Skip to Main Content Carnegie Mellon University Libraries

Music: Black Composers

Websites

African American Art Song Alliance (includes lists of Composers, Performers, and Scholars)

Beyond Elijah Rock: The Non-Idiomatic Choral Music of Black Composers (Dr. Marques L. A. Garrett)

The Black Music History Library

Black Opera Research Network

The Boulanger Initiative Database

Center for Black Music Research (at Columbia College Chicago)


The Composers Equity Project (Chamber Music America PDF)

Diversify the Stand: Programming Resources


Explore Music by Black Classical Composers (Theodore Front)

Flute Music by Black Composers

Institute for Composer Diversity (State University of New York at Fredonia)

Music by Black Composers (a project of the Rachel Barton Pine Foundation)

Strings / Chamber Repertoire by BIPOC Composers (USC Thornton School of Music PDF)

The Wind Repertory Project: Black Composers

Works by Composers of African Descent (Free Library of Philadelphia - Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music PDF)

Library Databases

African American Music Reference
Includes online biographies, background information, liner notes, and sheet music. You can browse by genre. African American Music: A Chronology 1619-1995 

African American Studies Center
Good for background information on specific musicians and genres.

American Music
Streaming audio database. They have a list of genres on their home page than can help get you started.

Classical Scores Library
PDF scores available for public domain and contemporary works.

DRAM
Streaming database of recorded American music. There are about nine albums with music by African-American composers. Enter the search terms African American in the search box.

HistoryMakers
The nation's largest African American video oral history collection. 

Naxos Music Library
Streaming recordings for genres such as Classical, Jazz, Blues, Nostalgia, World, Contemporary Instrumental, Chinese, Pop and Rock, Gospel, Spoken Word, and Relaxation. iPhone and Android apps available.

Naxos Jazz
Streaming music from the artists and collections of Fantasy Records