Classically Black

Black classical musicians have been composing substantial music for centuries. This February, we shined the spotlight on a score… one every weekday… of great composers with roots in Africa.We met Le Mozart Noir… the man who not only was a world-famous swordsman, but an acknowledged master of the violin bow and the composing quill, playing duets with Queen Marie Antoinette. We visited a city of Creole musical dynasties, when New Orleans was home to the finest orchestras in the new world. We rediscovered a woman tirelessly composing in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, many of whose works were likewise rediscovered: in a dilapidated downstate summer house, leading to a worldwide wave of interest in her music. And we heard a sinfonietta by a 2oth century New York composer… who himself was named after an Afro-English composer whose interest in American music made him a 19th century fan favorite in the U.S.Looking for the music? TSPR Music Director Ken Zahnle shares all the compositions he featured on Ovation on a Spotify playlist.

Esmonde Dédé

Tri States Public Radio | By Ken Zahnle

Published February 2, 2023 at 6:00 AM CST

Esmonde Dédé was born in New Orleans in 1827, a member of the fourth generation of a free creole family of a thriving city of music. The Crescent City already boasted symphony orchestras and the Theatre d’Orleans, one of the leading opera houses on the continent for half a century.

The young Dédé was a violin prodigy who would learn music theory from the New York-born Charles-Richard Lambert, himself part of a New Orleans black classical dynasty.

Dédé worked as a cigar maker to save money to travel to Paris, where he became a student and an auditeur at the Paris Conservatoire.

In the early 1860s, Edmond took a post in Bordeaux to conduct the ballet company at the Grand Théâtre there, where he would also lead bands at the popular cafés in the city.

Dédé continued to compose. His Quasimodo Symphony premiered in 1865 back home in New Orleans, to a large audience of prominent local free people of color and visiting Northern whites.

He returned to New Orleans just once, in 1893, when three benefit concerts were held in his honor, featuring the city’s elite musical innovators, including the teacher of a future musical star… pianist Jelly Roll Morton.

Edmond Dédé… classically black.