Eva Jessye

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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 studied privately in Kansas, then with Will Marion Cook later in New York. In 1926 she began to perform regularly with her choir, the Eva Jessye Singers, who were originally called the Dixie Jubilee Singers. She went to Hollywood in 1929 to train a choir for the film Hallelujah directed by King Vidor. In 1933, she was in a production of Four Saints in Three Acts by Thomson. In 1935, she was the choral director chosen by George Gershwin for Porgy and Bess.

Further, Jessye composed her own pieces, including her folk oratorio Paradise Lost and Regained (1934), The Life of Christ in Negro Spirituals (1931), and The Chronicle of Job (1936). At the University of Michigan, she established the Eva Jessye African-American Music Collection.