La Vinia Delois Jennings
“’The Negro in Music and Drama’: Selected Readings From Harry Lawrence Freeman’s 376-Page Manuscript Highlighting Composers, Playwrights, and Lyricists With Whom he Worked in Cleveland and Harlem”
Eric K. Washington
“H. Lawrence Freeman’s Harlem—High Art from Common Ground (Part I)”
*Note: This illustrated lecture (Part I) has an optional corollary walking tour (Part II) on Sunday June 28 – please see below to sign up.
“H. Lawrence Freeman’s Harlem—High Art from Common Ground” Walking Tour (Part II)
Sunday June 28, at 11am
Led by Eric K. Washington, local historian and a fellow in Columbia’s Community Scholars Program.
Harry Lawrence Freeman (1869-1954), was the foremost African-American composer of grand opera. His more than 20 works included Voodoo (1914)—first presented in 1928—now enjoying a historic concert production at Columbia University. On a lighter note, Freeman’s high art vocation also intersected with arbiters of Harlem’s popular culture. In the mid-1930s, he chronicled the past 50 years of a musical scene—from the “Bucket of Blood” to the Lafayette Theatre— that became the lifeblood of the storied Harlem Renaissance. Visit Harlem cultural sites relevant to Freeman’s life and work.
Please purchase tickets online ($20):
Note: only 20 spots are available on this tour, so please book soon if you are interested!
Karen Bryan, “Clarence Cameron White and Blackness in Harlem Renaissance Opera”
Stephanie Doktor, “Edmund T. Jenkins and the New Negro Renaissance In and Beyond Harlem”
Carolyn Guzski, “Manhattan Project: Desegregating the Metropolitan Opera, 1916-1926”
Naomi André, “Immigration and the Great Migration: Porgy and Bess in the Harlem Renaissance”
Moderator: Marti Newland
Tickets to the opera are available to purchase at http://voodoo.brownpapertickets.com.