Beyond Exceptionalism: The Washington Conservatory of Music and the Education of Black Classical Musicians, 1903–60

Abstract

Abstract Operating in Washington, DC from 1903 to 1960, the Washington Conservatory of Music was the first conservatory established by and for Black Americans in the United States. In this article we demonstrate the significant, continuing impact of the Washington Conservatory of Music through a study of the lives and contributions of the conservatory’s first thirty graduates, from the inaugural classes of 1910 through 1914. As teachers, performers, composers, activists, and leaders, the graduates of the Washington Conservatory were cornerstones of musical communities across the United States. Graduates of the Washington Conservatory rarely achieved fame as concert artists, but their lack of fame ultimately says less about the extent of their accomplishments than it says about longstanding silences in music historiography that privileges composers and performers over educators and church musicians. Drawing on physical and digitized primary sources including newspapers, city directories, census records, and extensive archival material, we further the critical historical recovery undertaken by Doris McGinty, Sarah Schmalenberger, Maud Cuney-Hare, and Eileen Southern that answers basic—but frustratingly elusive—questions about a relatively quotidian matter: who did what in Black musical communities. We argue that Washington Conservatory alumni were not only anchors in musical networks that extend through the present but representative figures who built lasting institutions and who exemplify the ubiquity of Black classical musicianship through American music history.