Its week 2 of Black History Month 2025! And for the sake of a silly playlist name, I present to you a playlist of cello works by Black composers. Every composer on this playlist is new to me except for Jessie Montgomery, and I admittedly only started listening to her works in the past year. I used the Music by Black Composers database to help me build this week’s playlist. Their mission is to “inspire Black students to begin and continue instrumental training by showing them that they are an integral part of classical music’s past as well as its future; to make the music of Black composers available to all people regardless of background or ethnicity; and to help bring greater diversity to the ranks of performers, composers, and audiences, helping to change the face of classical music and its canon.”

I give this playlist a Difficult Listening Hour rating of 3/10.

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1. Afro-dite by Nia Imani Franklin performed by Matt Haimovitz. Album: PRIMAVERA II: the rabbits. I could not find the composer’s notes on this work, but knowing she is also the 2019 Miss America pageant winner, I’m going to go out on a very sturdy limb and say this work is an exploration of or a declaration about black beauty.

2-4. Duo for Violin & Cello by Jessie Montgomery performed by Lavena and William Herzog. Album: in your hands. “This piece was written for my friend and cellist Adrienne Taylor. The piece is meant as an ode to friendship with movements characterizing laughter, compassion, adventure, and sometimes silliness.” -Jessie Montgomery. I don’t know who runs Jessie Montgomery’s website, but it is by far one of the easiest composer websites to navigate that I’ve come across.

5. For Edna by Leila Adu performed by Amanda Gookin. Album: Forward Music Project 1.0. I will let the composer tell you about this work:

6. …and beyond by Brian Raphael Nabors performed by Angelique Montes. Album: Refraction. About this work, from the composer, “…and Beyond was commissioned by cellist Angelique Montes for premiere and release on her album Refraction which features solo cello works by black composers that showcase the range and versatility of black artistry. As Montes describes, “The album title, Refraction, represents the myriad of paths and directions black artistry radiates.”

The piece is a 10 1/2 minute journey through time and space. The work takes the listener through a series of epic episodes. You first begin at the launch pad of a space craft. The craft then takes off, leaves the orbit of earth, zips past all the planets of our solar system then into interstellar space. The texture of the electronics grows gradually more sparse as you enter the last phase of the piece when our space craft has exited the Milky Way galaxy some 200,000 years later if traveling at light speed.”

7-9. Cello Sonata by Kevin Day performed by Michelle Cann and Thomas Mesa. Album: Our Stories: Contemporary Works by Black & Latinx composers. I did find a note from the composer specifically about movement 2 of this work, “Movement 2 (lento) was composed shortly after the birth of my niece Naomi, and was written in dedication to her. I was away working in Los Angeles during Summer 2016 and would not present for her being born. This would be the first time that I became an uncle, and so this movement in the cello sonata was written as my gift to my niece, in the hope that she aspires to whatever she dreams of becoming and finds beauty in the world around her.” -De. Kevin Day

10. Shades by Daijana Wallace performed by Kivie Cahn-Lipman. Album: Summa. “Shades is the culmination of my cello studies at Wichita State University with Dr. Leonid Shukaev. Centered around the note “D”, Shades explores “everything” from mystery, aggression, and heaviness to melodic, soft, and sultry. I tried to demonstrate Dr. Shukaev’s influence through gestures: emphasizing the bass in a two-voice “counterpoint”, creating a sense of intensity through a repetition of a simple melody, and—my favorite part about studying with him—breathing.” -Daijana Wallace