September 2020

 by David Patrick Stearns | WQXR Editorial The 1970s are hardly ancient history, but the decade seems like a distant world that had African American symphony and opera conductors in a few highly visible positions. Though not exactly common, Black conductors were a definite presence — long-emerging careers blossomed and young firebrands soared out of left field, each in ways that intersected around that time.   This lost generation of African American conductors led major concerts by Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony, gave the...

Jazz remained a resistance music because it was the sound of Black Americans building something together, in the face of repression. Credit...