Remembering Relief: The Federal Music Project

Items

• Composer's Forum Laboratory Performance
  This audio recording from the NYC Municipal Archives, WNYC Collection features the Composer's Laboratory Forum, a series of programs that began in New York City by the Federal Music Project's Music Education Department. The forums sought to introduce the public to American composers with weekly concerts and audience-involved discussions. This particular recording features Hunter Johnson's "The Valley of the Muted Songbird" and "Scherzo from the South," performed by pianist Richard Singer; "Cradle Song in a Modern Mining Town" with music by Goddard Lieberson and words by Mildred Waterman, performed by soprano Louise Taylor with piano accompaniment; and "Hotel Music" by Paul Frederic Bowles, performed by the Modern Art Trio.
• Black Choral Performances on Air
  This audio recording, published by the National Endowment for the Humanities Preservation Project - Annotations, features a program of Spirituals with the Juanita Hall Choir, the Los Angeles Colored Chorus, and Negro Melody Singers, and the Los Angeles Negro Choir. Although the Federal Music Project provided opportunities for Black and Latinx musicians and offered performances of non-Eurocentric music, it did so within the greater context of a highly racist, Jim Crow society. Musicians of Color received less pay than white people and were segregated and othered. However, performances by all-Black casts and musical groups were often the most popular and widely attended events.