Rachel Barton Pine, Blues Dialogues Review

Rachel Barton Pine is a violinist with a mission, he quest is to bring awareness to the many contributions that black composers have brought music. Pine’s RBP Foundation established its Music by Black Composers project, a multi-faceted educational initiative and music repertory over the last 15 years. Pine and her RBP Foundation have collected over 900 works by more than 350 Black composers from the 18th-21st centuries, representing Africa, North and South America, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, and Oceania. Pine is now releasing Blues Dialogues, an album of twenty-four tracks that feature the compositions of Black composers. Pine and pianist Matthew Hagle recorded the project at the Music Institute of Chicago’s Nichols Hall and it is produced by James Ginsburg and engineered by multiple-Grammy nominee’s including Bill Maylone. Cedille Records is the label of Cedille Chicago, NFP. Sales of physical CDs and digital downloads and streams cover only a small percentage of the label’s costs. Tax-deductible donations from individual music-lovers and grants from charitable organizations account for most of its revenue. Musically, Pine is a powerful violist that is able to transcend the many moods, colors and styles required to transmit the passion within the music. Her enigmatic playing on this outstanding composition is not to be missed. That’s the short of it!