Leah Claiborne – Pianodao

Pianodao Music Library
Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales

Back in 2023 I reviewed two collections of Piano Music of Black Composers compiled by the American performer, scholar, and educator Leah Claiborne for Hal Leonard’s Expanding the Repertoire series.

The two books offered a varied and engaging, if in hindsight slightly inconsistent, potpourri of little-known music by Black composers, and at the time I concluded,

“It’s a great pity that this fabulous pedagogic repertoire hasn’t been a standard feature of our piano education culture, and Leah Claiborne has done us a superb service in providing these slender volumes. We must hope more will follow.”

More has indeed followed, and I was delighted to receive Claiborne’s latest anthology, Arise and Shine, which offers 28 piano solos by Black composers suitable for intermediate to early advanced players (I would estimate UK Grades 2-8).

Pianodao Music Library
Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales

Leah Claiborne writes in the compelling introduction to her two new music collections, Expanding the Repertoire: Piano Music of Black Composers, published worldwide by Hal Leonard,

“For far too long, the contributions of Black composers in the piano repertoire have not been brought to the forefront. Despite a persistent wave of great scholarship to bring awareness of these composers to light, only recently has there been deliberate inclusion of their works. Even with more awareness and attempts for inclusion, the myth that there is only piano music by Black composers for advanced pianists remains…”

With these two slim books, Claiborne is ambitious to change false perceptions and plug a gap in the piano music market:

“Finally there is a pedagogical piano collection that celebrates Black composers as pedagogues and gathers together piano music that can be enjoyed by the most novice beginning piano students through their musical progress.”