{"id":7950,"date":"2023-10-13T14:21:42","date_gmt":"2023-10-13T19:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=7950"},"modified":"2023-10-13T14:21:42","modified_gmt":"2023-10-13T19:21:42","slug":"sacred-turned-spiritual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2023\/10\/13\/sacred-turned-spiritual\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacred turned Spiritual"},"content":{"rendered":"

Henry Thacker (H.T) Burleigh, was a black American, classical composer who was known for his compositions and arrangements of spirituals. H.T. Burleigh was also an accomplished professional singer. \u201c<\/span>Harry Thacker Burleigh played a significant role in the development of American art song, having composed over two hundred works in the genre. He was the first African-American composer acclaimed for his concert songs as well as for his adaptations of African-American spirituals.\u201d1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBurleigh was surrounded by music from a young age,\u201d his mother was his first music teacher and throughout his childhood he was a dedicated church performer. As he grew older, sacred music was no longer his niche. Burleigh was quite the accomplished singer, he attended the National Conservatory in New York, eventually on scholarship. One important event\/events that should be noted is that while Burleigh was at the National Conservatory, Anton\u00edn Dvo<\/span>\u0159<\/span>\u00e1k became the director of the program. Throughout Burleigh\u2019s time there, the two became quite close. Burleigh would often sing spirituals to Dvo<\/span>\u0159<\/span>\u00e1k which he used as inspiration for some of his compositions and ev<\/span>en used \u201cSwing Low, Sweet Chariot,\u201d as a theme in the first movement of his symphony \u201cFrom the New World.\u201d<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

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\nBurleigh wrote a few works based on plantation melodies he learned throughout his childhood. Among these few, \u201cDeep River,\u201d is one of the most famous and recognized spiritual songs. \u201cIt was soon normal for recitals to end with a group of spirituals. Musicians such as Roland Hayes, Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson made these songs a part of their repertoires.\u201d Although we musicians know the voice type to be baritone, when Burleigh was publishing his music, most of the works were for \u201clow voice.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

H.T. Burleigh’s contributions to music, most importantly African American spirituals, some instrumental, but mainly vocal music played a role in breaking down the racial barriers that existed and brought African American music to the forefront<\/span><\/p>\n

1\u201cH. T. Burleigh (1866-1949).\u201d n.d. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/item\/ihas.200035730<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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2\u201cHarry Thacker Burleigh Biography.\u201d 2016. Afrocentric Voices in \u201cClassical\u201d Music. February 10, 2016. http:\/\/www.afrovoices.com\/wp\/harry-thacker-burleigh-biography.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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3Burleigh, H. T. (Harry Thacker), 1866-1949. Arranger. \u201cDeep river : old Negro melody \/ arranged by H.T. Burleigh.\u201d <\/span>Digital Gallery.<\/span><\/i> BGSU University Libraries, 23 May 2022, digitalgallery.bgsu.edu\/collections\/item\/34006. Accessed 11 Oct. 2023.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Henry Thacker (H.T) Burleigh, was a black American, classical composer who was known for his compositions and arrangements of spirituals. H.T. Burleigh was also an accomplished professional singer. \u201cHarry Thacker Burleigh played a significant role in the development of American … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1397],"tags":[1069,930,1480,1220,1072,564,1364,157,1479,944,382,461,1477,1478],"class_list":["post-7950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2023-mus-345-b","tag-african-american-spirituals","tag-antonin-dvorak","tag-baritone","tag-black-church-music","tag-black-spirituals","tag-church-music","tag-deep-river","tag-h-t-burleigh","tag-instrumental-music","tag-national-conservatory-of-music","tag-new-world-symphony","tag-new-york","tag-sacred-music","tag-vocal-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jEhR-24e","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7952,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7950\/revisions\/7952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}