Black Classical Musicians in Philadelphia PDF Download

Author: Elaine Mack
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780976735601
Category : African American musicians
Languages : en
Pages : 387

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Book Description
"In over 45 personal interviews, 4 generations of classically trained Black musicians, ranging in age from 17 to 95, tell their peronal stories. Most of these musicians were born, bred, educated, and in all cases, contributed significantly to the musical life of the great city of Philadelphia, a city with a well established and vital Black community"--Jacket.

Author: Dr. George E. Allen
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
ISBN: 1466983515
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
In his memoir, DR. GEORGE E. ALLEN looks back at a career spanning more than five decades of teaching music to Philadelphia students. Early on in life, he learned about many styles of music, and he took his love of the art to college, where he earned multiple degrees before joining the Philadelphia School District. There, he earned the respect of students, fellow music teachers, and music administrators. It wasn’t easy, but he did it his way and enjoyed positive results. He inspired the same type of dogged effort in his students, relying on a phrase that he placed at the beginning of all his syllabi: “It is better to know than to think you know.” He first heard that on the phone from Ellis Marsalis, the father of jazz musician Wynton and a well-known musician in his own right. Allen adopted the phrase as one of his own mantras, never allowing his students to say “I think” or “I can’t.” Whether you are someone who loves music, an education professional, or someone thinking about becoming a teacher, you can find inspiration in Allen’s love for music, education, and his students. It was time for me to begin serious work on writing about my experience as a music educator in Philadelphia because I did it differently with satisfying results.

Author: Charles Kelley Jones
Publisher: Associated University Presse
ISBN: 9780934223867
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
"Johnson pursued all phases of his music with unmatched skill and fervor, even to the detriment of his health. At the time of his untimely death in 1844, Johnson had become the most prolific and widely traveled American composer, bandmaster, and performer in our nation's first century."--Jacket.

Author: Joseph Horowitz
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393881253
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2021 A provocative interpretation of why classical music in America "stayed white"—how it got to be that way and what can be done about it. In 1893 the composer Antonín Dvorák prophesied a “great and noble school” of American classical music based on the “negro melodies” he had excitedly discovered since arriving in the United States a year before. But while Black music would foster popular genres known the world over, it never gained a foothold in the concert hall. Black composers found few opportunities to have their works performed, and white composers mainly rejected Dvorák’s lead. Joseph Horowitz ranges throughout American cultural history, from Frederick Douglass and Huckleberry Finn to George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and the work of Ralph Ellison, searching for explanations. Challenging the standard narrative for American classical music fashioned by Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, he looks back to literary figures—Emerson, Melville, and Twain—to ponder how American music can connect with a “usable past.” The result is a new paradigm that makes room for Black composers, including Harry Burleigh, Nathaniel Dett, William Levi Dawson, and Florence Price, while giving increased prominence to Charles Ives and George Gershwin. Dvorák’s Prophecy arrives in the midst of an important conversation about race in America—a conversation that is taking place in music schools and concert halls as well as capitols and boardrooms. As George Shirley writes in his foreword to the book, “We have been left unprepared for the current cultural moment. [Joseph Horowitz] explains how we got there [and] proposes a bigger world of American classical music than what we have known before. It is more diverse and more equitable. And it is more truthful.”

Author:
Publisher: Greenwood
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
The first in a projected series of idiom-specific bibliographies in black music, this work treats classical music. It is a comprehensive index to newspaper and periodical indexes, biographical dictionaries, bibliographies, dissertations and theses, music collections, and published discographies. . . . Scholars, researchers, students, and reference librarians will find that this guide makes searching easier; bibliographers will welcome its detailed and helpful bibliographies. . . . A very fine addition for all music and academic libraries. Choice This comprehensive guide is the first to cover the full range of black activity in classical music, with more than 4,000 references to over 300 performers and ensembles. Compiler John Gray has organized a wealth of resources spanning from the mid-eighteenth century to the present, and ranging geographically from Europe and Africa to the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Containing sections on composers, conductors, individual instrumentalists, symphony orchestras, opera singers and companies, the work builds on earlier research in this long-neglected subject, and brings the black musical legacy to new levels of prominence and accessibility.

Author: Raoul Abdul
Publisher: Dodd Mead
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
From the moment that Joseph Boulogne Saint-Georges poised his violin to play at the court of Louis XVI in eighteenth-century France, the Black presence has been felt in the world of classical music. Today, the names of Leontyne Price and Andre Watts are household words. These are only two of the hundreds of Blacks who have made important contributions to the concert and opera scene. For over a quarter of a century, the author's provocative and often witty review of musical events have appeared in the Black press. In this informal history, he uses some of these pieces as a point of departure for discussion of Blacks in classical music from the eighteenth century to the present day. Included are composers, singers, operas and opera companies, keyboard artists, instrumentalists, conductors, orchestras, choruses, and critics.

Author: Suzanne Cloud PhD and Diane Turner PhD
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1467107840
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
Many scholars have traced improvised music in Philadelphia back through ragtime to the prominent Black orchestras that played quadrilles and marches for high-society dances in the 19th century, with one of the most famous led by Philadelphian Francis "Frank" Johnson. The Black migrations from the South to the North after World War I carried performers and their music to Chicago; New York City; Washington, DC; and Philadelphia. Musicians like Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane came from the Carolinas and started careers in Philadelphia, while homegrown talent from the city's multiethnic neighborhoods--including violinist Joe Venuti, saxophonists Jimmy Heath and Charlie Ventura, organists Shirley Scott and Trudy Pitts, and pianist McCoy Tyner--made the world take notice of the musical gifts that contributed to the celebrated Philly sound. Philadelphia Jazz celebrates the immense contributions that the city's jazz community has made to America's true classical music.

Author: Robert Lee Watt
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538194759
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
This book contains conversations with nineteen African American classical musicians currently performing—or who have previously performed—in America’s major symphony orchestras. Each chapter focuses on the story of one musician and sheds light on the realities of African American musicians playing in a musical environment that absolutely forbade their membership over half a century ago. These conversations explore the deeply ingrained prejudices that some hold against African American people in symphony orchestras, conservatories, and other musical institutions. By amplifying these voices, the book provides a variety of perspectives on the almost cloistered world of these beloved institutions. The stories and lessons shared in this book will be invaluable to music students, teachers, and orchestral professionals.

Author: Allen B. Ballard
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 9781462052837
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
One More Day's Journey chronicles the movement of African Americans from South Carolina to Philadelphia during the Great Migration. Alex Haley said, "It is informative and emotionally moving, and I recommend it." Ralph Ellison said, " I recommend it highly to all who would add to their knowledge of American History."

Author:
Publisher: Schirmer Trade Books
ISBN: 9781736533406
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
Florence loved her mother's piano playing and wanted to be just like her. When she was just four years old she played her first piano concert and as she grew up she studied and wrote music hoping one day to hear her own music performed by an orchestra. This is the story of a brilliant musician who prevailed against race and gender prejudices to become the first Black woman to be recognised as a symphonic composer and be performed by a major American orchestra in 1933.