Harry Lawrence Freeman was a performer, an opera composer, a conductor, and impresario and an educator. Born in Cleveland, he founded his first opera company in Denver in 1891 to produce his Epthalia, the first opera by an African American composer to be performed in this country. His second opera, The Martyr, also premiered in Denver, and then was performed in Chicago in 1893 and in Cleveland in 1894. He remained in Cleveland for approximately 14 years, studying composition and music theory, and teaching at Wilberforce University. He and his family moved to Harlem around 1908, where he opened the Salem School of Music (later the Freeman School of Music), and became a close colleague of Scott Joplin. He formed several opera companies to perform his operas; he also composed music for and served as musical director for several productions on Broadway. His most famous opera, Voodoo, was performed in 1928. He spent the remainder of his life struggling to get his works performed, and all were unpublished at the time of his death. His manuscripts, including 21 operas and most of his other works, are archived at Columbia University. His contributions as a composer and as one of only a few African American impresarios in the first half of the twentieth century are important to the history of American opera.

​

For further information on this artist:

• Bordman, Gerald. American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle. Oxford University Press, 1992, 2nd edition.

• Hipsher, Edward Ellsworth. American Opera and Its Composers, Da Capo Press, 1978.

• Kirk, Elise Kuhl, American Opera, University of Illinois Press, 2001.

• Southern, Eileen: "Freeman, (Harry) Lawrence". Grove Music Online. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.10187. 2001. Accessed May 20, 2024.

• Deborah McNally: “Harry Lawrence Freeman (1869-1954).” BlackPast: January 31, 2013. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/freeman-harry-lawrence-1869-1954/. Accessed May 20, 2024.

• Harry Lawrence Freeman Foundation. https://harrylawrencefreemanfoundation.com/history/. Accessed May 20, 2024.

• David Gutkin: “The Modernities of H. Lawrence Freeman.” Journal of the American Musicological Society, Fall 2019, vol. 72, no. 3, Special Issue on Music, Race, and Ethnicity, pp. 719-779.

• ​

Recordings:

• https://harrylawrencefreemanfoundation.com/history/

• Dione Bennett/Byron Sean, “Voodoo Queen b y H.L. Freeman.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRKJAbe4UZk. Accessed May 20, 2024.