FAMOUS BLACK COMPOSERS

THEN … AND … NOW!

From African Slave to Composer & Author Born on

a Slave Ship Near Guinea, West Africa

Afro-British Composer, Conductor

& Professor

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

• Born on August 15, 1875 in London, England.  His mother was an English woman named Alice Hare.  His father was Daniel Peter Taylor, a doctor and a native of Sierra Leone.

• Young Samuel was raised by his English mother and stepfather, but his musical education was overseen by Col. Herbert A. Walters, who belonged to the church choir in which the boy sang. Samuel also studied violin with a local musician as a child.

When he was only sixteen Samuel published his anthem In Thee, O Lord, another four following while he was still in

his mid-teens.

• Coleridge-Taylor's second major composition of 1898 was his musical Hiawatha's Wedding Feast,  for which he is best known.  The work is a setting of verses from  Song of Hiawatha  by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  He conducted its premier to great acclaim.  The work was staged hundreds of times in the United Kingdom alone during the next 15 years.

• The composer credited the Fisk Jubilee Singers and their European tours with introducing him to African American spirituals.  He also collected traditional songs of Africans and African Americans from other sources for the work which became his  24 Negro Melodies

Coleridge-Taylor took on more and more teaching positions throughout his career, beginning in 1895.  At the time of his death he was a Lecturer at Croydon Conservatoire, and Professor of Composition at Trinity College of Music, Crystal Palace School of Art and Music, and Guildhall School of Music.

• On September 1, 1912 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor died of pneumonia complicated by exhaustion from overwork.  He was just 37 years old.

• Although he took on an excessive work load of composing, conducting and teaching, he still had difficulty supporting his family.  When he published a work of music he received only a small one-time payment from the publisher.  The circumstances of his death contributed greatly to the subsequent adoption of a system of royalties for composers in the U.K.

African American Composer, Pianist & Bandleader

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington

• African American composer, pianist and jazz band leader.  He was born into a middle-class family in Washington, D.C. on

April 29, 1899.  • Young Edward began

studying the piano at age seven.  He was about 17 years old when he began playing piano professionally.  By age 20 he was a bandleader, playing at social events. 

In the fall of 1927 the Ellington orchestra secured a long-term gig at the Cotton Club, New York City's most

prestigious nightclub, which was wired to permit "live" remote radio broadcasts that gave Ellington nationwide recognition.

• Ellington and his orchestra toured the U.S. frequently during the 1930s and enjoyed success in Europe during tours there in 1933 and 1939. 

• In 1943 Ellington and his orchestra performed at New York's legendary Carnegie Hall.  The program included a ground-breaking 44-minute work entitled Black, Brown, and Beige: A Tone Parallel to the History of the American Negro.

• Ellington began exploring spiritual themes with his Concert of Sacred Music in 1965. 

• On the occasion of his 70th birthday party in 1969 he was given the Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon.  In 1973 Ellington was diagnosed with lung cancer.  Even after he went into a hospital the following year he kept composing music. Ellington passed away in New York City on May 24, 1974.

Afro-Cuban Composer, Conductor & Professor Contemporary Music for

Concert, Dance & Opera

She was born in Havana, Cuba on May 14, 1943,  she is of mixed French, Spanish, Chinese, African,

and Cuban heritage.

• She began studying piano at age four and attended Carlos Alfredo Peyrellade Conservatory and the National Conservatory in her native Havana, with additional degree work in business administration.

• Originally pianist for Arthur Mitchell’s dance classes, she joined him as co-founder in 1969 of the Dance Theater of Harlem and was the first music director (conductor and composer) for that ensemble.

• León's first ballet: Tones, Dougla  (with Geoffrey Holder, and Spiritual Suite 

• She joined the faculty at Brooklyn College (where she was named Tow Distinguished Professor

• Ms. León joined forces with Nobel Prize-winner Wole Soyinka with whom she collaborated on her award-winning opera  “Scourge of Hyacinths”. 

A Great Tribute to a Great Composer,March 13, 1957 - Feb. 11, 2003

• He went on to graduate from the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) and Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. He also studied at New York's Juilliard School of Music and Louisana State University in Baton Rouge.

• one of the most celebrated directors and masters of spirituals who created dozens of new original arrangements of classic spirituals, and formed several choirs that performed them with new vitality.

Hogan was born in New Orleans, Louisana

• With over 70 published works, Hogan's arrangements have become staples in the repertoires of high school, college, church, community and professional choirs worldwide.

• Hogan died on Feb. 11, 2003 at age 45 from a brain tumor.