Will Marion Cook

Will Marion Cook (1869–1944) was a composer and violinist from the United States. Cook was a student of Antonín Dvořák and performed for King George V among others.

Biography

Cook's musical talent was apparent at an early age. At fifteen, he was sent to the Oberlin Conservatory to study violin. With help from members of the African American community, his benefit recitals were sponsored to help him afford to study abroad. From 1887 to 1889, he studies at the Berlin Hochschule fur Musik working with Josef Joachim's former student, violinist Heinrich Jacobson; Jacobson served as Chairman of the Orchestral Instruments Department. Although it is often stated that Cook studied abroad for nine years, there is no evidence of this. Cook married singer Abbie Mitchell in 1898.

In the years of 1894 and 1895, Cook studied with Dvořák and John White at the National Conservatory of Music. Cook had performed professionally as a student and made his debut in 1889 in Washington, DC. His performance career as a soloist was short lived, however.

In 1890, he became director of a chamber orchestra touring the East Coast. He prepared "Scenes from the Opera of Uncle Tom's Cabin" for performance. The performance, which was to take place at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, was canceled. "Clorindy; or, The Origin of the Cakewalk"—a musical sketch comedy in collaboration with Paul Laurence Dunbar — was the next piece he composed, 1898. It was the first all-black show to play in a prestigious Broadway house, Casino Theatre's Roof Garden. [Woll, Allen (1989). Black Musical Theater. Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 0-8071-1469-3.] After this period, he was composer-in-chief and musical director for the George Walker-Bert Williams Company. As he continued to write, he produced many successful musicals.

Best known for his songs, Cook used folk elements in an original and distinct manner. Many of these songs first appeared in his musicals. The songs were written for choral groups or for solo singers. Some were published in "A Collection of Negro Songs" (1912). Later in his career, Cook was an active choral and orchestral conductor. He produced several concerts and organized many choral societies in both New York and in Washington, D.C. The New York Syncopated Orchestra—he had created—toured the United States in 1918 and then went to England in 1919 for a command performance for King George V. Among his company were assistant director Will Tyers, jazz clarinetist Sidney Bechet, Cook's wife Abbie Mitchell.

One of his last shows was "Swing Along" (1929), written with Will Vodery.

Notable Works

* "The Policy Players" (1900)
* "Uncle Eph's Christmas" (1901), a Broadway musical
* "The Cannibal King" (1901), with Will Accooe
* "The Southerners" (1904), a Broadway musical
* "The Ghost Ship" (1907)
* "The Traitor" (1913)
* "In Darkeydom" (1914), with James Reese Europe
* "The Cannibal King" (1914)
* "Swing Along" (1929), Will Vodery
* "Rain Song: Exhoration—A Negro Sermon" (1912)

References

* Southern, Eileen. "The Music of Black Americans: A History". W. W. Norton & Company; 3rd edition. ISBN 0-393-97141-4

ee also

*African American musical theater

External links

* [http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/LetItResound/art_rmt_cook_wm.html Will Marion Cook at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library]