The Listening Project: A Living Archive

As part of a larger commitment to disrupt our organization’s role in systemic racism, the Minnesota Orchestra has developed the Listening Project. The initiative has the dual intention of expanding the ensemble’s knowledge of great orchestral works by historically underrepresented composers, while performing and recording these scores so that they may become more familiar to audiences and other orchestras alike. Learn more about how the project came to be.

Produced in collaboration with YourClassical MPR, the recordings from these performances are shared with the African Diaspora Music Project—a comprehensive repository for resources on classical works by composers of African descent. These recordings can be heard on YouTube, and are also archived below for you to enjoy and, if you feel compelled, to share far and wide.

2022

On October 7, 2022, a public concert conducted by Kensho Watanabe and hosted by performer and scholar Dr. Louise Toppin featured the music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Eleanor Alberga, Hale Smith, Adolphus Hailstork, Margaret Bonds and Florence Price; bass-baritone soloist Christopher Humbert Jr. performed Alberga’s The Soul’s Expression and Bonds’ Spirituals.

Full program notes from the concert can be found here.

2021

Conducted by Scott Yoo, the inaugural Listening Project program included the works of Eleanor Alberga, Margaret Bonds, James Lee III, Ulysses Kay and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson. The week-long recording session did not include a public performance.