Women stand front and center at the AAN’s Black History Month celebrations

In an era when the female founders of the Black Lives Matter movement have been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, it should not surprise many that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s African American Network has opted to do something similar for its annual Black History Month celebrations. What’s different is that the AAN has honored Black “sheroes,” as well as heroes. And why not? Women of color have historically made noteworthy contributions.

Since its founding in 2016, the AAN has showcased the works of one woman in particular: Chicago musician-conductor-composer Renée Baker. All four of the AAN’s annual Black History Month concerts have been programmed around Baker’s compositions, many in premiere performances. This year’s event, which would have marked the fifth-anniversary concert, had been planned around yet another Baker work, but the concert, like all live events this season at Symphony Center, had to be canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Prior to the AAN, my involvement with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was non-existent,” Baker said. “As a composer-conductor, I was given a wonderful opportunity to innovate CSO’s diversity efforts, beginning with my score to Oscar Micheaux’s ’Body and Soul’ [performed in 2016].“ She followed that up with a score to Frank Peregini’s ”The Scar of Shame" (1927). Next came Baker’s neo-opera The Baldwin Chronicles: Midnight Ramble, and last year’s event featured her score for the silent film “Siren of the Tropics” (1927), starring legendary chanteuse Josephine Baker.

Sheila Jones, founder and director of the CSO’s African American Network, has detailed a wonderful array of content honoring Black History Month via the newly launched multimedia site Experience CSO. The content features contemporary composers Courtney Bryan, Jessie Montgomery and several others in a Black History Month video playlist hosted on CSOtv.

Also showcased are the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a 2019 Chicago premiere performance of James Lee III’s Sukkot Through Orion’s Nebula and the CSO’s first performance of William Grant Still’s In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy. These concert clips celebrate the creativity and artistry of Black musicians such as 18th-century composers Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and 20th- and 21st-century composers George Walker and Tyshawn Sorey.

Additionally, Jones explained, two new episodes of the premium streaming series CSO Sessions feature newly recorded performances of chamber music by composers Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson and Florence Price. In 1933, Price became the first Black woman to have her music performed by a major U.S. symphony orchestra when the CSO premiered her Symphony No. 1 under Frederick Stock.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association President Jeff Alexander, who has served as an emcee for many AAN programs, said, “Participating in the Black History Month programs organized by the African American Network has been very meaningful over the last four years. Having the opportunity to celebrate the creativity of incredible artists and musicians with an enthusiastic audience has become a highlight of our season programming for me and many others. We look forward to resuming these programs when we begin to welcome the public back to Symphony Center.”

Others in the local classical music community endorse the AAN’s initiatives. “The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a world-class organization, highlights not only African American artists, but African American composers, bringing more exposure and validity to the breadths of talents we as a people possess,” said Jonita Lattimore, a lyric soprano and vocal studies professor at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts and Columbia College Chicago. "That especially includes gifted Black women.”

Jones also stressed the role of women in the AAN’s annual Black History Month concerts. “It’s important that so much that’s unknown to so many for so long is finally revealed with our event,“ she said. ”That helps us appreciate the genius of folks like Renée Baker, Jessie Montgomery, Courtney Bryan, Florence Price and other extraordinary Black women.

"To me, the fact women play such a critical part mirrors our society where our new vice president, Kamala Harris, is a middle-aged Jamaican/South Asian female and the poet Amanda Gorman is a young Black woman. It’s a global cultural revolution of beauty and joy, enriched by the complex epistemology of the unique expressions of Blacks that are not limited to music. Music is merely the guiding light into our unique love.”

Author’s note: While I am a veteran journalist with decades of print, online and broadcast experience, I am also an advisory board member of CSO’s African American Network. I have narrated two of Renée Baker’s original compositions: in 2018, on James Baldwin (included in my new book "James Baldwin’s Black Lives Blues Are Mine") and in 2019, on Josephine Baker, which I read in French. (As Renée told me, "While you argued that perhaps a Black woman might be more authentic narrating, I knew you’d be perfect, and you were. In all of my compositions, I include narrators, poets, singers, musicians, filmmakers and artists in unique ways.”)

I’m a huge fan of the very talented composers Jessie Montgomery and Dr. Courtney Bryan. I consider all of them my “sisters in the struggle.” They’re cultural leaders I follow. This is important, given that as a guy, I have privileges women and girls do not. As a person of color, I don’t have the same access and privileges as whites do — at least not yet.