As Black History Month comes to a close and Women's History Month begins, today I'm sharing some of my favorite Black female composers from a variety of genres and time periods that I'm excited to share with my elementary students.
I realized a few years ago that the majority of the female musicians I was sharing with my students were singers. There are so many fantastic singers to share but I certainly don't want my students to internalize the idea that girls can only be singers in music! As I have started to search more intentionally I have been thrilled to rediscover some composers I had forgotten about as well as learn about many amazing female composers who are completely new to me.
Florence Price (1887-1953)
I'm sure many music teachers will, like me, recall learning about Florence Price in college. She was, to quote Wikipedia, "the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, and the first to have a composition played by a major orchestra. Price composed over 300 works: four symphonies, four concertos, as well as choral works, art songs, chamber music, and music for solo instruments". Learn more about her on her website. I like sharing her Piano Concerto in One Movement with my elementary students:
Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981)
How did I not learn about this woman until recently?!? Mary Lou Williams was "an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records... Williams wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor, and teacher to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, and Dizzy Gillespie" (source). Amazing! Learn more about her on her website, and use this short preview of the documentary about her to share who she is with students:Micki Grant (1929-2021)
Micki Grant was a "multi-award-winning lyricist, composer, writer, director, actress and singer, revered as a trailblazer for African Americans in theater, television and music for over six decades...She was the first woman to win a Grammy Award for the score of a Broadway musical, winning Best Score for Don’t Bother Me I Can’t Cope in 1973. She was also the first woman to earn Tony nominations for all three musical theatre writing disciplines: book, music and lyrics" (source). Learn more about her here, and hear the full cast recording of "Don't Bother Me" here. This video is completely unrelated in many ways but it shows her acting in a scene where she's talking about music, and shows a lot of her personality:Sylvia Robinson (1925-2011)
Sylvia Robinson is another musician that I can't believe I didn't learn about until recently. She is known as the "Mother of Hip Hop" and founded the label Sugar Hill Records. She co-wrote and produced Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" and "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five! She also wrote "It's Gonna Work Out Fine" for Ike and Tina Turner, among many others. You can read more about her here, and I like showing students the song she wrote and sang, "Sunday", alongside the Moby song "Sunday (The Day Before My Birthday)", which samples Sylvia's recording, from 2003. I wouldn't show it to elementary students, but this video is a great summary of her and her work:
Chanda Dancy (1978-)
Chanda Dancy is a film and TV soundtrack composer. She has written the scores for "Blink Twice", "Devotion", "I Know What You Did Last Summer", "I Wanna Dance With Somebody", "Swiped", and "Lawmen: Bass Reeves", which won her an Emmy nomination. Her background as a strings player is always really interesting for my students to learn about! Learn more about her on her website here. I like using this video to introduce her and her work:
