The classical world experienced something of a come-to-Jesus moment during the pandemic. Productions (and their paying audiences) vaporized, the fragility of the orchestral ecosystem was made glaringly clear, and the matter of increasing diversity of orchestras and the people who listen to them gained urgency beyond the usual bullet points at a board meeting.
Still, classical music has a long way to go. According to figures reported by the League of American Orchestras in 2014, only 1.4 percent of American orchestral musicians were Black. A 2016 survey by the League found that 5 percent of conductors on larger-budget orchestras were Black (that number dipping to 3.6 percent among smaller ensembles). And Black composers represent just a tiny fraction of the concert repertoire that makes it to the stage — despite a rich legacy of American classical music by Black artists that seems to grow through scholarship every day.
This Black History Month, a wide array of classical offerings happening around Washington highlights the long, proud and unfairly overlooked legacy of Black composers and artists in American classical music, and doubles as a preview of major talents pushing for a more promising future.
Sphinx Symphony Orchestra at 25
On Jan. 31 at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, conductors Tito Muñoz and Eugene Rogers (artistic director of the Washington Chorus) kick off Black History Month with this evening-length celebration of the landmark Black and Latino orchestra’s silver anniversary, co-presented by Washington Performing Arts. Soprano Aundi Marie Moore, Exigence Vocal Ensemble and members of the Washington Chorus will perform works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Valerie Coleman, Michael Abels, Carlos Cordero, Julie Flanders and Kennedy Center composer-in-residence Carlos Simon — a Sphinx commission titled “Motherboxx Connection.” The highlight, though, is “Seven Last Words of the Unarmed,” a stirring multi-movement work by composer Joel Thompson, featuring the last words of Black men “lost before their time,” as put by Rogers, who led the 2016 premiere of the work by the Michigan State Glee Club. 8 p.m. Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW. $20-$50. kennedy-center.org.
‘Living the Dream … Singing the Dream’
On Feb. 5 at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Choral Arts offers its 35th annual choral tribute to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., co-presented by Washington Performing Arts. NBC4 anchor Shawn Yancy hosts this year’s program, featuring D.C. gospel titan Ralph Alan Herndon; the Washington Performing Arts Men, Women and Children of the Gospel choirs (led by artistic directors Michele Fowlin and Theodore Thorpe III); and Choral Arts, led by recently appointed artistic director Jace Kaholokula Saplan. A packed program offers spirituals and gospel mainstays from artists including André J. Thomas, Melvin Bryant Jr. and Evelyn Simpson-Curenton, plus a handful of Herndon’s own arrangements. As a centerpiece, the Rev. John Adams will receive the 2023 Choral Arts Humanitarian Award. 7 p.m. Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW. $25-$75. choralarts.org.
‘Our Song, Our Story’
Composer, pianist and Chorale Le Chateau founding director Damien Sneed brings together this program of Black artists and composers paying tribute to legendary opera stars Marian Anderson and Jessye Norman. Accompanied by Sneed and the Griot String Quartet, soprano Jacqueline Echols and baritone Justin Austin will sing solo and duo works by Margaret Bonds, Harry T. Burleigh and Richard Smallwood and a newly commissioned work by Sneed, as well as music by Handel, Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, Richard Strauss and Gershwin. The Feb. 10 concert at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater is a co-presentation of Washington Performing Arts and the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts. 7:30 p.m. Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW. $30-$75. washingtonperformingarts.org.
Fairfax Symphony Orchestra
Violinist Rachel Barton Pine’s commitment to playing the work of Black composers goes back 25 years to her 1997 recording “Violin Concertos by Black Composers Through the Centuries,” featuring music by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges; José White Lafitte; and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. A newly updated and expanded reissue finds Pine reprising those recordings with Chicago’s Encore Chamber Orchestra and adding a new recording of Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by incoming Baltimore Symphony Orchestra music director Jonathon Heyward. On Feb. 11 at the Center for the Arts at George Mason University, Pine makes her debut with the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra (led by Christopher Zimmerman) performing Price’s concerto as well as Pablo de Sarasate’s “Fantasy on Bizet’s ‘Carmen.’’’ 8 p.m. Center for the Arts at George Mason University, 4373 Mason Pond Dr., Fairfax. $45-$70. fairfaxsymphony.org.
Leah Hawkins
Fresh from our annual “23 for ’23” roundup of rising talents in the classical world (and before taking up the role of Musetta in the Met’s “La Bohème” in May) soprano and Philadelphia native Leah Hawkins will give her Marian Anderson Vocal Award Recital at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater on Feb. 12. Along with works by Wagner, Poulenc and Copland, she’ll offer a selection of works by Black composers including Jacqueline Hairston’s arrangement of “Guide My Feet,” William Grant Still’s “Songs of Separation” and Jamaican composer Peter Ashbourne’s “Five Songs for Soprano and Piano” (based on Jamaican folk songs). She’ll also sing the Kennedy Center premiere of “Proverb.” 2 p.m. Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW. $39-$49. kennedy-center.org.
Seth Parker Woods
On Feb. 12 and 13, the star cellist and recipient of the 2022 Chamber Music America Michael Jaffee Visionary Award comes to Dumbarton Oaks for an intimate recital with pianist Andrew Rosenblum. Along with works by Rachmaninoff and Schumann, Woods’s Dumbarton debut will feature music for cello and piano by Florence Price; Coleridge Taylor Perkinson; and George Walker, whose music Woods celebrated last November with a tribute recital at the Phillips Collection. 7 p.m. Dumbarton Oaks, 1703 32nd St. NW. $55. doaks.org.
‘Our New Day Begun: A Tribute to Black History’
Founded in 1798, America’s oldest continuously active professional musical organization is preparing to celebrate its quasquibicentennial (that’s 225 years, folks) later in the season. For its Black History Month tribute on Feb. 26, Gunnery Sgt. Hiram Diraz will lead Kevin Day’s Euphonium Concerto on a program featuring music by Valerie Coleman, Omar Thomas, Adolphus Hailstork, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Erik Santos, whose setting of poems by Langston Hughes and Rainer Maria Rilke will be sung by tenor Scott Piper of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance. 2 p.m. Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center, Northern Virginia Community College, 4915 E. Campus Dr., Alexandria. Free. marineband.marines.mil.
‘Cotton’
On Feb. 28 at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, composer Damien Geter (whose “An African-American Requiem” knocked my socks clear off last year) returns with a new song cycle inspired by the work of photographer John E. Dowell. “Cotton” will feature mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves — fresh from her portrayal of Mary Cardwell Dawson — and baritone Justin Austin with pianist Laura Ward. And the songs themselves draw from the work of poets including Nikki Giovanni, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Afaa Michael Weaver and Trapeta Mayson. The concert, presented by Washington Performing Arts, is also the inaugural Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Recital. 7:30 p.m. Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW. $30-$75. washingtonperformingarts.org.
