Music students at several CMS schools got exclusive concerts from members of the Sphinx Virtuosi, an orchestra dedicated to increasing access and representation for Black and Latino musicians in the world of classical music.
Dozens of Northwest School of the Arts students filed into a music room on campus Monday, ready to listen to a quartet of musicians from Sphinx Virtuosi — an orchestra consisting of 18 professional Black and Latino musicians from across the country. The orchestra generally has members closer in age to the students, in their 20s to 40s, than to some classical music audiences.
The students, all musicians spanning grades 6-12, wouldn’t be treated to the usual classical fare of Mozart or Beethoven. Instead, they’d hear music from composers often overlooked in the canon of orchestral music.
The performance started with "Cumbia y Congo," a piece by American composer William Grant Still. Still was active at the turn of the century, and famed for composing the popular “Song of a City” for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York — an event Still was unable to attend because he was Black.
Musicians from Sphinx Virtuosi were scattered around Charlotte on Monday, performing pieces for students at six CMS schools. It’s all part of the organization’s mission to increase representation in the world of classical music, particularly for Black and Latino musicians. Annelle Gregory, a violinist for the group, said that's core to their purpose.
“It’s especially important for us to come here and see, for the students, not only real classical musicians performing that are not 50 and 60 years old, but also that there are more people that look like them, that have made it, so to speak, in the professional world, and introduce them to new composers like we did with William Grant Still and Florence Price ... and introduce them to more music like that," she said.
It’s not the first time the orchestra has done this kind of outreach at Charlotte schools, according to Justin Pierce, CMS director of arts education. He says the group’s diversity and younger age helps them connect to students — particularly those aspiring to a career in the arts.
“We've seen that throughout many experiences that we've done across the arts is that when kids can kind of see people in that next maybe one or two steps just ahead of them, they can connect a little bit more," he said.
The musicians took questions from students in between songs, on everything from their careers to their techniques. In some cases, they quizzed the students themselves. Samantha Medina Arzate, a senior at Northwest who plays the cello, said the performance gave her chills. She said programs like this help encourage her and her fellow students to practice harder.
“Whenever they see someone or hear how they sound and they're like, Oh my gosh, I want to sound like them.' That's really motivational for them to practice," she said.
It also gives the students a chance to have some fun with classical music. For the quartet’s last song, they invited students to take out their phones to record. They played a medley of pop songs as students sang along with an orchestral rendition of Chappell Roan's "Hot to Go" and filmed.
The full orchestra is set to perform Wednesday, Oct. 9, at Blumenthal Arts as part of a program with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra.
