The African American Art Song: Modernism

1940 - 1990 - Present
The African American Art Song: Modernism

Composers of Neo-Classical, Neo-Romantic, Avant-Garde, Serial and Pan-Africanist Traditions, including:
H. Leslie Adams (b. 1932)
Thomas Jefferson Anderson (b. 1928)
David Baker (b. 1931)
Charles Brown (b. 1941)
John Carter (b. 1932 - 1981?)
Noel DaCosta (1930 - 2002)
Mark Fax (1911 - 1974)
Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941)
Frederick Douglass Hall (1898 - 1982)
Eugene Hancock (1929 - 1993)
Ulysess Kay (1917 - 1995)
Thomas H. Kerr, Jr. (1915 - 1988)
Betty Jackson King (1928 - 1994)
Wendell Logan (b. 1940)
Maurice McCall
Dorothy Rudd Moore (b. 1941)
Undine Smith Moore (1904 - 1989)
Robert L. Morris
Robert Owens (b. 1925)
Coleridge Taylor Perkinson
Julia Perry (1924 - 1979)
Hale Smith (b. 1925)
Howard Swanson (1907 - 1978)
George Walker (b. 1922)
Clarence Cameron White (1880 - 1960)
Olly Wilson (b. 1937)
John W. Work, Jr. (1901 - 1967)
Concert artists of the 1940 - 1990 modern tradition, most of whom develop international careers include:
Adele Addison (b. 1925)
Donnie Rae Albert, baritone
Betty Allen (b. 1930), mezzo-soprano
Roberta Alexander, mezzo-soprano
Martina Arroyo (b. 1937), soprano
Carmen Balthrop (b. 1948), soprano
Priscilla Baskerville, soprano
Kathleen Battle (b. 1948), soprano
Raymond Bazemore
Harolyn Blackwell, soprano
Gwendolyn Bradley, soprano
Carol Brice, contralto (1918 - 1985)
William Brown, tenor
Grace Bumbry (b. 1937), soprano/mezzo-soprano
Helen Colbert
Barbara Conrad, mezzo-soprano
Philip Creech, tenor
Clamma Dale (b. 1948), soprano
Delores Ivory Davis (b. 1929), mezzo soprano
Gloria Davy (b. 1931), soprano
Mattiwilda Dobbs (b. 1925), soprano
Mark S. Doss, baritone
Todd Duncan (1903 - 1998), baritone
Simon Estes (b. 1938), bass-baritone
Maria Ewing, soprano
Reri Grist, soprano (b. 1932)
Hilda Harris, mezzo-soprano
Gordon Hawkins, baritone
Marvin Hayes, baritone
Cynthia Haymon, soprano
Barbara Hendricks (b. 1948), soprano
Ben Holt (1955 - 1990)
Isola Jones, mezzo-soprano
Jennifer Jones, mezzo-soprano
Gwendolyn Killebrew, mezzo-soprano
Georgia Laster, soprano
Hortense Love, soprano
Gwendolyn Lytle (b. 1945) soprano
Marvis Martin, soprano
Benjamin Matthews (d. 2006), baritone
Inez Matthews (b. 1917)
Dorothy Maynor (b. 1910)
Robert McFerrin, baritone (1921 - 2006)
Sara McFerrin, soprano
Oral Moses, bass-baritone
Jessye Norman (b. 1945) , soprano
John Patton, Jr., tenor
Eugene Perry, baritone
Herbert Perry, bass-baritone
Leontyne Price (b. 1927), soprano
Florence Quivar (b. 1944), mezzo-soprano
Faye Robinson, soprano
Mark Rucker, baritone
George Shirley (b. 1934), tenor
Kevin Short, baritone
Marietta Simpson, mezzo-soprano/contralto
Marion Downs Smith, soprano
Theodore Charles Stone, baritone
Helen Thigpen, soprano
Veronica Tyler, soprano
Margaret Tynes (b. 1929), soprano
Shirley Verrett (b. 1931), mezzo-soprano
William Warfield (1920 2002), baritone
Felicia Weathers (1937), soprano
Camilla Williams (b. 1919 or 1922)
Wendell Wright, tenor
Thomas Young, tenor

Ground-breaking accomplishments and performances of concerts that include a repertoire of art songs, opera excerpts and spirituals (1940 - 1990) include:

1940 Theodore Charles Stone makes his Town Hall debut;
1942 Howard Swanson composes the art song The Negro Speaks of Rivers, text by Langston Hughes;
1943 Camilla Williams becomes the first recipient of the Marian Anderson Award;
1944 Carol Brice becomes the first African American to win the Naumburg Foundation competition (a competition established in 1925);
1944 Baritone Todd Duncan makes his debut at New York�s Town Hall;
March 1945 Carol Brice gives her debut Town Hall recital;
1946 Anne Brown concertizes throughout Europe and subsequently settles in Norway;
1949 William Grant Still composes the song cycle Songs of Separation, setting the poetry of five black poets (Arna Bontemps, Philippe-Thoby Marcelin, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes);
1949 Baritone Paul Robeson performs concerts in black churches across the United States because municipal auditoriums and concert halls refuse to book his concerts. Protestors follow his public appearances, voicing opposition to his affiliation with the Communist Party. Often their protests generate riots that stop the performances. This is evident at a scheduled Westchester County outdoor concert and at a Peekskill, New York event.
1949 The concert halls of the U. S. continue to be segregated, causing singer Marian Anderson to require vertical seating that assures the designation of seats for blacks throughout the hall;
1952 Adele Addison makes her Town Hall concert debut in New York;
1952 Marian Anderson makes her television debut on The Ed Sullivan Show;
1953 Baltimores Lyric Theater refuses to book Marian Anderson because of their segregation policy;
1953 Soprano Georgia Laster wins the Naumburg Foundation competition;
1953 Music critic Nora Holt produces a classical music radio program on WLIB in New York, Nora Holts Concert Showcase, WLIB;
January 26, 1955 Marian Anderson performs at the White House for President Dwight Eisenhower;
1958 Mezzo-Soprano Shirley Verrett wins the Naumburg Foundation competition and makes her Town Hall concert debut in New York;
1958 Dr. W. Hazaiah Williams becomes one of the first African-American impresarios, establishing Four Seasons Concerts and co-sponsoring a Marian Anderson farewell recital at the San Francisco Opera House;
1959 Composer Margaret Bonds writes the song cycle Three Dream Portraits, using the poetry of Langston Hughes (I, Too,Dream Variation, and Minstrel Man);
January 1961 Contralto Marian Anderson performs at President John F. Kennedys Inauguration;
1962 Soprano Camilla Williams performs throughout Asia in a State Department sponsored tour;
April 18, 1965 Marian Anderson presents her retirement farewell concert at Carnegie Hall;
April 20, 1965 Leontyne Price performs at the White House for President Lyndon Baines Johnson;
1969 The Afro-American Music Opportunities Association (AAMOA) is founded by C. Edward Thomas to promote the involvement of black musicians in the varied fields of classical music;
1975 Soprano Clamma Dale wins the Naumberg Foundation competition;
April 12, 1978 Soprano Clamma Dale performs at the White House for President Jimmy Carter;
October 8, 1978 Leontyne Price presents a nationally televised (PBS) concert at the White House for President Jimmy Carter;
January 14, 1986 Jessye Norman performs at the White House for President Ronald Reagan;
1986 David Baker composes Through This Vale of Tears, a song cycle for tenor, string quartet and piano written as a tribute and commentary on the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
1989 Mezzo-soprano Marietta Simpson wins the Naumberg Foundation competition;
June 27, 1989 Leontyne Price performs at the White House for President George Bush
Opera and The Art Song (1940 1990)

African American singers and composers of the art song genre continue to be active in the composition and performance of opera. Casting and touring discrimination increasingly is eliminated. African American themes and performers are featured in the genre of opera � created both by African American composers as well as by composers of diverse cultures, and featured internationally in the seasons of major opera companies. Ground-breaking accomplishments and performances include:

1940 - William Grant Still composes A Bayou Legend;
1940 Asadata Dafora composes Zunguru, a dance opera;
1941 - 1962 - Mary Cardwell Dawson establishes The National Negro Opera Company (Pittsburgh), performing in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., providing significant employment for African American singers who, because of discrimination practices, were not hired by the major American opera companies. Note that the National Negro Opera Company Collection is at the Library of Congress;
1942 - William Grant Still composes the two-act opera A Southern Interlude;
1942 - George Gershwins Porgy and Bess is revived in New York (featuring Anne Brown and then Etta Moten);
1943 Carmen Jones, a black Broadway version of the 1875 Georges Bizet opera, is produced by Oscar Hammerstein - starring Muriel Rahn, Muriel Smith, Glenn Bryant, Luther Saxon and Napoleon Reed;
1943 - George Gershwins Porgy and Bess is performed in Copenhagen;
1945- Todd Duncan becomes the first African American to perform with the New York City Opera in the production of Pagliacci;
May 15, 1946 Soprano Camilla Williams signs a contract with the New York City Opera, and performs in Madame Butterfly
1948 - Soprano Camilla Williams is featured in the New York City Opera performance of Aida.
1949 - Harry T. Burleigh Music Association (South Bend, Indiana)
1949 - William Grant Still composes the three-act opera Troubled Island (libretto by Langston Hughes; produced by the New York City Opera with Robert McFerrin in a starring role);
1950- William Grant Still composes Costaso;
1950- Zelma George performs in the Broadway production of Gian Carlo Menottis The Medium;
1952 George Gershwins Porgy and Bess is revived for international touring with Leontyne Price, William Warfield and Helen Thigpen in starring roles;
1953 Soprano Mattiwilda Dobbs becomes the first African American performer at La Scala Milan, Italy;
1953 Leontyne Price makes her debut in Paris, France, performing in Virgil Thomsons Four Saints in Three Acts;
1954 Julia Amanda Perry composes a one-act opera, The Cask of Amontillado, staged by Columbia University;
April, 1954 Camilla Williams becomes the first African American performer with the Vienna State Opera, performing in Madame Butterfly;
1954 Vocal coach and accompanist Sylvia Olden Lee (1917 - 2004) is hired as a vocal coach for the Metropolitan Opera;
January 7, 1955 Marian Anderson makes her debut performance at The Metropolitan Opera, performing the role of Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdis Un Ballo in Maschera;
1954 Carmen Jones is filmed in 1954, starring Dorothy Dandridge (sung by Marilyn Horne), Harry Belafonte (sung by LaVern Hutcheson), Joe Adams (sung by Marvin Hayes), Pearl Bailey, Diahann Carroll, Brock Peters and Carmen DeLavallade;
1955 Baritone Robert McFerrin makes his Metropolitan Opera debut, in Verdis Aida;
1956 - Mattiwilda Dobbs makes her Metropolitan Opera debut;
Karamu Theatre
Ulysses Kay composes The Boor (1955 - a one-act opera adaptation of a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov); The Juggler Of Our Lady (1962/1972 - a one-act opera, libretto by Alex King based upon a 13th-century French legend); The Capitoline Venus (1966 - a one-act opera; based upon a short story by Mark Twain, libretto by Judith Dvorkin; commissioned by the Quincy, Illinois, Society of Fine Arts; premiered in Chicago by at the University of Illinois in 1971); Jubilee;
1957 Leontyne Price stars in the NBC-TV opera performance of Dialogues of the Carmelites;
1959 Martina Arroyo makes her Metropolitan Opera debut, performing in Don Carlos;
1961 Leontyne Price makes her Metropolitan Opera debut, performing in Il Trovatore;
July 24, 1961 Grace Bumbry makes her Bayreuth Festival debut in Tannhuser;
1961 Tenor George Shirley wins the Metropolitan Opera Auditions and makes his debut with the company;
1961- 1971 Alonzo Levister composes a two-act opera, Slave Song, with libretto by Oscar Brown, Jr.;
1962 Shirley Verrett is the star of Carmen at the Spoleto Festival;
1962 Grace Bumbry performs at the White House at the request of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy;
1963 William Grant Still composes Highway 1, USA;
1963 Soprano Grace Bumbry makes her American opera debut at the Chicago Lyric Opera;
1964 Arthur Cunningham composes a childrens opera, Ostrich Feathers;
1965 Henry Lewis is named musical director of the Los Angeles Opera Company;
1965-67 Mark Fax composes Till Victory Is Won as an opera in four episodes with prologue. (libretto based upon a poem by writer Owen Dodson). The work was commissioned by the Centennial Committee of Howard University and dedicated to the past presidents of Howard University. A concert version was performed in 1968 presented by the Morgan State College choir with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
1966 - performance by Leontyne Price to open the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, performing the role of Cleopatra in an opera written especially for her by Samuel Barber Anthony and Cleopatra; ;
1967 Arthur Cunningham composes a one-act rock opera, His Natural Grace;
1970 - Opera/South is established in Jackson, Mississippi. The company stages operas by black composers with outstanding African American guest artists and exceptional students from the black college members of the Mississippi Inter-Collegiate Opera Guild (Jackson State University, Utica Junior College and Tougaloo College).
1970 Soprano Grace Bumbry is distinguished for her performance with Covent Garden in Salome;
1972 - Scott Joplins Treemonisha is revived;
1972 Mezzo-soprano Hilda Harris makes her new York City Opera debut;
1973 - Opera Ebony founded by Benjamin Matthews, Sister Mary Elise and Wayne Sanders in Philadelphia. See www.operaebony.org
1974 Soprano Barbara Hendricks makes her debut at the San Francisco Opera
1976 - George Gershwins Porgy and Bess is revived by the Houston Grand Opera;
1976 Alvin Singletons Dream Sequence 76, an opera in two parts, is premiered;
1977 Soprano Kathleen Battle makes her Metropolitan Opera debut in Wagners Tannhuser;
1977 Mezzo-soprano Florence Quivar makes her Metropolitan Opera debut in Mussorgskys Boris Gudonov;
1977 Mezzo-soprano Hilda Harris makes her Metropolitan Opera debut in Alban Bergs Lulu;
1978 Carmen Balthrop makes her Metropolitan Opera debut;
1978 Bass-baritone Simon Estes makes his Bayreuth Festival debut in The Flying Dutchman;
1980-81 Soprano Gwendolyn Bradley makes her debut at the Metropolitan Opera
1982 Bass-baritone Simon Estes makes his Metropolitan Opera debut in Wagners Tannhuser;
1982 T. J. Andersons Soldier Boy, Soldier is premiered at Indiana University;
1983 Mezzo-soprano Roberta Alexander makes her Metropolitan Opera debut in Don Giovanni;
1983 Soprano Jessye Norman makes her Metropolitan Opera debut in Berlioz Les Troyens;
1985 - Dorothy Rudd Moores Frederick Douglass, premiered by Opera Ebony;
1985 - George Gershwins Porgy and Bess is finally performed by the Metropolitan Opera Company, featuring Grace Bumbry/Roberta Alexander, Simon Estes and Florence Quivar;
1986 Valerie Capers Sojourner Truth premiered by Opera Ebony;
1986 - Anthony Davis: The Life and Times of Malcolm X is performed by the New York City Opera. The work combines jazz, gospel and blues techniques with Classical/Romantic music traditions.
1987 Barbara Hendricks makes her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in Der Rosenkavalier;
1989 Soprano Jessye Norman stars in the Metropolitan Opera production of Schoenberg's Erwartung;
1989 Anthony Davis Under the Double Moon is premiered in St. Louis;
1989 The Marian Anderson Award Foundation establishes the Marian Anderson Award. Recipients have included Sylvia McNair (1990); Denyce Graves (1991); Philip Zawisza (1992), Nancy Maultsby (1993), Patricia Racette (1994), Michelle deYoung (1995), Nathan Gunn (1996), Marguerite Krul (1997) and Eric Owens (2003). The award established a partnership with Washington D.C.'s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2002.

COMMENTARY: For the black composer, the definition of opera will have to be not what whites think opera is, but what blacks think opera is. If the resulting works are true to the black mans visions, they must be accepted as he defines them. - T. J. Anderson (interviewed by Hansonia Caldwell, August, 1972)

COMMENTARY: I have learned, while working with black opera, that I may not be able to be as specific, as detailed, or as disciplined as my white counterpart. It seems that discipline, the strict adherence to words and rhythms, is not a characteristic which is inherent in black people. It's as though what the performer sees on the page is the take-off point. They spring from that to something else. Black opera is going to have to take this into consideration. - Arthur Cunningham (interviewed by Hansonia Caldwell, August, 1972)

COMMENTARY: *When asked by the New York Times Are there differences between musical theater and opera?, singer Audra McDonald replied: In terms of what is being written today, the line is becoming more and more blurred between the two forms. In the last couple of years, musical theater pieces have been written that require more from singers than before, while new operas are requiring more in terms of acting. In The Great Gatsby, for example, you needed someone like Lorraine Hunt, who could keep the drama moving forward. This question has come up a lot recently, and I think lately there has been more of a meeting of the minds between the two forms. (April 30, 2000)

Jazz and The Art Song
Duke Ellington composes major repertoire for the American Song Book
African American jazz and blues divas perform the repertoire that becomes an essential part of the American Song Book
The repertoire of the American Song Book eventually becomes a part of the Art Song concert

1990 - Present
The African American Art Song: Contemporary Voice
The African American art song singers and composers continue to flourish. The repertoire increasingly is embraced by diverse singers and multicultural audiences.

Contemporary Singers include:
Donnie Ray Albert, baritone
Gregg Baker, baritone
Celeste Bembry, soprano
McHenry Boatwright, baritone
Uzee Brown, Jr., baritone
Lawrence Brownlee, tenor
Janice Chandler, soprano
Cynthia Clarey, mezzo-soprano
Vinson Cole, tenor
Trent Cook, tenor
Henrietta Davis, soprano
Rodrick Dixon, tenor
Laura English-Robinson, soprano
Simon Estes (b. 1938), bass-baritone
Wilheminia Fernandez, soprano
Alpha Floyd, soprano
Luvenia Garner, soprano
Denyce Graves, mezzo-soprano
Ruby Hinds, mezzo-soprano
Bruce Hubbard, baritone
Kimberly Jones
Randye Jones, soprano
Marquita Lister, soprano
Gwendolyn Lytle, soprano
Benjamin Matthews (d. February 14, 2006), bass-baritone
Audra McDonald, soprano
Seth McCoy, tenor
Leona Mitchell, soprano
Marvis Martin, soprano
Oral Moses, bass-baritone
Willis Patterson, bass-baritone
Scott Piper, tenor
Curtis Rayam, tenor
Stephen Salters, baritone
Angela Simpson, soprano
Robert Sims, baritone
Michael Paul Smith, baritone
Darryl Taylor, tenor/countertenor
Louise Toppin, soprano
Shirley Verrett, soprano
Ray Wade, tenor
James Wagner, tenor
Jeanine Wagner, soprano
Yolanda Mitchell West, soprano
Willard White, bass-baritone
Brenda Wimberly, soprano
Thomas Young, tenor
Contemporary Composers of the United States include:

Lettie Beckon Alston (b. 1952)
Regina A. Harris Baiocchi (b. 1956)
William Banfield (b. 1961)
Charles Brown (b. 1940)
Cedric Dent
Roger Dickerson
Jacqueline Hairston (b. 1936)
Moses Hogan (1957 - 2005)
James Lee III
Tania Leon (b. 1944)
Charles Lloyd, Jr (b. 1948)
Nkeiru Okoye (b. 1972)
Gary Powell Nash
Daniel Bernard Roumain (b. 1972)
George Walker (b. 1922)
Mike Woods
Contemporary Composers of the African Diaspora

Ground-breaking accomplishments and performances include:

1990 Olly Wilson writes a song cycle for baritone, tenor and soprano voices, Of Visions of Truth;
1996 George Walker becomes the first African American composer to receive the Pulitzer Prize in music for Lilacs (written for soprano and orchestra);
1998 - The Marian Anderson Award is created in Philadelphia, to celebrate the unique power of the artist to change the world. Awards have been given to Harry Belafonte (1998), Gregory Peck (1999), Elizabeth Taylor (2000), Quincy Jones (2001), Danny Glover (2002) and Oprah Winfrey (2003), Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis (2005) and Sidney Poitier (2006);
2001 Denyce Graves appears in several venues in programs that respond to the tragic events of September 11, including the internationally televised National Prayer Service in Washingtons National Cathedral.
Contemporary Opera and The Art Song (1990 - Present)
1992 Anthony Davis Tania is premiered;
1995 - 1996 - Denyce Graves makes her Metropolitan Opera debut in the title role of Carmen.
1995 - The Houston Grand Opera produces Porgy and Bess with co-production/touring agreement with the Cleveland Opera, Dallas Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Los Angeles Music Center Opera, Portland Opera, San Diego Opera, San Francisco Opera, Seattle Opera and The Orange County Performing Arts Center. For the first time in history the production is stage directed by a black woman Hope Clarke, and stars Terry Cook or Alvy Powell as Porgy, Luvenia Garner or Angela Simpson as Serena, Kimberly Jones as Clara, Jeffrey LaVar or Stacey Robinson as Crown, Larry Marshall as Sportin Life, and Roberta Laws or Marquita Lister as Bess.
1995 - Regina Harris Baiocchi composes Good News Falls Gently. Additional works include Gbeldahoven: No Ones Child, one-act opera, 1996; Dreamhoppers, one-act opera, 1997;
October 24, 1997 - Leslie Adams opera Blake is premiered;
1997 Anthony Davis Amistad is premiered in Chicago;
September, 1998 Barbara Hendricks performs Puccinis Turandot at the Forbidden City in Beijing,China;
2000 - Akin Eubas Chaka!, premiered by the St. Louis African Chorus with an international cast.
2006 - Margaret Garner, written by Richard Danielpour, with the title role written for Denyce Graves

COMMENTARY: Sometimes our very presence changes things. When Anthony Davis and I went into City Opera in New York to put on our piece, we discovered how very rare black composers and librettists are in any opera house in the country. We knew our very existence gave some people a new perspective on what opera can be. We discovered too that people were barely used to working with a living composer and the process for mounting a piece was predicated on the work being known and the originators being long gone. Its good to bring change that involves working with living artists; it reminds us that such undertakings are collaborations. -"The Artist and Society", a speech presented by Thulani Davis at the First
National Conference of the National Endowment for the Arts, April, 1994.

Contemporary Venues and Competitions For African American Performers and Composers of The Art Song include:
National Association of Negro Musicians Scholarship Competition
The Ben Holt Memorial Concert Series founded by Dominique-Rene de Lerma
Four Seasons Concerts New York City, San Francisco and Oakland, California
Classically Black Concert Series Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Plymouth Music Series Witness Concerts in Minneapolis
Lois J. Wright Memorial Concert Series in Baltimore, Maryland
Black Heritage Concerts in Savannah Symphony
Classical Roots Spiritual Heights Concerts in Cincinnati Symphony
Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History Program in Black American Culture Washington, D.C.
Black Academy of Arts and Letters of Dallas
The BEEM (Black Experiences Expressed Through Music) Foundation for the Advancement of Music (Los Angeles)
The Afro-American Chamber Music Society of Los Angeles
The Naumburg Foundation Competition
The Grady-Rayam Prize of Orlando, Florida
The Marian Anderson Prize for Emerging Classical Artists, of Philadelphia (next competition in fall 2007)
The Marian Anderson Award of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (with The Fairfield County Community Foundation of Connecticut) a $15,000 award for a mid-career male or female American vocalist.

1878 Present
The African American Art Song: Preservation and Documentation
Organizations support and scholars and performers document (via text and electronic media) the role of African American performers and composers of the classical/art-song tradition.

James Monroe Trotter Music and Some Highly Musical People (1878; 1969)
The Clef Club of New York (1912 15)
Harry T. Burleigh Album of Negro Spirituals (1917; 1969)
National Association of Negro Musicians (founded in 1919)
James Weldon & J. Rosamond Johnson Book of Negro Spirituals (1925)
James Weldon & J. Rosamond Johnson Second Book of Negro Spirituals (1926)
Maude Cuney Hare Negro Musicians and Their Music (1936)
Nora Holt music critic of New Yorks Amsterdam News (appointed 1944)
Roland Hayes My Songs: Aframerican Religious Folk Songs (1948)
Adah Killian Jenkins music critic of Baltimores Afro American (1950s)
Afro-American Music Opportunities Association (AAMOA, 1969)
Edgar Rogie Clark- Negro Art Songs, (1946)
Afro-American Music Opportunities Association (AAMOA) (1969)
Eileen Southern The Music of Black Americans: A History (1971, 1983, 1997)
Eileen Southern, editor The Black Perspective in Music (1973 , 1990)
Afro-American Music Opportunities Association (AAMOA) and Columbia Records Black Composer Series, Paul Freeman, artistic director and conductor (1974)
Willis C. Patterson, editor Anthology of Art Songs By Black American Composers (1977)
Raoul Abdul Blacks in Classical Music (1977)
Samuel Floyd, Jr., editor Black Music Research Journal (1978)
Black Prima Donnas of the Nineteenth Century in The Black Perspective in Music, Vo. 7, No. 1 (Spring 1979)
Opera News
Opera Quarterly
Eileen Southern, editor Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Music. (1982)
The BEEM (Black Experiences Expressed Through Music) Foundation for the Advancement of Music (established in Los Angeles by Bette Cox in 1982)
Center for Black Music Research (CBMR) - a library and archives unit of Columbia College Chicago. Special research collections now include The Eileen Southern Collection, the Dena J. Epstein Collection, the Helen Walker-Hill Collection and the Sue Cassidy Clark Collection. (1983)
Black American Music Symposium National conference at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1985)
Videmus, Inc. (founded by Vivian Taylor in 1986; now directed by Louise Toppin)
Arthur R. LaBrew, A Concert Tribute To Detroits Black Prima Donnas, 1989 (Michigan Music Research Center, Inc.).
Samuel Floyd, Jr., editor Black Music In The Harlem Renaissance (1990)
PBS Great Performances - Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman Spirituals In Concert, 1991
Elise K. Kirk Musical Highlights From the White House. (1992)
Rosalyn M. Story And So I Sing: African-American Divas of Opera and Concert, 1993
Samuel Floyd, Jr. The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History From Africa To The United States, (1995)
Hansonia L. Caldwell African American Music A Chronology 1619 1995, (1996)
Bette Y. Cox Central Avenue Its Rise and Fall (1890 c. 1955), Exhibition catalog for The Musical Renaissance of Black Los Angeles. (1996)
The African American Art Song Alliance www.darryltaylor.com/ - (founded by Darryl Taylor in 1997)
PBS Great Performances Documentary - Aidas Brothers and Sisters: Black Voices in Opera, 2000 profiles of pioneering African American singers; www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/aidas/resources.html
Hansonia Caldwell African American Music: Spirituals (2000; 2003)
Willis C. Patterson, editor The Second Anthology of Art Songs by Black American Composers (2002)
Helen Walker-Hill From Spirituals to Symphonies: African-American Women Composers and Their Music. (2002)
Heritage and Legacy of Harry T. Burleigh National conference at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania (2003)