Frances Walker-Slocum's Beginnings, Notable Performances, and the State of Black Classical Music in the 20th Century
Frances Walker-Slocum was an accomplished twentieth-century pianist and tenured professor at Oberlin Conservatory. Walker-Slocum was born in 1924 in Washington DC. Her father was a doctor and his income provided the Walker family economic prosperity at a time when not many families, especially Black families, were wealthy. This cushion of wealth allowed for Walker-Slocum and her older brother, George, to take piano lessons from a young age. This training led both siblings to attend Oberlin Conservatory.
Walker-Slocum began her studies at Oberlin Conservatory in 1942. She studied both piano and organ with professors Arthur Posister (organ), Claire Coci (organ), and John Elvin (piano). Walker-Slocum learned and performed an impressive repertoire of music during her time at Oberlin, including Johann Sebastian Bach’s English Suite No. 3 and Ludwig van Beethoven’s 32 Variations in C Minor. These pieces are well known and mark a performer with skills of high merit. Walker-Slocum’s training as an Oberlin student is reflected in the rigorous and prestigious pieces she studied and performed well. In her autobiography, A Miraculous Journey, Walker-Slocum mentions how her degree performances were often given the highest marks possible and how she outshone her fellow classmates. During these Oberlin years, Walker-Slocum built upon her childhood training to become a well-versed musician and performer. She based her musical foundation on the renowned compositions by white men from the 17th and 18th centuries. Before leaving Oberlin, Walker-Slocum was inducted into the National Honorary Music Society, Pi Kappa Lambda. She graduated from Oberlin Conservatory in 1945 and immediately continued her piano studies at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
After her year at the Curtis Institute, Walker-Slocum studied at the Juilliard Summer School and worked as an accompanist in New York City. Next, Walker-Slocum took on various teaching positions at colleges around the eastern United States; she taught at Barber-Scotia College in North Carolina and Tougaloo College in Mississippi. After leaving these teaching positions, and meeting her future husband, Chet Slocum, Walker-Slocum moved back to New York City to pursue more performance opportunities and continue her education. She received her master’s degree in teaching from Columbia University, and subsequently taught piano at Lincoln University and Rutgers University.
In the 20th century, Black women pianists were present in the professional music sphere, but they were often not given the recognition they deserved. In addition to Frances Walker-Slocum, there were pianists such as Florence Price (1887-1953), who was an accomplished pianist as well as the first Black female composer to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra; Margaret Bonds (1913-1972), who was one of the first black women composers and pianists to gain recognition in the United States; and Anne Gamble Kennedy (1920-2001), who taught piano at the Tuskegee Institute, Talladega College, and Fisk University in addition to creating many professional piano recordings. Frances Walker-Slocum was not alone as a Black women pianist in the 20th century, but the music Walker-Slocum chose to perform set her apart from her contemporaries.
By the 1970s, Frances Walker-Slocum had many accomplishments under her belt, including her debut Carnegie Hall concert in 1959, but the performance that she is most well-known for is her 1975 Carnegie Hall performance, the Music of Black American Composers. This document is the program from that performance. In her autobiography, Walker-Slocum noted how she came across the music for this concert by chance, and “was ecstatic” to make the discovery (Walker-Slocum 132). Her Carnegie Hall performance was originally planned to take place in 1976, the year of the United States Bicentennial, but the concert was moved up to 1975 because she “didn’t want anyone to come out with the piano music of Black composers before [she] did.” Walker-Slocum noted “performing an entire program of the piano music of Black Americans was so unusual (I would go as far as to say that mine was probably the first)” (Walker-Slocum 132). The extraordinary thing Walker-Slocum did with this performance was she got music by Black composers performed in a prestigious concert hall where most of the attendants would have likely been white. The reviews of this concert were overwhelmingly positive. The Star-Ledger wrote “it’s a mystery to this critic why Miss Walker isn’t better known—she’s that good.” The reviews also detailed information about the piece and the composers who wrote them, bringing more attention to the music of Black Americans. The New York Times also recognized the attention Walker-Slocum brought to this music by Black composers, who had been previously unknown and ignored. They also praised the technique and beauty of her playing.
Both The New York Times and The Washington Post made comments differentiating “Black music” from the music Walker-Slocum played, when reviewing her performances of music by Black composers. There is a negative undertone in these articles when describing “Black music,” but they celebrate Walker-Slocum’s revival of music by Black composers. When Walker-Slocum performed the music of Black composer program at the National Gallery in Washington DC in April of 1975, The Washington Post wrote in review “‘Black music’ and music by black composers are very different things. It is the latter that pianist Frances Walker played at the National Gallery last night” (Reinthaler). The “Black music” being referenced here was likely funk or soul music, since both genres were very popular in Black culture and among Black musicians in the 1970s. In her book, The Music of Black Americans, Eileen Southern explains that both genres rose out of rhythm ‘n’ blues and that soul began to gain popularity in the 1960s, while funk gained popularity in the 1970s (Southern 517). Southern argued that soul music singers used their platform to voice concern over “social injustice, racial pride, black militancy, and forms of protest” (Southern 517). These genres were considered “Black music” because most of the people performing soul and funk music were Black, including James Brown, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and Nina Simone. In The New York Times review of Walker-Slocum’s 1975 Carnegie Hall performance, Donal Henahan framed her performance with:
“We hear a lot nowadays about “black music,” and there certainly are works that legitimately qualify as such. But there is, and has been for several centuries, music by black composers that need not be put into any racial pigeonhole. Black‐influenced, yes; but black in a narrow sense, no.”
Henahan situated his review by stating that some music by Black composers is highbrow enough to warrant listening to, while “Black music” is not. He came to this conclusion by comparing the compositions to music by European composers. He even framed his analysis of the pieces by claiming that one could hear the “influence” of European composers (Alexander Scriabin, Claude Debussy, and Frederic Chopin) in the music performed. By putting European standards of music onto these pieces by Black composers, it legitimized them for a white audience. Walker-Slocum’s performance of music by Black composers highlighted the musical abilities of Black composers, and highlighted herself as a Black musician, without alienating her white audience.
The program for Walker-Slocum’s Bicentennial Carnegie Hall performance consisted of works by John Childs, George Walker (Frances Walker-Slocum’s brother), William Grant Still, Howard Swanson, Margaret Bonds, R. Nathaniel Dett, Scott Joplin, Hale Smith, and Noel Da Costa. Joplin and Still were and are widely well known and celebrated composers, and have their music and careers studied in modern day Conservatories of Music. Swanson, Bonds, Dett, Smith, and Da Costa also had established and fruitful career, but John Childs does not have a public record, and where he is cited, it is in relation to Walker-Slocum playing his piece, “Poem-Waltz” at her Bicentennial concert.
As Walker-Slocum put it “the music of my people and that concert opened the door of opportunity for me” (Walker Slocum 137). Soon after her 1975 Carnegie Hall performance, Oberlin Conservatory, Walker-Slocum’s alma mater, invited her to perform a guest recital. This concert took place on Tuesday, January 6th, 1976. Oberlin Conservatory tells a story that her Oberlin performance amazed the administrators, leading them to hire her on the spot to teach that Fall. In her autobiography, Walker-Slocum describes this moment as “wheeling and dealing” and “backroom politics” to counteract bad press Oberlin Conservatory had recently received surrounding the firing of Doris Mayes, a Black vocal professor in the Conservatory (Walker-Slocum 143).
Walker-Slocum also toured Europe with her Bicentennial Program of Black Composers, specifically Germany, in 1982. She played this program at many concert halls, allowing the composer’s music to gain a wider audience while she established herself as an accomplished pianist. This recognition of Walker-Slocum’s talent and professionality also led to her making a record of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Twenty-Four Negro Melodies,” which is the most celebrated professional recording by Walker-Slocum.
Works Cited
Henahan, Donal. “Music: Tasteful Survey of Black Spirit.” The New York Times, 15 Sept. 1975.
Redmond, Michael. “Pianist Livens Works of Three Blacks.” The Star-Ledger, 16 Sept. 1975.
Reinthaler, Joan. “Walker.” The Washington Post, 1975.
Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: a History. W. W. Norton & Company Inc., 1997.
Walker-Slocum, Frances. A Miraculous Journey. Author House, 2006.