Rachel Barton Pine Foundation’s Music by Black Composers Releases 'Violin Volume 2' and 'Violin Volume 3,' for Elementary Studies

The new books contain a total of 31 works by 20 composers with streamable reference recordings, biographies, articles, and more.

The Rachel Barton Pine (RBP) Foundation’s Music by Black Composers project announces the release of Violin Volume 2 and Violin Volume 3 for elementary students, the second installment in a series of pedagogical books of music exclusively by Black classical composers from around the world. Each new volume is supplemented by two books that are sold separately: one for second violin accompaniment and one for piano accompaniment. The books will be distributed by Subito Music Corporation and can be ordered HERE. 

MBC’s mission is to increase diversity in the world of classical music, inspire Black students to pursue instrumental training, and make the music of Black composers available to everyone. MBC books are designed to supplement the current instrumental training methods by providing students of all races and ethnicities a broader perspective of classical music composers throughout history, including composers working today.

The new books comprise 31 pieces — 16 in volume 2 and 15 in volume 3 — from the 18th through the 21st centuries, written by 20 different composers, five of whom are women, who together represent North America (U.S.), South America (Brazil), the Caribbean (Guadeloupe), Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone), and Europe (England and France). Volumes 2 and 3 add to a series that will ultimately include seven volumes, graded by difficulty from beginner to advanced concerto-level playing.

Additional orchestral instruments will be the subject of multiple future Music by Black Composer volumes, and subsequent publications will include works for school orchestras and chamber ensembles.

Like Violin Volume 1 (released in 2018), Violin Volume 2 and Violin Volume 3 include streamable audio reference recordings of each piece by Rachel Barton Pine, and video recordings performed by Sphinx Soloist Program artists Randall Goosby and Hannah White. Besides the notated music, the books contain biographies of each composer and two feature articles about indigenous fiddles of Africa and about classical music in New Orleans. There are also profiles of three Black role models in classical music: Terrance Gray, the former conductor of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra; Melissa White, a violin soloist and member of the Grammy-nominated Harlem Quartet; and Kelly Hall-Tompkins, an orchestral concertmaster and violin soloist.

“It’s an exciting milestone for the Foundation to finally share with elementary violinists these 31 imaginative and accessible pieces,” said Rachel Barton Pine, the president of the RBP Foundation. “We know that students will be inspired by the stories behind each composer and their respective works, as they dive into this wonderful music. We plan to continue to expand this project and amplify these long-overlooked pieces by Black composers. There is more advanced repertoire and expanded instrumentation in the works, so we’re excited about what is to come.”

The RBP Foundation’s MBC project is a multi-pronged approach to spread awareness of and access to music by Black composers. Current publications include Violin Volume 1 for beginning and elementary students, The RBP Foundation Coloring Book of Black Composers, and a composer timeline poster. Additional free resources available through MBC’s website include online directories of 160 historic composers and more than 350 living composers; repertoire directories for performers, teachers, conductors, and concert programmers seeking existing music; and lists of children’s books, podcasts, music theory resources, and more.

The idea for the project started with Pine’s 1997 album Violin Concertos by Black Composers of the 18th and 19th Centuries, on Cedille Records. In 2022, the label released Violin Concertos by Black Composers Through the Centuries: 25th anniversary edition, featuring Pine’s recording of Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Jonathon Heyward, alongside reprisals of her 1997 recordings of masterworks by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, José White Lafitte, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

After the release of the 1997 album, Pine quickly discovered that most repertoire by Black composers was out of print or only existed in manuscript form. These composers have created masterly classical music for centuries but continue to be underrepresented in concert programming and in classical music education. With that in mind, the RBP Foundation committed to Music by Black Composers in 2001; over the past two decades, the project has uncovered over 900 works by more than 450 Black composers from North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and Asia, from the 18th to the 21st centuries.

Violin Volume 2 and Violin Volume 3 can be ordered HERE.

For more information, please visit RBPFoundation.org, MusicbyBlackComposers.org, and RachelBartonPine.com.

About Music by Black Composers
One of the Rachel Barton Pine Foundation’s signature programs, Music by Black Composers was born from the realization that young musicians learning classical music seldom, if ever, have the opportunity to study and perform music written by Black composers. This omission silences a rich vein of musical creation from global cultural consciousness. The effects of this erasure are most serious for aspiring Black classical musicians. Without access to the historic narratives of Black composers, these young musicians struggle to become part of an art form in which they do not appear to belong. Many give up; many more do not even start. The ultimate result is a lack of diversity in our concert halls, both on stage as well as in the audience.

Music by Black Composers tells a different story. With a multi-pronged approach, the RBP Foundation is spreading awareness of and access to music by Black composers to children and adults alike in ever-expanding ways. For more information, please visit MusicbyBlackComposers.org.

About Rachel Barton Pine
Heralded as a leading interpreter of the great classical masterworks, American concert violinist Rachel Barton Pine thrills international audiences with her dazzling technique, lustrous tone, and emotional honesty. With an infectious joy in music-making and a passion for connecting historical research to performance, Pine transforms audiences’ experiences of classical music.

Pine performs with the world’s leading orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, and the Chicago, Vienna, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras. She has worked with renowned conductors, including Teddy Abrams, Marin Alsop, Semyon Bychkov, Neeme Järvi, Erich Leinsdorf, Nicholas McGegan, Zubin Mehta, Tito Muñoz, and John Nelson.

In March 2023, Pine’s performance of Malek Jandali’s Violin Concerto No. 2, recorded with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop, was released on an album of Jandali concertos. For more information, please visit RachelBartonPine.com.