From Spirituals to Symphonies: African-American Women Composers and Their Music.(Book Review)

by Helen Walker-Hill. Greenwood Press (88 Post Rd. West, P.O. Box 5007, Westport, CT 06881-5007), 2002. 480 pp., $99.95.

Helen Walker-Hill's fascinating new book, From Spirituals to Symphonies: African-American Women Composers and Their Music, is a must-read. The cover succinctly describes the book as a "unique, extensively researched examination of the history and scope of musical composition by African-American women focusing on the implications of race, gender and class for their musical creativity." It is an impressive work that will appeal to musicians as well as the general public.

From Spirituals to Symphonies reads effortlessly. The flow of the language is easy; the composers dealt with are quoted often, and the almost up-to-the-minute information is very refreshing. The reader will be held captive by the good balance between the objective and subjective and will be left with so much more information than imagined, including a new perspective on composers who have been unjustifiably neglected. The book also will, hopefully, encourage the search for more diversity in art music by the teacher, the student and general music lover.

A well-known authority on music by women composers of African descent, Walker-Hill provides a staggering amount of information, bibliographical references and sources. From Spirituals to Symphonies is very well organized. There is an introduction with a picture gallery of African-American women composers. The book also has a selected list of composers, selected bibliography, discography and an index.

The historical overview for the first chapter is excellent, setting the tone for the in-depth look at the individual composers in the following chapters. Walker-Hill presents a chronology of events pertinent to Africans in the Americas reaching back as far as 1619. She then proceeds with a "broad survey of African-American women composers from the perspective of their political and social context, with particular emphasis on their relationship to the history of African-American music."

Walker-Hill concentrates on eight composers: Undine Smith Moore, Julia Perry, Margaret Bonds, Irene Britton Smith, Dorothy Rudd Moore, Valerie Capers, Mary Watkins and Regina Harris Baiocchi. Each composer has a separate chapter beginning with a chronology of her social and musical life. This is followed by a biography, which in most cases, is corroborated by the composer herself. What is so interesting is the discussion of social issues ...