The Colour of Music Festival Orchestra.
In Friday’s (11/3) Sacramento Bee (subscription required), Darrell Smith writes, “The Colour of Music Festival, the six-day showcase of Black classical musicians, returns Monday to Sacramento. It’s the festival’s third residency in the capital city featuring performances and discussion programmed at venues across the Sacramento region. The festival runs through Nov. 11. It offers a rare look at Black classical musicians collectively in performance, said Lee Pringle, founder of the Charleston, South Carolina-based festival organization…. Black musicians continue to fight for equal space on the symphonic stage and behind the baton—2.4% of musicians performing in U.S. orchestras are Black, according to the latest figures from the League of American Orchestras. The number has changed only slightly during the past decade … This year’s festival presents classical masterworks in … solo performances and recitals for piano and voice; works featuring quartets and chamber ensembles; organ recitals and concerts for orchestra and chorus. Films and lectures round out the program…. Members of the Black Orchestral Network, the collection of orchestral artists advocating to diversify performance spaces and repertoire, have issued a call to action to U.S. orchestras to hire more Black musicians and develop plans to widen opportunities for Black musicians … The League of American Orchestras launched its ‘Inclusive Stages’ pilot program earlier this year, supported by the San Francisco-based Sakana Foundation, to support orchestras’ efforts to make their rosters more diverse.”
