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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.

Classically Black Spotify Playlist

Thank You for helping make February Classically… Black!

We’ve been humbly and pleasantly honored by the enthusiastic interest listeners have had in our Classically Black project!

As a thank-you bonus, we have prepared a Spotify playlist of all the works by these composers that we featured on Ovation.

To recap for any newcomers, every weekday during the past month we shared the stories of twenty great composers with African roots, as well as playing a featured work by each of those musicians.

If you missed it, it’s not too late!

All 20 two-minute episodes are still available to hear (or read), posted on our website for another month.

Enjoy!

Ken oversees all music programming for Tri States Public Radio, hosting the morning classical music program Ovation, the Saturday nigh jazz survey After Hours, and engineering recorded performances for TSPR. Ken is a native of Highland Park, IL, with degrees in music and broadcasting from Western Illinois University. Teenage years listening to Chicago's old-school fine arts and classical radio stations, coupled with a few months spinning discs on a college residence hall radio station, led him onto the primrose career path of radio. Ken has deep roots at TSPR, starting as a student staff announcer and host, before becoming news director for a group of local radio stations, then Program Director for Tri States Audio Information Services. When he's not deep within our studios and music library, he continues his over quarter-century of assisting Macomb High School's Marching Band.