Tag Archives: Tone Poem Tuesday

 Born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1924, Julia Perry was a Black composer who studied widely, attending the Berkshire Music Centre and working with the great teacher Nadia Boulanger in Paris and then relocating to Florence for further study before returning … Continue reading →

 I had a piece picked out for this week, but it’s a pretty complex work that I want to hear a couple more times before I actually feature it, so this week I’ll take an “easy” route. This is a … Continue reading →

 While doing a bit of research for this post, I learned something that is actually a correction of something I’ve believed for years. Remember in the 70s when the ragtime piece “The Entertainer” was all the rage, because of its … Continue reading →

 William Grant Still is not new to this series, but the goal is to highlight music as well as composers, and to just hear one work by a composer and then move on forever seems…well, weird, doesn’t it? So let’s … Continue reading →

You may remember a hilarious sketch comedy show from the 2000s called Key and Peele; and if you do, then you likely know that Jordan Peele, one half of the comedy duo from that show, has gone on to an … Continue reading →

Ulysses Kay was a Black composer who lived from 1917 to 1995. Born in Tucson to parents who encouraged music-making in the home, Kay went on to study music at the University of Arizona and the Eastman School of Music, … Continue reading →

This may be something of a cheat, since Tone Poem Tuesday has always featured orchestral music, and this week all we have is a solo piano work. But what a work it is, juxtaposing traditional melodies with interesting sound effects, … Continue reading →

I’ve featured the music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) before, and with good reason: he was a fine composer whose work deserves to be better known. Coleridge-Taylor was a British composer of mixed race (a white mother and a Creole father). … Continue reading →

David Baker (1931-2016) was a Black composer who was a deeply skilled jazz musician and teacher whose career spanned decades, first as a jazz musician playing the trombone. An automobile accident left him unable to play the trombone, so he … Continue reading →