February 2nd, 2022 • Music Education
Celebrate Black History Month: Black Women in Music
February is Black History Month, and we are eager to celebrate the numerous achievements by African Americans as well as acknowledge their central role in U.S. history! Keep reading to explore the multi-faceted and historic careers of five Black women and their exemplary contributions to music history and scholarship.
“First Lady of Song” Ella Fitzgerald was born April 1917 in Newport News, Virginia, and was often known throughout her career for her impeccably sweet tone quality and impressive vocal range. With a varied career spanning almost six decades, Ella performed with iconic pop and jazz stars such as Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie, just to name a few. She also recorded prolifically and demonstrated her excellent interpretative skills in songbooks in which she sang nearly 250 iconic songs (19 volumes!) by artists such as Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, George Gershwin and more. Partnerships and collaborations with artists such as Armstrong, Ellington and The Ink Spots only augmented her impressive solo career.
Fitzgerald’s accolades include a Presidential Medal of Freedom, 14 Grammy Awards, a National Medal of Arts, and a George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement.
Listen to Ella’s incredible discography here!
American musicologist, author, and teacher Eileen Southern was born in February 1920 and was known for her transformative and significant scholarship in the area of Black musical styles, musicians and composers. First succeeding as a pianist, she made her debut in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall at the age of 18 and eventually pursued degrees in music at the University of Chicago. She was encouraged by her advisor to pursue her academic interest in African-American folk music, and thus continued her studies at New York University and received a PhD in musicology in 1961. She also studied piano privately at the Chicago Musical College, Juilliard and Boston University.
In 1974, Southern became a lecturer at Harvard University and became the first Black woman to be appointed a tenured full professorship at Harvard just two years later. While at Harvard, she was the chair of the department of Afro-American studies and published her influential book “The Music of Black Americans.” She is also known for the “Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians.”
African-American classical composer, pianist, organist, and teacher Florence Price was born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1887. Known for being the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, she was also the first Black female composer to have a composition performed by a major U.S. orchestra. The premiere of this piece (her Symphony No. 1 in E minor) was part of a set of concerts presented by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in June of 1933. Though this premiere brought recognition to Price’s name and work, she would “continue to wage an uphill battle—a battle much larger than any war that pure talent and musical skill could win. It was a battle in which the nation was embroiled—a dangerous mélange of segregation, Jim Crow laws, entrenched racism, and sexism.” (Women’s Voices for Change, March 8, 2013.)
Price composed over 300 works, including four symphonies, four concertos, as well as a plethora of choral and solo vocal works, chamber music and music for solo instruments.
Check out Price’s music here!
American composer, performer, and multi-media artist Pamela Z was born in New York in 1956, but raised in the Denver Metro Area. Trained as a classical vocalist, Pamela is known for her experimental combination of solo voice with electronic processing and combining vocal sounds with spoken word, extended techniques, and sampling/sound manipulation. Her performance work is processed in real time through software programs and special controllers/sensors that allow her to physically gesture to manipulate the sound of her voice and often included projected media.
In addition to her solo performing career, Z has composed for and collaborated with ensembles such as the Kronos Quartet, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Eighth Blackbird, flautist Claire Chase, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and more. She has also presented solo exhibitions at fine art institutions such as the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the Savvy Contemporary in Berlin, and the Trondheim Elektroniske Kunstsenter in Trondheim, Norway.
You can listen to Pamela Z’s work here!
Acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator Jessie Montgomery was born and raised on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, “where artists gravitated to the hotbed of artistic experimentation and community development.” Jessie is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation and serves as the composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, The Sphinx Organization’s professional touring ensemble. Montgomery has been affiliated with The Sphinx Organization since 1999, helping them in their mission to support young African-American and Latinx musicians. Her works have been performed by the major US orchestras of Dallas, Minnesota, San Francisco, and New York, as well as ensembles such as the Catalyst Quartet. She regularly appears in performance with her own ensembles as well as with the Silk Road Ensemble and Sphinx Virtuosi.
Montgomery’s unique musical experiences and passions have allowed her to become one of the most celebrated contemporary composers of the decade, but also to develop a career that combines composing, performing, education, and advocacy.
“Music is my connection to the world. It guides me to understand my place in relation to others and challenges me to make clear the things I do not understand. I imagine that music is a meeting place at which all people can converse about their unique differences and common stories.” — Montgomery
Check out Jessie’s music and recordings here!
