ORCHESTRATED is a feature documentary charting the unknown story of the first full-time African American symphony orchestra in the context of a century-long Black struggle for an equal place in classical music. It follows classical pianist, BLM activist, and NYU professor Kyle P. Walker on a quest to uncover the lost traces of this audacious project, to connect to living witnesses, and to understand why this critical chapter of our shared history has vanished. While examining the racism that continues to haunt classical music today, Walker sets out to finish the project and orchestrate a premiere of its original music at Carnegie Hall, teaming up with Alexander Walker, a conductor at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
“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.
Determined that the memory of the musicians will not remain hidden from history, Kyle and Alex finish the Orchestra’s quintessential project nearly 85 years later by staging the “New World Suite” at Carnegie Hall with an orchestra of color.
Writer/ Director: Natalia Iyudin
Director of Photography/ Writer: Bongani Mlambo
Advisor: Sam Pollard
Creative Consultant: Ross Kauffman
Producers: Kashka Glowacka, Nicholas Weissman
Writer: David Goldfarb
Executive Producer: Ania Perzanowska
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