Harry t. burleigh biography

Burleigh.
Harry Burleigh (born Henry Thacker Burleigh, December 2, 1866 – September 12, 1949) was an American classical composer, arranger, and professional singer.
In addition to his work as a singer, he completed his studies at the conservatory in 1896 and taught sight-singing there from 1895 until 1898.

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Harry Burleigh, Gospel Performer born

*Harry T. Burleigh was born on this date in 1866. He was a Black gospel singer and composer.

Harry Thacker Burleigh, the grandson of slaves, was from Erie, Pennsylvania. His grandfather passed on to him the tradition of plantation songs. Burleigh had little formal music training in his youth but was accepted into the National Conservatory of Music at 26. There, he took voice and composition lessons with Antonin Dvorak.

From Burleigh, Dvorak learned about African American folk music (which later was important in his New World Symphony.) There are various estimates of the number of songs Burleigh wrote. The numbers range from 200 to 300. They include arrangements used in Henry E. Krehbiel's 1914 collection, Afro-American Folksongs, a Study in Racial and National Music, "By an' By" (1917), "Go Down Moses" (1917), "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" (1917), and an Old Songs Hymnal in 1929. Over the years, he performed for such dignitaries as the King and Queen of England and President Theodore Roosevelt.

He encouraged the careers of young musicians li

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Harry Thacker Burleigh was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, on December 2, 1866. For financial support, his mother Elizabeth worked as a maid while Burleigh himself, when old enough, lit street lamps and sold newspapers. No mention is made of his father in any biography. Music influenced Burleigh's life from an early age, as his grandfather taught him old slave songs that became the basis for Burleigh's later work with Negro spiritualists. Burleigh was exposed to many prominent performers, such as Rafael Joseffy, who gave recitals at the home of his mother's employer, Elizabeth Russell.

After graduating from high school in 1887, Burleigh continued to develop his musical skills while working as a stenographer for two businesses in the Erie area. In 1892, he auditioned at the National Conservatory of Music and received a scholarship to pay for his tuition. To make ends meet, he also took a job at St. George's Episcopal Church, where he met the man who was his greatest influence and future colleague, Czech composer Antonin Dvorak. Dvorak used some of the songs that Burleigh's grandfather

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Harry Thacker Burleigh Biography

by Randye Jones

Henry (Harry) Thacker Burleigh was born on December 2, 1866, in Erie, Pennsylvania. His mother, Elizabeth, was a domestic worker because she was unable to get a teaching position despite her college education and fluency in French and Greek.

The people who musically influenced Burleigh’s life can be traced as far back as his maternal grandfather. Hamilton Waters was a partially blind ex-slave who worked as Erie’s town crier and lamplighter. As he performed his duties, he sang plantation songs to young Harry, thus passing on a music–the Negro spiritual–that his grandson would one day make known around the world.

Young Burleigh also heard several prominent performers who gave recitals at the home of his mother’s employer, Mrs. Elizabeth Russell. On one occasion, Burleigh

. . . heard that Rafael Joseffy was coming to give a concert there. He would hear it at any cost; so he stood in the snow up to his knees outside the window of the drawing-room of the Russell house. . . The lad was taken ill, pneumo