celebrating black history month 2025 in charleston
Returning to the concert stage after sold-out performances in 2024, the Colour of Music Festival returns to Charleston SC February 5-8, 2025, at historic venues showcasing leading black classical artists from the U.S., Canada, France, and 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, New York City, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Tulsa, and Sacramento.
Honoring Black History Month, the Festival will spotlight chamber music offerings featuring Charleston premieres, a literary presentation, with a focus on Black female artists and Black composers.
February 2025 Colour of Music Festival Highlights
Four days of performances in intimate settings will feature a mix of vocal and piano recitals including Zoltán Kodály’s Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7 presented by violinist Anyango Yarbo-Davenport and cellist Kenneth Law February 5. The evening will showcase Paris-based violinist Romuald Grimbert-Barré leading the Colour of Music Festival Sextet presenting Reinhold Glière’s String Sextet, No. 3 in C Major, Op. 11, and Edmund Thornton Jenkins’ Reverie Phantasy.
Known as the father of Charleston’s Black classical achievements, February 6 features duets with violinist Anyango Yarbo-Davenport and pianist Elizabeth Hill premiering Edmund Thornton Jenkins’ Sonata for Violin and Piano. Violinist Romuald Grimbert-Barré will also be joined by Elizabeth Hill in the Charleston premiere of Fantasy on Themes from ‘Carmen’ for Violin & Piano by Frantz Waxman and Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe’s Poème élégiaque in D minor, Op. 12 For Violin & Piano.
A grand evening of strings at Grace Cathedral February 8 will include the Charleston premiere of Tomaso Albinoni Adagio’s G Minor for Strings and Organ, Claude Debussy’s Clair de lune, Adolphus Hailstork’s Sonata da Chiesa, and Jessie Montgomery’s Strum and conclude with crowd pleaser Igor Frolov’s Divertimento for Two Violins & Strings.
“The Festival’s Black history programming anchors our new season. We are honored to present a multitude of classical gems once again in a region that values the arts in all its diversity as we also enjoy our recent designation as a Southern Cultural Treasure,” said Lee Pringle, Founder and Artistic Director of the Colour of Music Festival.