Charles Lucien Lambert

Charles Lucien Lambert, also known as Lucien Lambert (1828–1896), was a black American composer, born a free person of color in New Orleans before the American Civil War. He moved away from the United States in 1854 because of racism.

Early life and education

Lambert was born in New Orleans to Charles-Richard Lambert, a native of New York, and his wife, a free woman of color. They were a very musical family. Free people of color constituted a special class in New Orleans, where they had privileges not available to free blacks in other areas.

After his mother's death, his father married Coralie Suzanne Orzy, also a free woman of color. They had a son Sidney, born in 1838, and the half-brothers learned to be musicians together.^[1]

Marriage and family

Lambert married a French woman. Their son Lucien-Léon Guillaume Lambert, born in 1858, became a musician and composer, more well-known than his father. He was sometimes called Lucien Lambert fils (son).^[1] Together with the work of the violinist and composer Edmond Dédé, Lucien-Leon Lambert's compositions are considered classics of Romantic Creole music.

Career

Because of racism in the US, Lambert moved to France with his family in 1854. Numerous of his compositions are held by the Bibliothèque nationale de Paris.^[1]

Sometime in the 1860s, he moved his family to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he was so associated with French music that some historians referred to him as a French musician. Lambert had a piano and music store in the city. He also became part of the Brazilian National Institute of Music. In 1869 he greeted Louis Moreau Gottschalk, a contemporary French Creole whom he had known as a fellow musician in New Orleans. Both Lambert and his son Lucien played in one of Gottschalk's massive works, one calling for 31 pianists to play together.^[1]

He died in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, while performing there with his son Sidney.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} Sybil Kein, Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana's Free People of Color, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000, pp. 80-82, accessed 28 Dec 2010

Persondata
Name	Lambert, Charles Lucien
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Short description
Date of birth	1828
Place of birth
Date of death	1896
Place of death