About the Gateways Festival Orchestra

The Gateways Festival Orchestra is an ensemble of the Gateways Music Festival, a New York-based non-profit organization whose mission is to connect and support professional classical musicians of African descent and enlighten and inspire communities through the power of performance.

The Orchestra’s repertoire encompasses major works from the Classical, Romantic, 20th and 21st centuries, with a special emphasis on large-scale works by composers of African descent, including Michael Abels, Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, James V. Cockerham, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, William Levi Dawson, Adolphus Hailstork, Florence Beatrice Price, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Carlos Simon, George Walker, Olly Wilson and more.

Comprised of 100 musicians of African descent, the members of the Gateways Festival Orchestra come from a variety of professional backgrounds and include players in top symphony orchestras, faculty from renowned music schools and conservatories, and active freelance artists. Members come together to form the Orchestra from locations across the United States, as well as Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, South Africa, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Colombia, and various Caribbean islands.

Renowned musicians who have performed with the Gateways Festival Orchestra include pianists Paul Badura-Skoda, Stewart Goodyear, Awadagin Pratt and Terrence Wilson; clarinetists Alexander Laing and Anthony McGill; French hornists Jerome Ashby and Robert Lee Watt; violinists Brendon Elliott, Kelly Hall-Tompkins, Dianne Monroe, Tai Murray; cellists Donald White and Owen Young; harpist Ann Hobson Pilot; singers Denyce Grave, George Shirley and William Warfield; and many others.

Michael Morgan served as music director and conductor of the Gateways Orchestra from its inception in 1993 until his untimely passing in 2021. In 2022, for its Carnegie Hall debut, renowned orchestral and Hollywood-based conductor Anthony Parnther led the Gateways Orchestra for the first time.

The Gateways Music Festival’s 2023-24 season includes performances in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater.

ABOUT GATEWAYS MUSIC FESTIVAL

Gateways Music Festival is a twice-per-year, multi-day series of orchestra and chamber music concerts, solo recitals, panel discussions, talks, film screenings and more, presented to an in-person audience of more than 7,500 and a live radio broadcast audience of more than 100,000.

In addition to the annual orchestra festival in the spring and chamber music festival in the fall, Gateways Music Festival hosts several initiatives, including the Gateways Daily Showcase, a social media campaign that highlights a Black classical composer or performer every day on Facebook and Instagram; the Gateways Brass Collective, the only all-Black professional brass quintet in the country; the Gateways Chamber Players, a touring ensemble featuring the nation's foremost classical musicians; Gateways Artist Residencies, multi-day engagements led by Gateways artists in recital, master classes, and community-based activities; and Gateways Radio, a one-hour syndicated radio program hosted by Garrett McQueen that features Black classical artists on public radio stations across the United States. Gateways’ Young Musicians Institute provides opportunities for beginner to pre-professional music students to interact with Gateways musicians through side-by-sides, master classes, and informal mentoring.

Founded in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1993 by noted African-American concert pianist Armenta Hummings Dumisani, Gateways was brought to Rochester, NY in 1997 when Hummings Dumisani joined the Eastman School of Music faculty. The Festival’s mission is to connect and support professional classical musicians of African descent and enlighten and inspire communities through the power of performance. Over the years, Gateways has become an artistic home for Black classical musicians and a welcoming destination for audiences of all backgrounds and ages.

In 2016, while remaining an independent non-profit organization, Gateways formalized its long-time relationship with Eastman School of Music and the University of Rochester. Among other mutual benefits, this deepened relationship provided many of the resources and infrastructure necessary for Gateways to increase its programming capacity, appoint its first paid staff member and broaden and deepen the impact that the organization has made in and beyond Rochester, New York.