BLACK COMMUNITY ORCHESTRAS IN THE US

Cleveland Press on 17 November 1958 described the MPSO members as ‘housewives, factory workers, students, and professional people […] making beautiful music together in the Mt. Pleasant area’. On occasion, Donald White, the Cleveland Orchestra’s first black cellist, would join the section. The conductor of the PCO, Raymond L. Smith, was also a violist, but he made a living as a postman.

The creators of the early black orchestras faced hurdles with employment. Charles L. Turner, who conducted the MPSO (which disbanded on his death in 1999), is a case in point. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in music in 1941 at West Virginia State College (now University; in Institute, West Virginia) and a master’s degree and PhD (1953) at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now part of Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), he got a job as music director at a high school in a small town in West Virginia. Later he applied for a position at Steubenville High School, in Steubenville, Ohio, close to the borders of both Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Although the Ohio school system had taught black and white children together since 1883, they had not hired a black teacher before. Concerned parents discussed the appointment at school board meetings, and the board voted to approve his employment owing to the support of white colleagues. The local paper published an article – ‘Steubenville Gives Negro Tutor a Job’ (below) – describing these discussions, but its title misrepresented and thus undermined his previous position, which was as music director, not tutor.

Turner left Steubenville for other positions before ending up working in the public (state) school district of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1956, at a time when the city’s school system was known for its high-quality education. Regardless of the opportunities at his Cleveland school, Turner saw the need for an orchestra in which black musicians and patrons could enjoy classical music, so he co-created the MPSO with Murtis Taylor, who ran the Hamilton Recreation Center, where the orchestra rehearsed.

Both the PCO and the MPSO had violin instructors who were vital to their organisations. Violinist Denise Yancey (b.1953) fondly recalls playing in the MPSO with her mentor Martha Shipps (1930–2012). She was also in a string quartet, the Forest Hills Quartet, with Shipps and others from the orchestra; they played at weddings, children’s education concerts and black history concerts, exploring the repertoire of black composers such as Saint-Georges and Coleridge-Taylor. Shipps taught at the Cleveland Music Settlement, the Lorain Institute of Music and various Cleveland city public schools, as well as working as an actor at Cleveland’s Karamu House (the oldest African American theatre company in the United States). She was also an influential musician, and taught many of the violinists in the MPSO.

Violinist Denise Yancey

TURNER NEWSPAPER CUTTING COURTESY SAUNDRA GAYLE TURNER WIGGINS. DENISE YANCEY PHOTO FULLA LOVE ORCHESTRA

IN 1956, TURNER SAW THE NEED FOR AN ORCHESTRA IN WHICH BLACK MUSICIANS AND PATRONS COULD ENJOY CLASSICAL MUSIC

The first black musician to play in the Philadelphia Orchestra, violinist Booker Rowe (b.1940), retired in 2020 after 50 years there. He was most active in the PCO in his youth, from 1954 to 1956, becoming less involved as he became busier elsewhere. A PCO member who particularly impressed him was Edward Francis Hill, a black violinist, violist and arranger who had a printing press on which he published his arrangements. Rowe describes when he first heard Hill play during a break between rehearsals at the local retirement home, where the orchestra rehearsed on Sunday afternoons. Rowe was known as the ‘baby hotshot’, and Hill was in his eighties. ‘I heard him play the Paganini Caprice no.1, and I said, “My God, this guy can play!” It turns out he was the teacher of all of them.’ Hill had in fact taught many of the violinists in the orchestra.

HOW PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION WAS KEY

During the 1950s and 1960s, the public school system was where many people in the US, regardless of race, learnt about classical music. Unless a child came from a musical family, there were few other places where they would have exposure to the art form. PCO clarinettist George Allen (b.1936) began to learn his instrument through the public school system in Philadelphia. He joined the orchestra when he was in junior high school (approximately ages 12–15) and during his ten years there he eventually became principal clarinet. Rowe started playing the violin at age twelve, also through the public school system. Both men eventually received private lessons when their respective parents saw their blossoming interest in music. According to Allen, now there are no longer music programmes in predominantly black high schools (roughly ages 14–18) in Philadelphia, essentially ensuring that many black students do not learn about classical music or have access to instruments or instruction. Many urban schools in the United States currently reflect this.

Rowe (below) recalls: ‘Public school introduced me to racism as well as racial acceptance.’ Some of his public school teachers hindered his learning, while others nurtured it. At West Philadelphia High School, he loved the music theory and orchestra classes that introduced him to the standard repertoire, and the experience of playing in the All-City and All-State orchestras meant a lot to him.

Another challenge closely related to education is housing. During the desegregation of schools in the 1960s, the neighbourhoods in Cleveland experienced more segregation owing to redlining – a discriminatory practice of withholding services, bank loans, credit and healthcare from communities with minorities and low-income residents. As a result, the black population remained confined to specific areas. Often, black schools were closed and students were bussed elsewhere. Some felt that this broke up communities and took funding away from neighbourhoods that needed it most while not truly addressing the negative effects of segregation on the black community.

THE IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSE NEIGHBOURHOODS

A diverse upbringing made a difference to Charlotte Hines, a bassoonist in the MPSO who grew up in the Hough area in Cleveland. She was born in 1948, at a time when her neighbourhood housed people from many ethnicities – Japanese, Polish, Italian; so she was shocked when she first learnt about the Jim Crow laws (which enforced racial segregation) while visiting her family in Georgia in the early 1950s. Her family drove there with the help of the Green Book, a travel guide (first published in 1936) for black motorists compiled by postman Victor Hugo Green, which helped them find businesses that would serve them amid the segregation laws at the time. Unfortunately, after arriving in Georgia, the young Hines made the mistake of using the whites-only drinking fountain, which was clean compared with the one for black people. Luckily, as she recalls, her father was able to calm down the angry white man who caught her, and her family escaped with a stern warning.

In general music classes at elementary (primary) school, Hines learnt European folk songs and dances, such as polkas and waltzes, as well as American tap dancing. When she was in ninth grade (aged 14–15), in the early 1960s, her school received new instruments and she began to learn the bassoon. She was taught by some fantastic teachers, including orchestra director Turner.

The Philadelphia Concert Orchestra in the mid-1950s, when Booker Rowe was principal second violin

BOOKER ROWE PHOTO JESSICA GRIFFIN. PCO PHOTO COURTESY BOOKER ROWE

Hines laments the change in her childhood neighbourhood over the years. With the segregation due to redlining, it became increasingly challenging for people of different ethnicities and socio-economic levels to mix within urban communities. Lawmakers in the US have always funded schools based on property taxes and the availability of state and federal money, resulting in poorer neighbourhoods receiving less support. In addition, schools in low-income areas often have little to no remaining funding for music, arts and sports compared with those in the wealthier suburbs.

Rowe’s violin teachers in Philadelphia were European immigrants: Italian Peter Aquilina; and Edgar Ortenberg (formerly of the Budapest Quartet), who fled Russia to escape the Nazis via France and South America before ending up in Philadelphia. In 1944, Rowe’s family moved from the third floor of an all-black terraced house to a single-family home in a predominantly Jewish and Italian neighbourhood. At that time, Jewish and Italian immigrants in the US were minority groups that also experienced racism, and Rowe’s family did not have a problem moving there. Access to immigrant teachers was therefore simple, and the cost of lessons was not exorbitant. PCO clarinettist Allen was the first in his family to play an instrument, and his father, a construction worker, could afford to pay for him to have lessons with Italian immigrant teacher Anthony Liberio.

Access to quality, non-racist teachers was important to the musicians I spoke with, but of equal importance was the support they received from their families. Rowe’s mother taught him the piano from the age of five, and his father, who worked at RCA Victor, always brought home records. Hines also came from a musical family where many relatives played instruments and her mother taught her the piano. As to those who did not come from a musical family, their parents dedicated money and time to instruments, lessons, music and performances.

BOOKER ROWE’S FIRST TEACHERS IN PHILADELPHIA WERE EUROPEAN IMMIGRANTS IN A PREDOMINANTLY JEWISH AND ITALIAN NEIGHBOURHOOD, MINORITY GROUPS THAT ALSO EXPERIENCED RACISM

The Sphinx Virtuosi performing at Carnegie Hall, New York

NAN MELVILLE

It is gratifying to learn how meaningful these orchestras were to the participants. Describing the MPSO, Hines says: ‘It was one of the orchestras I was meant to be in. I was the happiest playing at Olivet Church. I loved seeing those brown faces and felt happy to play for them.’ She values the way it acted like a service organisation by participating in community events such as the cotillions and private parties for black society organisations like the Links, Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) sorority, Tots and Teens, and Jack and Jill of America. In addition to playing at these community events, the orchestra presented seasonal concerts, performing Handel’s Messiah every year and spring concerts that would sometimes feature Mendelssohn’s Elijah. In addition, Turner would orchestrate spirituals, and occasionally they would accompany the singer (and film director Spike Lee’s aunt) A. Grace Lee Mims when she performed arias.

For the musicians, the orchestra’s role was not just about perfecting the music but also about appreciation and community. Allen recalls: ‘Black churches supported classical music. We were doing the classical repertoire and concerts were packed, especially for the Messiah.’ Rowe, one of the few black musicians to make it into a major orchestra, recalls how the PCO was for everyone: ‘There were no auditions, and no one was paid. Instead, it was a community affair; the audience knew the music and was supportive.’ Unlike the PCO, the MPSO was occasionally paid an honorarium provided by the Black Fund, a non-profit-making organisation that supported black society events in Cleveland.

THE LEGACY LIVES ON

Many of the American 20th-century black orchestras no longer exist owing to attrition, but what still exists is the need to create outlets in classical music for the African diaspora and underrepresented minorities. The powerhouse institutions Sphinx Organization (US), Chineke! Foundation (UK) and Buskaid (South Africa) are leaders. And as recently as May 2022, a new organisation in the US called the Black Orchestral Network was launched to shed light on and create solutions for the inequalities in the professional orchestral field. Black orchestral musicians still face problems with the audition process and struggle to achieve tenure if they do win a job.

Entrepreneurial individuals are taking matters into their own hands. Conductor Jason Ikeem Rodgers founded Orchestra Noir (based in Atlanta, Georgia) in 2016 to celebrate African American culture. The ensemble performs all genres of music and embraces the education and mentoring of the next generation of young musicians. Composer Matt Jones and violinist Stephanie Matthews founded the Re-Collective Orchestra in 2018 to champion black artists. In 2008 conductor Jeri Lynne Johnson created the Philadelphia-based Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra as an example of what artistic excellence and multiculturalism can look like. The orchestra is not all black but has many black musicians. It is to be hoped that this trend of self-empowerment continues to offer opportunities for talented black musicians.

The Southeast Symphony in Los Angeles, California, is the longest-surviving African American community orchestra. Its first season, in 1948, consisted of four concerts held in large black churches, and it has developed considerably since then, playing hundreds of concerts in communities around the city. This orchestra’s creation story is the same as that of the others – music educators needed a place for their students to develop and for black audiences to enjoy music freely. The ensemble seeks out neighbourhoods in Los Angeles which don’t usually have access to music in order to share it with them. It remains a training ground for black musicians who wish to perform orchestral music.

As a professional black classical musician myself, I see how difficult it can be for people to accept talent that doesn’t seem to fit the status quo. Despite my Grammy nominations, solo albums and orchestral job wins, I still experience judgements made about my ability based on how I look. However, I believe that people can change their biases and challenge stereotypes. Instead of seeing a musician from an under-represented background as an oddity or a potential affirmative-action appointment, perhaps we can learn to value their abilities and the strength they can bring to the classical music field.