Harry Lawrence Freeman

Harry Lawrence Freeman (October 9, 1869 – March 24, 1954) was an American neoromantic opera composer, conductor, impresario and teacher. He was the first African-American to write an opera (Epthalia, 1891) that was successfully produced. Freeman founded the Freeman School of Music and the Freeman School of Grand Opera, as well as several short-lived opera companies which gave first performances of his own compositions. During his life, he was known as "the black Wagner."

Biography Harry Lawrence Freeman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1869, to parents Lemuel Freeman and Agnes Silms-Freeman. Freeman learned to play the piano and was an assistant church organist by the age of 10. His first opera, Epthelia, was performed at the Deutsches Theater in Denver in 1891. This was the first opera in the United States to be produced by an all-Black production company. The Martyr is also listed by John Warthen Struble as "produced in Denver, first known opera by an African-American composer." Although this is clearly incorrect given the staging of Epthelia two years earlier, Freeman was certainly a pioneering classical composer in the African-American community.

In 1894, Freeman returned to live in Cleveland, and began formal training in music theory under Johann Heinrich Beck, conductor of the Cleveland Symphony (a different organization from the Cleveland Orchestra, which was founded in 1918). In 1898, Freeman married Charlotte Loise Thomas, a woman from Charleston, South Carolina who sang soprano. Two years later, Charlotte (who was also known as Carlotta) gave birth to Freeman's son Valdo, and the same year, the Cleveland Orchestra gave readings of excerpts from Freeman's operas.

In addition to grand opera, Freeman wrote stage music and served as musical director for vaudeville and musical theater companies in the early 1900s. These included Ernest Hogan's Musical Comedy Company, of which Carlotta Freeman was the prima donna; the Cole-Johnson African-American musical theater company, and the John Larkins Musical Comedy Company. He wrote the music for the musical comedy Captain Rufus, which premiered August 12, 1907 at the Harlem Music Hall. He was guest conductor and composer/music director of the pageant O Sing a New Song at the Chicago World's Fair in 1934.

Voodoo (1928) is perhaps Freeman's best known work. It deals with the cult of that name in Louisiana. Although Freeman finished composing the opera in 1914, it was not premiered until fourteen years later. Its score combines themes from spirituals, Southern melodies, jazz, and traditional Italian opera. and was acquainted with many African-American musicians and artists associated with the Harlem Renaissance.