Black history month concert series charleston 2024
Fresh off its third year of sold-out performances in Sacramento, the Colour of Music Festival announces its return to Charleston SC February 6-10, 2024, at historic venues 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 venues including Washington, DC, Atlanta, Houston, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Tulsa, and Sacramento.
Honoring Black History Month, the Festival will bring back its original all-female ‘Virtuosi’ to honor legendary soprano Leontyne Price who celebrates her 97th birthday February 10. Dame Shirley J. Thompson OBE will also be honored along with three of her compositions presented by the female chamber orchestra and Colour of Music Festival quintet. Dame Thompson will also be a featured guest at the Charleston Library Society on Friday, February 9.
February 2024 Colour of Music Festival Highlights
Four days of performances in intimate settings will feature a mix of vocal excellence, a piano quintet spotlight, a chamber presentation of all three violin sonatas composed by Joseph Bologne, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a Charleston premiere of Grey Land, a mono-opera, composed by Joseph C. Phillips, Jr., conducted by Berlin-based conductor Brandon Keith Brown, and featuring New York-based actress and soprano, Rebecca L. Hargrove, and the Charleston premiere of Charlestonia: Folk Rhapsody by Edmund Thornton Jenkins.
What’s become a tradition, the Festival presents a vocal matinée performance with the Harlem Renaissance as its theme and will welcome patrons to a hair-raising performance by two composers who changed both the face and sound of classical music―Edmund Thornton Jenkins and George Gershwin for its Masterworks finale on February 10. Presented by the Gaillard Center, the performance will highlight Charleston’s “father of Black contributions” to classical music, Edmund Thornton Jenkins. Never-before-heard compositions include Jenkins’ South Carolina premiere of his original composition Charlestonia: Folk Rhapsody and concludes with George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue celebrating the 100th anniversary of its debut on February 12, 1924.
“The Festival’s Black history programming anchors our new season. We are beyond humbled by the Gaillard Center’s presentation of our Masterworks finale February 10 as we enjoy our recent designation as a Southern Cultural Treasure, bestowed to us in 2021,” said Lee Pringle Founder and Artistic Director, Colour of Music Festival.
Colour of Music Festival Tickets and Information: $15-$52
By phone: (888) 512-9835
Online: colourofmusic.org
At door: (credit card, cash or check) before each performance
The Colour of Music Festival gratefully acknowledges the support of the National Endowment for the Arts
Colour of Music Festival was named one of South Arts’ Southern Cultural Treasures, a program made possible with support from the Ford Foundation and the Alice L. Walton Foundation.