Eva Jessye

Eva Jessye (January 20, 1895 – February 21, 1992) was an American conductor and composer who was the first black woman to receive international distinction as a professional choral conductor. She is notable as a choral conductor during the Harlem Renaissance. She created her own choral group which featured widely in performance. Her professional influence extended for decades through her teaching as well. Her accomplishments in this field were historic for any woman. She collaborated in productions of groundbreaking works, directing her choir and working with Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein on Four Saints in Three Acts (1933), and serving as musical director with George Gershwin on his innovative opera Porgy and Bess (1935). Early life and education Eva Jessye was born January 20, 1895, in Coffeyville, Kansas. She was educated at Western University, a historically black university in Kansas, and Langston University in Oklahoma. She later studied privately with Will Marion Cook in New York City. In 1919, Jessye began work as the choir director at Morgan State College in Baltimore. She returned west for a time to teach at an African Methodist Episcopal Church school in Oklahoma. In