Isabelle O’Connell

To purchase scores by a number of historical and living BIPOC composers.

The year 2020 has been one of great turmoil, not only because of the disruptions to our ways of living with the Covid-19 pandemic, but because of the ongoing protests and general outcry against racism across the United States. This has led to wider conversations about diversity across all fields of endeavor, including music. This is something to which I have given much thought and it is clear to me that African-American and BIPOC composers have too often been neglected and in some cases even written out of history. This summer I began exploring some of that repertoire and came across a treasure trove of piano works by Florence Price. I will use my grant to purchase scores by a number of historical and living BIPOC composers including Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, Tania León, Alvin Singleton, George Walker, Yaz Lancaster and Elizabeth Baker.  My plan is to not only expand and diversify my own personal repertoire, but to also help me expand the repertoire for my piano students. My hope is to eventually record some of these pieces and to share them with the Diller-Quaile community.