47th Classical Roots Concert
Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Orchestra Hall
Saturday, March 1
Classical Roots serves an important purpose – to raise awareness of African-American composers and musicians who have contributed to classical music.
As in nearly every artistic medium, Black contributions in classical are overlooked and underappreciated.
In Detroit, nonprofits like the Sphinx Organization have fought this uphill battle to bring more diversity to the orchestra halls of the world. And they’re keeping track of their progress. Less than a decade ago, the Sphinx Organization noted that composers of color contributed to less than 1 percent of works being commissioned and played by major orchestras in the United States.
In 2023, those numbers jumped to 23 percent with more than 9 percent being credited to Black composers alone. That’s in part to the Sphinx Organization building musical and educational pipelines for musicians of colors to prosper, and for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra embracing events like Classical Roots to celebrate that progress.
“It still needs to be fixed a little bit more,” said Walter Douglas, one of the honorees at this year’s concert, noted during his brief-but-powerful speech to a mostly Black audience inside orchestra hall on a recent Saturday night.
“This audience was not the audience I saw at the DSO in the 1980s,” remarked Douglas.
And that’s true. Anyone who regularly attends classical performances in Detroit and around the country would quickly note that the annual Classical Roots performance at Orchestra Hall is the Blackest night of the year.
The evening opened with history and a spotlight on Detroit’s Brazeal Dennard Chorale, a nationally known choir group known for its renditions of African-American music in the choral tradition.
Brothers John Rosamond and James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing” lifted everyone out of their seats, followed by baritone singer Thoedore Jones leading the traditional spiritual “I want Jesus To Walk With Me” and soprano singer Alice McAllister Tillman’s stunning lead on “My Soul’s Been Anchored in De Lord.”
After a performance of Florence Price’s “The Oak,” the youth took over.
Detroit’s own Kris Johnson, 42, slayed on trumpet, offering up a world premiere of his composition “Marlowe’s Wings: Detroit’s Champion of Change,” a heartfelt tribute to Marlowe Stoudamire.
“When I was first approached to compose this piece in memory of Marlowe Stoudamire – community leader, business visionary and dedicated supporter of the DSO – I sought to immerse myself in his vision for Detroit by watching as many of his interviews as possible,” wrote Johnson.
To the point that Johnson actually used one of those interviews as an interlude in his work. He used the structure of his composition by repeating and transposing it in minor thirds, creating a 12-tone row that brought to life four key pillars of Stoudamire’s vision – “economic inclusion and opportunity; race relations; youth development and leadership; and neighborhood advancement.”
If those ideas didn’t immediately jump into the mind of the listener, the energy and confident delivery of Johnson and the orchestra supporting him certainly captured our hearts.
Composer Jessie Montgomery was also honored and spotlighted at Classical Roots this year, another example of the concert looking to the future of young composers while managing to conjure the icons that laid the foundation for the racial progress happening in classical music today.
Montgomery, 44, has been nominated for a Grammy and was Musical America’s 2023 Composer of the Year. She was once part of the Sphinx Organization, too.
One of her pieces from Classical Roots, “Snapshots,” was just performed at the DSO in 2024.
The stunning “Rounds,” inspired by the T.S. Eliot’s epic poem “Four Quartets,” stole the show. Scored for strings and solo piano, the performance was anchored by pianist Awadagin Pratt, one of the best of the night.
Another year, another wonderful Classical Roots in the books – a perfect bookend for closing out Black History Month in Detroit.
