Black History Month music for kids: a four-week listening plan

This plan gives you four weeks of music by Black composers, with three composers a week and one piece each. It runs from the 1700s to today. Each piece is short enough for a school morning or a car ride.

Black History Month is February in the United States and Canada, and October in the United Kingdom. The plan works in any month.

How to use the plan

• Play one piece on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
• Say the composer’s name and the title before you press play.
• Ask one question after the music. The plan gives you one for each piece.
• Play the week’s favorite again on the weekend.

Week 1: the first names

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745 to 1799). He was born on the island of Guadeloupe and grew up in Paris. He was a champion fencer, a violinist, and the leader of one of the best orchestras in the city. Play: the first movement of a violin concerto. Ask: how high does the violin climb? Read Chevalier de Saint-Georges for kids.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 to 1912). He was an English composer from London. His choral piece Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast made him famous at 23. Play: his piano setting of “Deep River.” Ask: is this music calm or restless? Read Samuel Coleridge-Taylor for kids.

Scott Joplin (about 1868 to 1917). People called him the King of Ragtime. In a rag, the left hand keeps a steady beat and the right hand plays off the beat. Play: “Maple Leaf Rag” or “The Entertainer.” Ask: which hand is the steady one? Read Scott Joplin for kids.

Week 2: spirituals in the concert hall

Spirituals are songs made by enslaved Black people in the United States. In the early 1900s, Black composers brought these songs into concert halls.

Harry T. Burleigh (1866 to 1949). He was a singer who studied in New York when Dvořák led the school there. He sang spirituals for Dvořák, and he later arranged them for solo voice and piano. Play: his arrangement of “Deep River.” Ask: how is it different from the piano piece in week 1? Read Harry T. Burleigh for kids.

R. Nathaniel Dett (1882 to 1943). He was born in Ontario, Canada, and worked in the United States as a composer, pianist, and choir director. Play: “Juba Dance” from his piano suite In the Bottoms. Ask: can you clap the bouncing rhythm? Read Nathaniel Dett for kids.

William Dawson (1899 to 1990). He led the choir at the Tuskegee Institute for many years. The Philadelphia Orchestra gave the first performance of his Negro Folk Symphony in 1934. Play: his choral setting of “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel.” Ask: how do the voices sound like a turning wheel? Read William Dawson for kids.

Week 3: the symphony

William Grant Still (1895 to 1978). His Afro-American Symphony had its first performance in 1931. It was the first symphony by a Black American composer that a major American orchestra played. Play: the third movement. Ask: can you hear the banjo? Read William Grant Still for kids. For the world he worked in, read Harlem Renaissance music for kids.

Florence Price (1887 to 1953). The Chicago Symphony Orchestra played her Symphony No. 1 in 1933. She was the first Black woman to have a symphony played by a major American orchestra. Play: the third movement, which she called “Juba Dance.” Ask: which instruments sound like stamping feet? Read Florence Price for kids.

Margaret Bonds (1913 to 1972). She was a pianist and composer from Chicago, and Florence Price was one of her teachers. Play: “Troubled Water,” a piano piece built on the spiritual “Wade in the Water.” Ask: where does the water get rough? Read Margaret Bonds for kids.

Week 4: closer to today

Oscar Peterson (1925 to 2007). He was a jazz pianist from Montreal. Play: “Hymn to Freedom,” which he wrote in 1962. Ask: does the tune sound like something a choir could sing? Read Oscar Peterson for kids.

George Walker (1922 to 2018). In 1996 he became the first Black composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Play: Lyric for Strings, which he wrote as a young man in memory of his grandmother. Ask: where is the loudest moment? Read George Walker for kids.

Jessie Montgomery (born 1981). She is a violinist and composer from New York. Play: “Starburst,” a short piece for string orchestra from 2012. Ask: what would you draw for this music? Read Jessie Montgomery for kids.

The plan on one page

Week	Monday	Wednesday	Friday
1	Saint-Georges, a violin concerto	Coleridge-Taylor, “Deep River”	Joplin, “Maple Leaf Rag”
2	Burleigh, “Deep River”	Dett, “Juba Dance”	Dawson, “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel”
3	Still, Afro-American Symphony	Price, Symphony No. 1	Bonds, “Troubled Water”
4	Peterson, “Hymn to Freedom”	Walker, Lyric for Strings	Montgomery, “Starburst”

Things to do

• Make a timeline. Put the 12 composers in order by birth year on the composer timeline.
• Fill in a card. Print composer cards and write one fact on each.
• Compare two versions. Play “Deep River” by Coleridge-Taylor and by Burleigh. Talk about what changed.
• Keep a journal. Draw or write one line for each piece on a listening journal page.

For older children

Ask why some of these names are new to many families. For much of history, Black composers found it hard to get their music printed and played. Orchestras and record companies are playing more of it now. Read Black composers for kids: ten to know for more.

For another month of listening, read Women’s History Month music for kids. For ways to listen at home all year, see how to introduce kids to classical music.