The Music Workshop Company Blog 

Each month the Music Workshop Company publishes two blogs. One blog, written by the MWC team addresses a key issue in Music Education or gives information about a particular genre or period of music. The other blog is written by a guest writer, highlighting good practice or key events in Music Education. We hope you enjoy reading the blogs. 
 
We embed multimedia content in many of our blog posts, if you have rejected cookies for this website, you may have white spaces where the multimedia content should be. This is due to a recent change of policy by YouTube, Spotify and other platforms. We are in the process of updating all our posts. If you come across white spaces in a blog post, you can open the link in another browser or private browser and approve cookies to access all the content. We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes. 
 
To contribute as a guest writer please email Maria@music-workshop.co.uk 

Posts tagged “BLACK COMPOSERS”

Back to all posts

Walker Lyric for Strings

Posted on 19th June 2024 at 16:50
George Walker had a long, prolific composing career, was a respected teacher and was the first Black composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music alongside many other accolades.  
 
As a composer, he drew from a wide range of influences, and he made a huge impression on the music world, in spite of the racism that he experienced throughout his career. 
 
We explore his life and works, and suggest an activity inspired by his best-known composition, ‘Lyric for Strings’, which is recommended by the Model Music Curriculum for Year 4 and above. 
 
 
Image: Composer George Theophilus Walker at the piano, early 1940s. Source unknown. 
 
Read more

The Influence of African Musicians on Classical Music

Posted on 18th September 2017 at 14:00
Western classical music, by its very definition, is rooted in the sacred and secular traditions of the western world, centred around Europe. Although the genre has been influenced throughout history by folk song, jazz and music from other continents such as America and China, it rarely diverges far from its Western identity. 
 
Much like Western music outside the ‘classical’ box, African music is incredibly diverse, varying greatly by region. There is lots of opportunity for creative inspiration. 
 
In his 2006 book, Listening to Artifacts: Music Culture in Ancient Israel/Palestine, Theodore Burgh suggests that classical music ultimately has its roots in North Africa, in the art music of Ancient Egypt, as well as other ancient cultures such as Greece. However, there seems, at first glance, little evidence of African influence in classical music. When it is found, for example in Tippett’s A Child of Our Time, it is generally Afro-American in origin, interpreted in a western-dominated form of music. 
Read more

Archives

Designed and created by it'seeze