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"Chamber Orchestra, January 16, 1865 (from the Jackie Napolean Wilson Collection)" This quarter-plate tintype has three dated stamps on it reflecting payment of a tax that helped finance the Union side of the Civil War. This band is playing a five-string banjo, two violins, and a classical guitar. These are probably traveling musicians who would perform for audiences in private homes and theatres.
African American composers may have been rare during the antebellum period in the U.S., but Francis Johnson (1792-1844) was quite successful under the circumstances.
Born in Martinique, Johnson emigrated to Philadelphia around 1809. He played the Kent bugle and the violin, and wrote more than two hundred compositions of various styles, including opera music, patriotic marches, ballads, cotillions, quadrilles, and quicksteps. Johnson was one of the first African American composers to have his works published as sheet music.
He was also the first African American to give public concerts and the first to participate in racially integrated concerts in the United States. Johnson became the first African American to publish sheet music (well over two hundred published pieces), and the first black musician and perhaps the first American musician to tour Europe with a band. He led the first American musical ensemble to present concerts abroad and introduced the promenade concert style to America.
(Source: Hidden Witness: African American Images from the Dawn of Photography to the Civil War, Jackie Napolean Wilson, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1999; and the University of Pennsylvania Department of Special Collections)
African American composers may have been rare during the antebellum period in the U.S., but Francis Johnson (1792-1844) was quite successful under the circumstances.
Born in Martinique, Johnson emigrated to Philadelphia around 1809. He played the Kent bugle and the violin, and wrote more than two hundred compositions of various styles, including opera music, patriotic marches, ballads, cotillions, quadrilles, and quicksteps. Johnson was one of the first African American composers to have his works published as sheet music.
He was also the first African American to give public concerts and the first to participate in racially integrated concerts in the United States. Johnson became the first African American to publish sheet music (well over two hundred published pieces), and the first black musician and perhaps the first American musician to tour Europe with a band. He led the first American musical ensemble to present concerts abroad and introduced the promenade concert style to America.
(Source: Hidden Witness: African American Images from the Dawn of Photography to the Civil War, Jackie Napolean Wilson, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1999; and the University of Pennsylvania Department of Special Collections)
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