A video playlist for Black History Month

Explore the music of 18th-century composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges; 20th-century composers Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson and George Walker; contemporary composers Jessie Montgomery and Tyshawn Sorey, and an excerpt previewing a new work by composer Courtney Bryan, and other selections, in a Black History Month video playlist hosted on CSOtv. 

Also this month, the premium CSO Sessions series will showcase newly recorded performances of chamber music by composers Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Florence Price. Her work was first performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under music director Frederick Stock in 1933, making her the first Black woman to have her music performed by a major U.S. symphony orchestra.

In featured clips compiled for Black History Month, listen to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a 2019 Chicago premiere performance of James Lee III’s Sukkot Through Orion’s Nebula, the CSO’s first performance of William Grant Still’s In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy and Walker’s Lyric for Strings in a 2018 performance, led by Riccardo Muti.

Throughout February, Experience CSO will feature articles that explore stories of Black composers and their music.

This playlist is no longer available.