Conference Agenda

The Civil War in the US (1861-1865) ended slavery, but not the racial discrimination of African-Americans. It did open, however, new artistic endeavors for people of African descent: Ensembles consisting entirely of Black artists emerged rapidly during the 1870s, which allowed for cultural diplomacy and for publicly addressing intercultural relations. At the center stage (literally and figuratively) were Sam Lucas (1840-1916) as well as the “Hyers Sisters”, Anna Madah Hyers (1855-1929) and Emma Louise Hyers (1857-1901). Starting in the mid-1870s, several musical theatre plays / dramas / operas were written for them: The first of these was the musical drama Out of Bondage (1876) by Bostonian playwright Joseph Bradford (1843-1886), portraying the life of African-Americans during slavery, during the Civil War, and after the Civil War. Following its success, writer E. S. Getchell wrote Urlina, the African Princess (1878) for the Hyers Sisters; it is an opera bouffe about the African princess Urlina, who is banished to a desert island, rescued by a prince, then sentenced to death, but rescued and installed as the rightful queen. African-American playwright Pauline Hopkins (1859-1930) wrote The Underground Railroad (1879) for Sam Lucas has; it has a plot similar to that of Out of Bondage, but instead of being freed by the Union Army, the slaves escape to Canada. The use of spirituals, other music, dance, and comedy are central to both musical dramas and their cultural meaning, but while Out of Bondage changes music and dance to ‘white’ genres in the fourth act, thus ridding the former slaves of their cultural heritage, The Underground Railroad retains spirituals and traditional dances through the end and thus makes a strong statement about retaining the African-American cultural heritage. This paper will summarize the historical re-discovery of this forgotten (yet vibrant) early African-American musical theatre, its reception, and an interpretation of its cultural importance. This research goes far beyond the very sketchy information found in existing scholarship about early African-American musical theatre and is primarily based on hundreds of newspaper articles found in databases such as www.newspapers.com or www.newspaperarchive.com, but also on other archival documents.

The Washington Conservatory was the first music conservatory founded by and for Black musicians in the United States. Largely unknown today, between 1903 and 1960 the Washington Conservatory rivaled more famous music programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) such as Fisk University and Hampton University. As teachers, performers, composers, activists, and leaders, Washington Conservatory graduates became cornerstones of musical communities across the United States.

In this presentation, we argue that the Washington Conservatory’s decades-long training of thousands of Black musicians contributed to the institutionalization of Black music studies in the 1960s and 1970s. The conservatory’s mission, curriculum, and national profile made it a symbolic precursor for other music institutions dedicated to the celebration and promotion of Black musical excellence. But it was the conservatory’s graduates who carried its mission forward in practice. Washington Conservatory graduates taught at HBCUs in Virginia, Texas, and New Jersey as well as in dozens of public schools and private studios, training a generation of Black musicians. One Washington Conservatory graduate, Henry Lee Grant, gave harmony lessons to a young Duke Ellington and served as Billy Taylor’s high school music teacher. And Washington Conservatory graduates worked as activists, establishing the National Association of Negro Musicians and fundraising for the NAACP. Graduates of the Washington Conservatory rarely achieved fame as concert artists, but their lack of notoriety ultimately says less about the extent of their accomplishments than it says about the historiographical silences that surround Black classical musicians, particularly those who pursued primary careers in education.

Building on the work of Eileen Southern, Doris McGinty, and Tammy Kernodle, we situate Washington Conservatory graduates as educator-activists who broadly championed Black musicianship. In doing so, we extend the historiography of HBCU music programs beyond a focus on the choral groups, especially jubilee singers, who brought a few of those programs to national prominence. Instead, we present Washington Conservatory alumni as keystones in musical networks that extend through the present, as institution builders, and as powerfully representative figures who brought the Washington Conservatory’s educational model into communities all over the country.