songs by African American Composers navigates a varied musical terrain from classical European tradi­tions to jazz and spirituals. With nearly half of the featured songs composed by women and with others by lesser-known and emerging composers, this im­portant collection offers a diverse, representative sampling of African American art songs and works to secure the places of these songs and artists in the canon of contemporary American music. The featured composers are H. Leslie Adams, Mable Bailey, Charles S. Brown, Wallace McClain Cheatham, Adolphus Hailstork, Jacqueline B. Hairston, William H. Henderson, Jeraldine Saunders Herbison, Betty Jackson King, William Foster McDaniel, Undine Smith Moore, Byron Motley, Bar­bara Sherrill, Robert Owens, Nadine Shanti, Frederick Tillis, Dolores White, and Julius P. Williams. --from Amazon.com

Arranged in 5 volumes, from "early intermediate" (volume 1) to "advanced" (volume 5).

Following the pattern established with his pioneering work, Woodwind Music of Black Composers, Aaron Horne now presents a comparable work for the string music of Black composers. Composers from Africa as well as the Diaspora are covered in this, the most comprehensive work on the topic yet published. Organized in alphabetical order by composer, each entry provides information, where available, on the composer's life and career, and then details all works that include strings as well as information about commission, premiere, and composer bibliography and discography. The volume includes a string index, as well as a general discography and bibliography. This work should prove invaluable for scholars examining the impact of Black composers on classical music, opera, and ballet, and it will be equally valuable to those devising repertoire for teaching and concert purposes. --from Amazon.com

This 2-volume work (1) provides a multifaceted study that underscores the significance of the Western acoustic piano in Africa and the Diaspora; (2) presents a basis for African pianism from an historical perspective; (3) introduces proponents of African pianism, not only from West Africa where its genesis appears to have been set in motion, but also by those from other regions of Africa and the Diaspora; (4) offers commentary on the situation in the arts in general and examination of African pianism in particular; (5) puts forth arguments about why African pianism should exist on its own terms and not as an extension or imitation of piano music in the Euro-American mode; and (6) demonstrates the indigenization of the piano in Africa, just as the violin and the guitar have been transformed, where they no longer ‘belong’ to any one culture or country since their integration into the artistic practices of local communities. --from music-research-inst.org/

The preponderance of early Black composers wrote choral music and even the most outstanding among them did not compose works for woodwinds. However, the later half of the twentieth century has witnessed a rise in compositions for woodwinds, both for solo and chamber ensembles by relatively unknown Black composers. This pioneering volume will become the standard source of information on nineteenth and twentieth century Black composers from three continents as well as their woodwind compositions. It contains the most current and complete biographical data on 90 African composers, Afro-American composers, Afro-Latin composers, and Afro-European composers, including their education and professional experience and information on their continuing musical influence. A distinctive feature is the separate, easy-to-use woodwind music index of both published and unpublished works for solo and chamber ensembles that groups the music by medium and numbers into 27 categories that contain some 430 works. --from Amazon.com