Video Interview, Randall Goosby on Roots

Released last week on Decca Classics, 24-year-old American violinist Randall Goosby's brilliantly-performed and conceived debut album Roots explores the influence which Black composers and Black culture had on American music from the late nineteenth century through to the present day, featuring works by Florence Price, George Gershwin, William Grant Still, Antonín Dvořák, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, and Goosby's friend and contemporary Xavier Dubois Foley.

Earlier this week I spoke to Randall over Zoom about how the #BlackLivesMatter movement inspired him to launch his recording career by 'sharing the stories and voices of some very important and prolific composers who haven't found their way into the traditional canon', the influence of his mentor Sanford Allen (who was the first Black violinist in the New York Philharmonic), and how the magical summers which he spent on Shelter Island whilst studying on the Perlman Music Program spawned both a long-standing friendship and the 'delicious' opening piece on the album...

You can read a transcript of the conversation here.