It’s Black History Month. Rather than wait for the Passover season, I thought this would be an excellent excuse to unveil a recent recording, on the Bridge Records, Inc. label, of R. Nathaniel Dett’s “The Ordering of Moses.”

Dett, the grandson of fugitive slaves, was born on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. He studied all over the place, including Oberlin, the Eastman School, Harvard, and the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, France. He taught all over the place, too. He made influential contacts and brought increased visibility to Black concert music. His was an important voice in the history of American art.

“The Ordering of Moses” was composed in 1932. The recording, which documents a live 2014 concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and May Festival Chorus conducted by James Conlon, is electrifying.

Hear it today. It’s one of our featured works between noon and 4:00 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.