Gerry Bryant

the second and latest in a series of albums by Gerry Bryant consisting solely of music by exceptionally talented and prolific Black classical music composers who have been overlooked throughout history due to racial prejudice – personal and institutional, as well as subtle and otherwise -- which inhibited their potential recognition and success. The first album in the series, simply entitled The Composers, consists of a few selections by Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins, a slave who was perhaps the first Black American classical music composer, and the rest by Florence Price (1887-1953).

This album consists of another composition by Price, with additional strings performed and uniquely and movingly arranged by Mark Cargill. Price was the first Black American woman to get recognition as a symphonic composer. She was also the first woman composer to have her Symphony No. 1 in E minor, played by a major orchestra. Her music has so moved Bryant that he has included her in his very short list of favorite composers, all highly acclaimed white male composers of the Romantic Period, specifically Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.

Other selections on this album consist of compositions by three other women composers, Margaret Bonds (1913-1972), Betty Jackson King (1928-1994) and L. Viola Kinney (1890-1945), as well as five-piece suites by Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943) and by S. Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912).

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