Dr. Allegra Martin

Resources for Diversity in Programming:

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• A Lightly Annotated and Very Incomplete List of American Black Classical Composers by Allegra Martin​

• “To Fling My Arms Wide”: How Diversity in Programming Can Benefit Your Ensemble": Presentation for the Oxford Conducting Institute International Conducting Studies Conference 2021

  • BIBLIOGRAPHY 

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External links:

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• africlassical.com

  • African Heritage in Classical Music is a website by William J. Zick, a retired administrative law judge. This website is quite comprehensive and will offer some of the best biographies and works lists of black composers available.

• africandiasporamusicproject.org

  • The African Diaspora Music Project is run by Dr. Louise Toppin and her non-profit Videmus. Videmus aims to shine a spotlight on music by under-represented composers in many categories.

• www.colorado.edu/project/hidden-voices/about

  • Hidden Voices: Piano Music by Black Composers seeks to explore, document and make public the piano music currently held in the Walker-Hill Collection at the American Music Research Center at CU Boulder. Helen Walker-Hill was a phenomenal musicologist who researched Black women composers and her book From Spirituals to Symphonies: African American Women Composers and Their Music is an invaluable resource.

• www.composerdiversity.com

  • The Institute for Composer Diversity operates within the School of Music at the State University of New York at Fredonia. The Institute for Composer Diversity is committed to the celebration, education, and advocacy of music created by composers from historically underrepresented genders, racial, ethnic, and cultural heritages, and sexual orientations as well as disabled composers.

• www.darryltaylor.com/alliance/

  • The African American Art Song Alliance was founded by countertenor and professor Darryl Taylor, who serves on the faculty of the University of California, Irvine.

• www.mlagmusic.com/research/beyond-elijah-rock

  • Dr. Marques L. A. Garrett’s list of non-idiomatic music by Black composers. (Non-idiomatic means not based on a black idiom, such as spirituals, jazz, ragtime, hip-hop, etc.) Dr. Garrett’s handout for his NAfME presentation on this topic can be found here, with repertoire recommendations: https://nafme.org/wp-content/files/2020/01/Non-Idiomatic-Choral-Music-of-Black- Composers-Handout_Marques-L-A-Garrett.pdf

• www.musicbyblackcomposers.org

  • This website is a project of the Rachel Barton Pine foundation. Pine is a world-famous violinist with an interest in music education. The stated goals of this project include “inspiring Black students to begin and continue instrumental training by showing them that they are an integral part of classical music’s past as well as its future, and to make the music of Black composers available to all people regardless of background or ethnicity.”

• www.nanm.org

  • The National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc., by far the oldest organization on this list, was founded in 1919, and supports African American musicians working in all genres.

• www.newmusesproject.com​

  • The New Muses Project has an online database of composers from historically underrepresented genders and racial heritages to browse, ​including biographies, notable pieces, recordings, and links to scores. They also have a stated goal of increasing professional recordings of under-represented composers and access to their scores. 

• wophil.org/african

  • The Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy supports the work of the historical Women’s Philharmonic, an orchestra comprised of all women musicians that performed works by women.

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More links and link descriptions coming soon! Please contact me to recommend a link.

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