LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this lesson, students will be able to do the following:

Identify the lives of notable Black classical composers, conductors, and musical performers.
Demonstrate the concept of the linkage between the music of the “old guard”—musicians of yesteryear—and their impact on the contemporary Black classical musicians and compositions.
Describe the importance of Slave Songs of the United States and Music and Some Highly Musical People to the development of the survey of American music history.
List a few important African American classical singers who were strategic to the early development of establishing the bar for singers of the twentieth century.
Identify classical singers who were influential upon concert life in Black America during the first half of the twentieth century.

The Old Guard (1760-1862): Before Emancipation (Continued)

The Opening of a School by Newport Gardner
Residence of Newport Gardner, c. 1810 House at 25 Pope Street, believed to have been owned and occupied by Gardner	Notice of Upcoming Instruction by Newport Gardner in the Newport Mercury Newspaper

James Monroe Trotter (1842-1892)

Cover of his influential work, Music and Some Highly Musical People

The publication of Slave Songs of the United States laid the foundation of what we now know as Black music research and scholarship. This work, the world's first book-length document consisting of 138 compositions of Black music, was compiled by a trio of White scholars in 1867—the lesson on Folk Spirituals covers the importance of this work. Building on that work, eleven years later, James Monroe Trotter (1842–1892), a Black newspaper editor from Boston, “published his Music and Some Highly Musical People, which was the first comprehensive survey in the field of American music history. Its focus was entirely on Black music" (Floyd 2009, 10; Southern 1983, 142-148).

African American Oral Project presents Virginia Isaac Trotter (wife) commenting on her husband James Trotter on the theme “Struggle for Equality.” Discover Video Icon

Ep.4 Francis B. Johnson - Black Excellence Series

In this work, Trotter outlines in the first and second parts as delineated by its content. See this important text, beginning on page 66 at Project Gutenberg’s Music and Some Highly Musical People.

Read on for a list and a brief discussion of the best-known concert performers of the period, as is indicated by the following selective list from his chapter headings:

Best Known Concert Performers of The Old Guard

Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, the Famous Songstress: She was “often called the ‘Black Swan.’"
The "Luca family,," Vocalists and Instrumentalists.
Henry F. Williams, Composer, Band-Instructor, Etc.
Justin Holland, the Eminent Author and Arranger, and Performer on the Guitar, Flute, and Piano Forte.
Thomas J. Bowers, Tenor-Vocalist; Often Styled the "American Mario": Click here for additional information on him.
James Gloucester Demarest, Guitar and Violin.
Thomas Greene Bethune, Otherwise Known as "Blind Tom," the Wonderful Pianist.
Anna Madah and Emma Louise Hyers, Vocalists and Pianists.
Frederick Elliot Lewis, Pianist, Organist, Violinist, Etc.
Nellie E. Brown, the Favorite New Hampshire Vocalist: Click here for additional information on her.
Samuel E. Jamieson, the Brilliant Young Pianist.
Joseph White, the Eminent Violinist and Composer.
The Colored American Opera Company.
The Famous Jubilee Singers of Fisk University.
The Georgia Minstrels.

From this partial list of "the best-known concert performers of the period," according to Trotter, this lesson will now explore the music of:

Frank Johnson (1792–1844) (who appears in the second part of Trotter’s book)
Justin Holland (1819–1887)
Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield (c. 1819–1876)
Thomas Green Bethune (1849–1908)

William C. Banfield

Can you imagine American music without the work of Black composers or without Black music in general? Still, there is a refusal, a denial, of that reality.

William C. Banfield

We got some Black Beethovens living up in here, and what's most sad is, y'all don't even know it!