Colour of Music Black Classical Musicians Festival

Event Details

Celebrating its 10th season and fresh off its second year of sold-out performances in Sacramento, the Colour of Music Festival announces the tenth annual Colour of Music Festival February 1-4, 2023 at historic Charleston locations showcasing leading black classical artists from the U.S., Canada, France, and Colombia South America.

The Colour of Music Festival gathers international, national, and regional classically trained Black musicians of African descent to share their musical talents, knowledge, and inspiration in Charleston each year and since 2016 has performed in leading performance venues in Washington, DC, Atlanta, Houston, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Tulsa, and Sacramento.

Honoring Black History Month, the 2023 series builds on the Festival’s chamber music offerings and brings back its original co-ed ‘Virtuosi’ programming begun in 2014. Performances will feature compositions ranging from baroque to modern with two evenings at the historic Riviera Theater spotlighting two contemporaries?the father of Black classical composers, Joseph Bologne (Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, along with Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, Arnold Schoenberg, and Nimrod Borenstein.

Winter 2023 Colour of Music Festival Highlights
Four days of performances in intimate settings will feature a mix of vocal excellence, flute highlights, a cello quartet spotlight, three concertos for violin, viola, and oboe, and a U.S. premiere by composer Nimrod Borenstein.

What’s become a tradition, the Festival opens with two days of vocal matinées?the first featuring tenor Camron Gray joined by Leonard Hayes, the second with soprano Marsha Thompson and Elizabeth G. Hill, piano and concluding with Virtuoso Arias for Flutes, Voice & Quintet with works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Niccolò Paganini, and Antonín Dvo?ák.

The Festival will welcome weekend patrons to two virtuosi string chamber orchestra presentations with Haitian-born guest conductor Jean Montes for two Masterworks performances featuring Colour of Music lead violinist Anyango Yarbo-Davenport.

Masterworks I will feature Joseph Bologne, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges’ Symphony No.1 in G Major, L´Amant Anonyme, Op 7, No.1 Aria, featuring soprano Marsha Thomas and violinist Romuald Grimbert-Barré will present Saint-Georges’ Violin Concerto in D Major, Op.4 No. 2. The evening also includes Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante in E-flat-Major for violin and viola, KV 364-33 with Anyango Yarbo-Davenport, violin and Basil Vendryes, violist.

Masterworks II will feature Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerti for Two Cellos in G minor, RV 531 and Concerto for Two Oboes in D minor, RV 535, the U.S. premiere of Nimrod Borenstein’s In the Night op.48 for String Orchestra, and Arnold Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night Op.4 for String Orchestra.