Music by Black Composers for Flute
Centering musical work around collaboration, community engagement and bringing voice to the absent narratives in the arts.
Works by Black Composers!
Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Support for Individual Artist Grant This grant focuses on creating ten video recordings of works by Black composers to help insure access to works by these composers, representing works from various time periods and musical styles.
This project was made possible by the voters of Minnesota thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund and the general fund.
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This recording showcases the concept of program music in adaptations by contemporary composers as well as by artists of former times. Program music, which – in simplified terms – attempts to express a program, story, narrative, or idea, was at its height of popularity in the nineteenth century. Its proponents sought to depart from and create a contrast to purely absolute music, whose aesthetic is primarily concerned with form and technique, free from any extramusical references. This led to great polarization within the spectrum of instrumental music. However, there are many examples of works/compositions in between absolute and program music that draw on both aesthetics. The selections for this recording demonstrate just that. We hear a wide range of programmatic approaches unfold, continually reinterpreting and reshaping the concepts and possibilities of instrumental music.
–Bettina S. Muehlenbeck