ORCHESTRATED charts the untold story of the first standing all-Black symphony orchestra in America—a bold and visionary collective of Harlem musicians who challenged the racial barriers of the classical music world in 1937, decades before diversity and inclusion became part of the national conversation. Through an intimate present-day conversation with one of the most influential American musicians working today, the forgotten legacy of the Negro Symphony Orchestra reemerges from obscurity, revealing a story of resistance, collaboration, and artistic excellence.
Drawing from never-before-seen letters, photographs, concert programs, and archival documents, ORCHESTRATED explores the Negro Symphony Orchestra not simply as a musical endeavor, but as a profound act of social self-determination that is the backbone of a civil society. The Orchestra brought together people fed up with second-class citizenship and ready to buck the system, and that fact alone, shifts our understanding of the history of classical music in this country, and of those who wrote it.
Why has this important chapter of our shared history been erased until now? How has exclusion shaped generations of Black classical musicians? And how is it playing out today?
Directed by Sam Pollard & Natalia Iyudin
Produced by Ross Kauffman & Kashka Glowacka
Executive Producers: Ania Perzanowska & David Goldfarb
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