Rachel Barton Pine performs with conductor Jonathan Rush and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Aug. 18 at Ravinia (at the pavilion, 5 p.m.). This is an amazing opportunity- to see Rachel Barton Pine in person is a joy.
Pine is a Chicago native and frequent CSO collaborator; she takes the stage with Rush and the orchestra for the CSO premiere of José White Lafitte’s Violin Concerto in F-sharp Minor, plus Paganini’s La Campanella. Pine recorded the concerto by White — a Cuban-French violinist and composer (1836–1918) — for her album Violin Concertos by Black Composers Through the Centuries. The 1997 release established her reputation as a passionate advocate for composers of African descent. The Washington Post described her as “an exciting, boundary-defying performer.” Pine “displays a power and confidence that puts her in the top echelon.”
Rush, a protégé of Marin Alsop and last summer’s Lead Seminario Conductor, joins the CSO for Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and the other pieces. A graduate of Peabody Conservatory, Rush grew up steeped in gospel and other roots-based genres. “What I bring is something so different,” he said. “My foundation was gospel. I’m not just going to bring classical, I’m going to bring soul … the whole music world that makes up Jonathan Rush. People my age, we have something to offer, and it’s completely different.”
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public Domain
Performers
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Jonathan Rush, conductor
Rachel Barton Pine, violin
Program
José White Lafitte: Violin Concerto
Niccolò Paganini: La campanella from Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor, op. 7
–Intermission–
Hector Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, op. 14
The Rachel Barton Pine Foundation’s Music by Black Composers Releases Violin Volume 2 and Violin Volume 3, for Elementary Studies
The new books contain a total of 31 works by 20 composers with streamable reference recordings, biographies, articles, and more.
The Rachel Barton Pine (RBP) Foundation’s Music by Black Composers project announces the release of Violin Volume 2 and Violin Volume 3 for elementary students, the second installment in a series of pedagogical books of music exclusively by Black classical composers from around the world. Each new volume is supplemented by two books that are sold separately: one for second violin accompaniment and one for piano accompaniment. The books will be distributed by Subito Music Corporation and can be ordered HERE.
MBC’s mission is to increase diversity in the world of classical music, inspire Black students to pursue instrumental training, and make the music of Black composers available to everyone. MBC books are designed to supplement the current instrumental training methods by providing students of all races and ethnicities a broader perspective of classical music composers throughout history, including composers working today.
The new books comprise 31 pieces — 16 in volume 2 and 15 in volume 3 — from the 18th through the 21st centuries, written by 20 different composers, five of whom are women, who together represent North America (U.S.), South America (Brazil), the Caribbean (Guadeloupe), Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone), and Europe (England and France). Volumes 2 and 3 add to a series that will ultimately include seven volumes, graded by difficulty from beginner to advanced concerto-level playing.
Additional orchestral instruments will be the subject of multiple future Music by Black Composer volumes, and subsequent publications will include works for school orchestras and chamber ensembles.
Like Violin Volume 1 (released in 2018), Violin Volume 2 and Violin Volume 3 include streamable audio reference recordings of each piece by Rachel Barton Pine, and video recordings performed by Sphinx Soloist Program artists Randall Goosby and Hannah White. Besides the notated music, the books contain biographies of each composer and two feature articles about indigenous fiddles of Africa and about classical music in New Orleans. There are also profiles of three Black role models in classical music: Terrance Gray, the former conductor of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra; Melissa White, a violin soloist and member of the Grammy-nominated Harlem Quartet; and Kelly Hall-Tompkins, an orchestral concertmaster and violin soloist.
“It’s an exciting milestone for the Foundation to finally share with elementary violinists these 31 imaginative and accessible pieces,” said Rachel Barton Pine, the president of the RBP Foundation. “We know that students will be inspired by the stories behind each composer and their respective works, as they dive into this wonderful music. We plan to continue to expand this project and amplify these long-overlooked pieces by Black composers. There is more advanced repertoire and expanded instrumentation in the works, so we’re excited about what is to come.”
Violin Volume 2 and Violin Volume 3 can be ordered .
From an article by Kyle MacMillan: Jose White wrote approximately 30 works, with his most famous being his Violin Concerto, and many had a Latin American flavor. “He didn’t write quartets or symphonies,” Pine said, “but like colleagues [Henri] Vieuxtemps and [Henryk] Wieniawski, he wrote many works for violin with piano accompaniment — short virtuoso pieces.”
According to Pine, White’s Violin Concerto sounds “completely European” but is written in his distinctive voice with “gorgeous melodies” and myriad technical demands, including unusually fingered octaves, that top anything found in the famously challenging music of Paganini. She believes the work is the equal of concertos by Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski, but it can suffer from what she sees as misguided comparisons by some listeners. (article)
For more information, please visit RBPFoundation.org, MusicbyBlackComposers.org, and RachelBartonPine.com.
Photos: Courtesy of Rachel Barton Pine unless otherwise noted.
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