Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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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).
Continue reading Arise and Shine