(Photo from Elijah Chorus concert program, Jordan Hall, Boston | DPL DAMS) Detroit Public library 1915
Harry Thacker Burleigh (1866-1949) was a Black American singer, composer, arranger, and music editor. While a student at the National Conservatory of Music in New York, Burleigh became Antonín Dvořák’s copyist. He also sang plantation songs and spirituals that he learned from his formerly enslaved grandfather for Dvořák.
As a renowned baritone in New York, he was a soloist at St. George’s Protestant Episcopal Church for more than 50 years. His performances of Gabriel Fauré’s “The Palms” every Palm Sunday and the annual Vesper Services of Negro Spirituals drew remarkable crowds. Burleigh also sang in the choir at Temple Emanu-El for 25 years and toured with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who revered Burleigh as the “greatest singer” of his songs.
Burleigh’s compositional output consists primarily of solo and choral songs, and his art songs were regarded as among the best written in America. Today, his primary legacy is considered to be his arrangements of spirituals, which he crafted during the 15 years he sang for Booker T. Washington’s fundraising events in New England. Numerous prestigious choirs and soloists programmed his works, and he influenced and mentored the next generation of Black American composers and singers.
Burleigh was also the staff editor of the New York office of G. Ricordi from 1913-1941 and was a charter member of ASCAP.
Resources
Sources
Snyder, Jean. “Burleigh, Henry [Harry] T(hacker).” Grove Music Online. 16 Oct. 2013.
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Page: Predominant