A Comprehensive List of Symphonic Works by Black Composers

On February 1st of this year, I embarked on an unexpected project. It started with a simple Google search, "Black Composers," and grew into the sad realization that there is an entire macrocosm of classical and more specifically symphonic music — a kind of music that is most near to my heart and consciousness — that I was previously wholly and inexcusably ignorant to. My original thought was that I typically only hear about and play the music of a small handful of black composers: William Grant Still, Florence Price, Jessie Montgomery, sometimes Samuel Coleridge-Taylor or George Walker, and of course the constantly lauded Joseph Bologne Chevalier de Saint Georges. Beyond that list, I knew of a few other composers of African descent but was familiar with little to none of their music, and even the composers I was familiar with I had only heard or played a handful of their music.

When I googled "black composers," I was disappointed to find versions of the same list over and over again. I looked at the first 13 results of the search, and within those lists, 12 names were mentioned 3 or more times (Jessie Montgomery being the only living composer of that group). Florence Price was mentioned most often (9 times), Samuel Coleridge- Taylor and William Grant Still were both on 8 individual lists, and George Walker, Scott Joplin, and Joseph Bologne Chevalier de Saint Georges were all on 7 different lists. I was further disappointed when other composers mentioned in many of these lists were mainstream, household names from jazz or popular music, such as Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and even Prince!

I knew these lists must be missing some great music, so I set out to make a list of 5-10 overlooked composers of African descent and started listening. And listening some more. At a certain point, I couldn't stop, because within a dozen hours, I had encountered sound worlds previously unknown to me that were capturing my imagination and attention. Not everything I heard was a masterpiece, but it has easily been the most enjoyable and captivating 3 weeks of listening I've done in a very long while.

In an attempt to not become completely overwhelmed, I explored exclusively symphonic works, generally avoiding anything labeled as a Concerto although some works for solo instruments with orchestra slipped through the cracks. The result of all this is a comprehensive list of Afro- descendant composers of symphonic music. This list contains 87 composers, with 261 works that have easily accessible recordings (i.e. YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, and/or Apple Music), and 318 works with no available recordings, many of which may not have accessible scores or parts either. There is a good chance that I'm still missing a number of black symphonic composers, but through various sources, I am fairly confident that this is close to 100% exhaustive. Also, it should be re-emphasized here that these are only those that composed works appropriate to be programmed on a full symphony orchestra subscription concert. There are many, many more Afro-descendant composers for other kinds of ensembles, but they are not included on this list.

This list will be different levels of shocking to different people: some will recognize most of these names but may find works they've not heard of. Others can barely glance at the list without being completely bowled over by the quantity and quality. Here is what I personally found most surprising about this list:

Geographical, chronological, and stylistic variety. This list has everything you could ever ask for in symphonic music. If you made a similar collection of Concertos by black composers, an entire symphony season (or two, or three!) could very easily be built around this music (this may be a discussion in a future blog post). This list includes everything from the Baroque dance music of Ignatius Sancho to the ground-breaking sounds of George Lewis and Tyshawn Sorey, from José Mauricio Nunes Garcia in 18th century Brazil to Fela Sowanda in 20th century Nigeria, from the Germanic traditions of Florence Price to the Italian bel canto operatic stylings of Antonio Carlos Gomes.

The neglect. This one shouldn't surprise me, but the extent of it still does. The two best examples I can give both come from the Coleridge-Taylor family. Song from Hiawatha, Op. 30 by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a 2-hour tour de force trilogy of cantatas, is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard, and was incredibly successful in the early half of the 20th century, yet has only one commercial recording from 1991. If that's not bad enough, his daughter Avril Coleridge- Taylor has a large selection of orchestral works, which we now know the incredible potential of because of the first recording of one of them, her Sussex Landscape, Op. 27, released just last year in 2022. This music is brilliantly orchestrated, with colors and emotions bursting out of it without abatement, and indicates one of the most dazzling romantic voices of the 20th century. Meanwhile, modern orchestras continue to release new Beethoven cycles, and different takes on Stravinsky. In my opinion, this is downright shameful. More resources must be put towards high-quality versions of music by black composers.

To be fair, orchestras cannot be entirely blamed for the neglect of this repertoire. Much of this music is difficult or expensive to access, or not published at all (as is the case with Avril Coleridge-Taylor). The expense and effort of collecting, deciphering, engraving, and publishing is too much for your average arts organization. And the process of rediscovering and recording works by black composers has begun in earnest in the last decade or so. Notably, Philadelphia Orchestra has been working to provide world- class recordings of the symphonies of Florence Price, and Paul Freeman's 8-volume Black Composers series is a redeeming beacon of performances.

I'm sure there are potential ways of speeding up this rediscovery, though. One thought is to encourage orchestras to hire resident Musicologists, who would work in tandem with the library to recover high-quality, intelligible scores and parts for some of this music. They would also be instrumental in programming, as they could offer great insight into which composers and/or specific works are most worthy and in need of recovery. Many orchestras have recently founded the position of Chief Diversity Officer, but they deal more with hiring practices and community engagement than the music that ends up on musicians' music stands. A musicologist would be much more suitable for that role.

My hope for this list is that it becomes a bouncing-off point for programmers, artistic directors, conductors, orchestra musicians, audience members, sponsors, etc. to explore a universe of music they more than likely have yet to encounter. I, for one, will be advocating for as many of these pieces as possible.

To start, I'm including links to 25 of my favorites, listed alphabetically below. Remember, these are selected from the meager 261 works that have been recorded off the list. Much of the music that has not been recorded is equally worthy of our attention. Please listen, explore, and be wowed.

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A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF SYMPHONIC WORKS BY BLACK COMPOSERS - PDF

Works in the PDF marked by “+” indicate a recommendation for programming/recording.

1. Kosbro - David Baker