jan 20, 1895 - Dr. Eva Jessye

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Born in Coffeyville, Kansas, on January 20, 1895, Eva Alberta Jessye started her academic career in the public schools of Coffeyville and Iola, Kansas. At age 13, she attended Western University in Quindaro, Kansas. She graduated from Western University in 1914 and went on to Langston University in Oklahoma, where she received a lifetime certificate in teaching.

Jessye taught in elementary schools in Taft, Haskell, and Muskogee, Oklahoma, before she became a reporter and columnist for the Baltimore (Maryland) Afro-American in 1925. In 1926 she joined a choral group in New York called the Dixie Jubilee Singers. This group would eventually become the world-renowned Eva Jessye Choir. The choir performed spirituals, work songs, ballads, ragtime, jazz, and light opera in a variety of mediums, such as radio, film, and stage. They were regulars on the "Major Bowes Family Radio Hour" and the "General Motors Hour." In 1927 the Dixie Jubilee Singers worked in Harry A. Pollard's film, Uncle Tom's Cabin. The same year, Dr. Jessye compiled and published a critically acclaimed collection of songs titled My Spirituals. In 1929 King Vidor directed "Hallelujah", the first musical motion picture with an all-Black cast. The film featured the Dixie Jubilee Singers with Jessye as choral director.

Dr. Jessye was appointed choral director for the New York production of the Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein opera, "Four Saints in Three Acts" in 1934. In 1935 Jessye was selected by George Gershwin to be choral director for the original production of his 1935 folk-opera, "Porgy and Bess." For the next three decades, Jessye was associated with almost every Porgy & Bess production worldwide, earning the unofficial title of 'curator and guardian of the score.'

Source: https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/jessye/

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