ORCHESTRATED is a feature documentary about the first all-Black symphony orchestra in the United States—the Negro Symphony Orchestra (NSO). Under the leadership of Harlem’s leading activists and thinkers, this virtually unknown project brought together over a hundred classically trained African American musicians. Their efforts and dreams were to culminate with a debut at Carnegie Hall in 1939 followed by a European tour, but never did. Why?
To tell this story, the film follows an NYU professor, pianist and activist, Kyle P. Walker, as he teams up with British conductor, Alex Walker, investigates the Orchestra’s history and forgotten legacy, finds its living witnesses, and stages a performance of its unfinished work, the “New World Suite”, with a symphony orchestra of color.
“The world needs to know how radical the Negro Symphony Orchestra was. In an age when a Black musician practically had to be a freak of nature to appear with white musicians for paying white audiences, these people were trying to fill a whole orchestra with Black musicians. And yet, no one knows about this,” says Kyle, determined to see this project through.
But research proves to be a challenge. Kyle bumps against incomplete archives, interviews turned down, dead-end leads. To track down the descendants of the Orchestra members, he hires a private investigator who deadpans, “I’ve never looked for people this dead before.” In his arduous research, every scan, faded photograph, and address bring him closer to piecing together the story that involves William Grant Still, author James Weldon Johnson, tenor Leviticus Lyon, first (Black) woman concertmaster Mildred Franklin; first Black conductor of a white orchestra, A. Jack Thomas, and many more. The emerging tale of hustle, determination, and reached —and shattered —dreams, falls in and out of the historical oblivion.
Music is called a “universal language,” but the stage door has not always been open to anyone who can play. A 2023 study by the League of American Orchestras reveals that only 2.4% of orchestral musicians and 6.7% of conductors in the U.S. are African Americans, who make up 13.6% of the population at large. Only in 2021—nearly a century after the Metropolitan Opera rejected a proposal to find a Black soprano for Verdi’s “Aida”—has an opera by a Black composer embedded in African American musical heritage made it to the Met: Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.”
ORCHESTRATED unwraps the Negro Symphony Orchestra’s story, asks why it has been ignored, and dissects discrimination that continues to permeate the classical music world.
Writer/ Director: Natalia Iyudin
Director of Photography/ Writer: Bongani Mlambo
Advisor: Sam Pollard
Creative Consultant: Ross Kauffman
Producers: Kashka Glowacka, Robert Salyer (POV)
Consulting Producer: Nicholas Weissman, Adetoro Makinde
Writer: David Goldfarb
Executive Producer: Ania Perzanowska