Black Music Repertory Ensemble
Top left photo: Michael Morgan conducts the Black Music Repertory Ensemble; top right photo: the Black Music Repertory Ensemble; bottom left photo: Ken Adams, Lyman Brodie, Nathaniel Brickens, George Blanchett; bottom right photo: Toni-Marie Montgomery. Top right photo by Martha Swope Associates, Carol Rosegg. Remaining photos by Bob Kusel.
Frog Legs Rag (James Sylvester Scott, 1906), Black Music Repertory Ensemble. The Black Music Repertory Ensemble: In Concert
(CBMR002-C1)
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The original Black Music Repertory Ensemble was a conducted chamber ensemble of twelve instrumentalists and three singers. The majority of the Ensemble's repertoire came from a body of important literature that has been neglected, omitted from performance, and excluded from academic study. The performances of the Black Music Repertory Ensemble were designed to encourage the inclusion of this music in the educational and cultural arenas of American life.
Founded in 1987, the BMRE performed to critical acclaim in two of the world's most prestigious concert halls—Orchestra Hall in Chicago and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York. It also performed on tour at the Eastman School of Music, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Williams College (Massachusetts), Morehouse College (Atlanta), California State University (Los Angeles), University of California (Berkeley), Tufts University (Boston), and at the historic Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis. The Ensemble was broadcast nationally on NBC Television's "Today Show," National Public Radio's "Performance Today," WFMT-FM (Chicago) "Studs Terkel Show," and on Cable News Network. The group played for the opening of the new Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago and made joint appearances with the famed Morehouse College Glee Club and the internationally renowned gospel trio the Barrett Sisters. Critical acclaim has followed all of its performances.
In September 1994, the BMRE recorded four live performances in Columbia, South Carolina, that were broadcast in February 1995 over Public Radio International. The performance series, titled the "African-American Music Tree," was produced by South Carolina Educational Radio, with funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Public Radio International. A second installment in the series was recorded in Pittsburgh during September 1995 in collaboration with WQED-FM and was broadcast nationally in February 1996.
Founded in 1987, the BMRE performed to critical acclaim in two of the world's most prestigious concert halls—Orchestra Hall in Chicago and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York. It also performed on tour at the Eastman School of Music, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Williams College (Massachusetts), Morehouse College (Atlanta), California State University (Los Angeles), University of California (Berkeley), Tufts University (Boston), and at the historic Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis. The Ensemble was broadcast nationally on NBC Television's "Today Show," National Public Radio's "Performance Today," WFMT-FM (Chicago) "Studs Terkel Show," and on Cable News Network. The group played for the opening of the new Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago and made joint appearances with the famed Morehouse College Glee Club and the internationally renowned gospel trio the Barrett Sisters. Critical acclaim has followed all of its performances.
In September 1994, the BMRE recorded four live performances in Columbia, South Carolina, that were broadcast in February 1995 over Public Radio International. The performance series, titled the "African-American Music Tree," was produced by South Carolina Educational Radio, with funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Public Radio International. A second installment in the series was recorded in Pittsburgh during September 1995 in collaboration with WQED-FM and was broadcast nationally in February 1996.
The Ensemble has commissioned and performed the world premieres of several new works by black composers, including Leslie Adams' Hymn to Freedom (1989), Olly Wilson's Of Visions and Truth: A Song Cycle (1991), and Muhal Richard Abrams' What a Man (1991), the latter written in memory of the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington. In 2001, the New BMRE, under the direction of Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, gave the world premiere of performances of Doxology Opera: The Doxy Canticles, with libretto by Paul Carter Harrison and music by Wendell Logan. Mezzo soprano Bonita Hyman and soprano Elizabeth Norman sang the leading roles. The work was commissioned with funding from Meet the Composer.
BMRE Members
BMRE Members