Eva Jessye
Composer
Harlem Renaissance...opera Porgy and Bess, and Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein's Four Saints in Three Acts. In both productions the choral conductor Eva Jessye was part of the creative team. Her choir was featured in Four Saints. The music world also found... In this article: Harlem, World War I, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, New York City, W. E. B. Du Bois, and James Weldon Johnson |
-
Wikipedia | November 04, 2009
George Gershwin
...known examples) are some of the most refined and ingenious of Gershwin's output. (For the performances, Gershwin collaborated with Eva Jessye, whom he picked as the musical director. One of the outstanding musical alumnae of Western...
In this article: George Gershwin, Maurice Ravel, Ira Gershwin, Kay Swift, Cancer, Glioblastoma multiforme, Igor Stravinsky, New York City, and Arnold Schoenberg
-
Porgy and Bess
...two intermissions), was performed privately in a concert version in Carnegie Hall, in the fall of 1935. He chose as his choral director Eva Jessye, who also directed her own renowned choir. The world premiere performance took place at the...
In this article: Porgy, Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Sportin' Life, Summertime, and Broadway
-
Eva Jessye
Eva Jessye (January 20, 1895 - February 21, 1992). She was the first black woman to receive international distinction as a professional choral conductor. She is notable as a female choral conductor during the Harlem Renaissance whose...
In this article: Four Saints in Three Acts, University of Michigan, New York, Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson, Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin, and Baltimore
-
Four Saints in Three Acts
...in at least four acts. It was ground breaking for form, content, and its all-black cast, with singers directed by black choral director Eva Jessye and supported by her choir. Thomson suggested the topic, and the libretto as delivered can be...
In this article: Four Saints in Three Acts, Virgil Thomson, Gertrude Stein, Ignatius of Loyola, Avila, Cellophane, Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, and Florine Stettheimer
-
Hall Johnson
...1888 - April 30, 1970) was one of a number of American composers and arrangers-including Harry T. Burleigh, R. Nathaniel Dett, and Eva Jessye-who elevated the African-American spiritual to an art form, comparable in its musical sophistication...
In this article: Hall Johnson, Frank Capra, Easter, A.M.E., World's Finest, Juilliard School, Allen University, Marc Connelly, and Lost Horizon
-
Western University (Kansas)
...and Etta Moten Barnett. Nora Holt was a composer, music critic and performer in the US and Europe. Eva Jessye went to New York where she created her own choir, which was featured in her collaboration with composer Virgil Thomson and writer...
In this article: Western University, Kansas, Civil War, Virgil Thomson, Nora Douglas Holt, Etta Moten Barnett, and George Gershwin
-
Times Online | March 20, 2009
Anne Wiggins Brown: soprano who created the role of Bess
...to her conservative upbringing, as were the opera's rowdier and more violent elements. But Brown mastered every aspect of the role; Eva Jessye, the original production's much admired chorus master, later described Brown's portrayal as...
In this article: Anne Wiggins Brown, George Gershwin, Porgy and Bess, Broadway, Metropolitan Opera, Summertime, Juilliard School, Europe, and Baltimore
Trends
Loading...
More on Eva Jessye
Description from Wikipedia:
Eva Jessye (January 20, 1895, Coffeyville, Kansas—February 21, 1992, Ann Arbor, Michigan)—the first black woman to receive international distinction as a professional choral conductor. She is notable as a female choral conductor during the Harlem Renaissance. Her accomplishments in this field were historical for any woman regardless of ethnicity.
Jessye was educated at Western University (formerly Quindaro State) in Kansas and Langston University in Oklahoma. She later studied privately with Will Marion Cook in New York. In 1919 she worked as the choir director at Morgan State College in Baltimore and then returned west to teach at an AME Church school in Oklahoma. She returned to Baltimore in 1926 where she began to perform regularly with her choir, the Eva Jessye Choir, who were originally called the Dixie Jubilee Singers. She and the group moved to New York where they appeared frequently in the stage show at the Capitol Theatre where Eugene Ormandy conducted the orchestra. They were also a frequent presence on NBC and WOR radio in New York in the 1920s and 1930s and recorded on Brunswick, Columbia, and Cameo records in the 1920s. She went to Hollywood in 1929 as the choral director for the MGM film Hallelujah directed by King Vidor. In 1933, she directed her choir in the Broadway production of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein's opera, Four Saints in Three Acts and in 1935, she was the choral director chosen by George Gershwin for Porgy and Bess.
An active supporter of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, Eva Jessye and her choir participated in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. She was active into her 80s and, shortly before her death, established the Eva Jessye African-American Music Collection at the University of Michigan and left most of her personal papers to Pittsburg State University in Kansas.
Explore everything named Eva Jessye...
