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sai-national.org • Winter 2022 23 Reviews HARRY T. BURLEIGH: FROM THE SPIRITUAL TO THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE (MUSIC IN AMERICAN LIFE) Jean E. Snyder. Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2016 (2021 paperback). 448 pp. U niversity of Illinois Press has recently published the paperback version of Dr. Jean E. Snyder's biography of noted composer and singer Harry T. Burleigh. Snyder is a former assistant professor of music at Edinburg University of Pennsylvania and current Historian in Residence with the Harry T. Burleigh Society of New York City. Her dissertation "Harry T. Burleigh and the Creative Expression of Bi-Musicality: A Study of an African-American Composer and the American Art Song," in addition to her further research activity with cooperation from the Burleigh family, establishes Dr. Snyder as an authority on works of Harry T. Burleigh. The structure of the book begins as a more standard biography for the first seven chapters but then shifts the focus from mere chronology to the different aspects of Burleigh's life. There is discussion about his role as a mentor to up and coming African American performers and composers, the impact that his status as a cultural figure had on his family and their aspirations, his 59-year tenure as soloist at St. George's Protestant Episcopal church, and his grounding in European art song and its influence on his Spiritual arrangements. This work is a comprehensive discussion about both his personal achievements and his influence on culture of the time. Later chapters about his waning influence during the Harlem renaissance and increased opposition to the performance of Spirituals are a poignant commentary on shifts in perspective and the inevitable changing of the musical guard. In Snyder's preface, she contrasts Burleigh's current renown as an arranger of spirituals and inspiration for Dvorak with his much more expansive roles as a performer and mentor, along with his work promoting and developing other African American performers and their music. Her stated hope is that "this book will help singers, scholars, and general readers who love music to appreciate more fully the breadth and importance of Burleigh's contribution…" I firmly believe that this book, released in paperback in August 2021, will realize that hope. Robert Bruns is a Bandmaster in the United States Army and an SAI Friend of the Arts. He received his Bachelor and Master in Music Education degrees at Ithaca College. While the piece may appear simple, it is a "tour de force" requiring rhythmic precision, negotiating leaps of and between chords, and maintaining steady passage-work, all accomplished by the le hand alone. Her writing is very imaginative and does evoke a "color sense" for what she is asking the pianist to play. She has taken great pains to mark pedaling, articulations, dynamics, and fingering, thus this piece is very well thought out. Evocation provides a challenge to test a pianist's technical and musical stamina. Other Works Other Works Many sources state that Kessler wrote hundreds of pieces, however it is unclear exactly how many piano compositions she actually wrote. Aaron Cohen provides a fairly extensive list of compositions that embraces the genres of orchestral, chamber, piano, vocal, sacred, ballet, and operettas. e Free Library of Philadelphia holds a substantial number of her pieces, 141 in all, and some are still available in print from the Willis Music Company. Closing Closing Minuetta Kessler's Evocation for the Le Hand Alone was certainly well-received as a winner of the National League of American Pen Women 1988 Biennial Convention composition competition. ere are no known recordings of this piece at this time. It will appear on a CD being recorded by Centaur Records, available by December 2022. Block, Adrianne Fried and Carol Neul-Bates. (1979) Women in American Music: A Bibliography of Music and Literature. Greenwood Press. Cohen, Aaron. (1987) International Encyclopedia of Women Composers. (2nd ed). Books and Music. Minuetta Kessler. (2013, December, 15) e Canadian Encyclopedia. https://bit.ly/34mOlWM. Minuetta Kessler. (2021, June 14) Wikipedia. wikipedia.org/wiki/Minuetta_Kessler Dr. Adrienne Wiley is Professor of Piano, Pedagogy, and Class Piano at Central Michigan University (CMU). She is a graduate of the University of Kansas, where she was initiated by the Beta Beta Chapter, and the University of Oklahoma. A Sword of Honor and Ruby Sword recipient, she serves as the advisor to the Eta Xi Chapter at CMU. She enjoys researching music written for one hand, her passion. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15

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