For One Violinist, Elevating Music By Black Composers Is A 20-Year Mission
Composers of color have long had to compete with dead white men for space on the concert stage. A new project, spearheaded by Rachel Barton Pine, seeks to correct that for the next generation.
Growing up in Chicago, Rachel Barton Pine took it for granted that there was a great body of classical music by black composers. She heard it on the radio. She played it in local orchestras as a student. The Center for Black Music Research is in Chicago. So, when the violinist recorded her first concerto album in 1997, she naturally included music by Afro-Caribbean and Afro-European composers.
"I wasn't thinking about any of the social
