Helen Eugenia Hagan

Helen Eugenia Hagan (January 10, 1891 – March 6, 1964) was an American composer, pianist and music educator of African descent. Life Helen Eugenia Hagan was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the daughter of John A. and Mary Estella Neal Hagan. She studied piano with her mother and then in the public schools of New Haven, Connecticut. Around the age of nine, she began playing organ for the Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church in New Haven. She studied at Yale School of Music with pianist H Stanley Knight and composer Horatio Parker, graduating in 1912 with a bachelor’s degree in music. In doing so, she became the first known African American woman to earn a Yale degree. She performed as soloist on her own Piano Concerto in C Minor in May 1912 with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra conducted by Parker. She received the Samuel Simmons Stanford scholarship to study in Paris, with Blanche Selva and Vincent d’Indy, and graduated from Schola Cantorum in 1914. and Wheeling (WV) in May. In February 1916 she performed in St. Joseph (MO). A 1917 Tulsa newspaper article publicizing her 12 February appearance there excerpted Hagen’s recent reviews from Chicago, Quincy (IL), Dallas, Mobil