Cleota Collins
Cleota Josephine Collins (September 24, 1893 — July 7, 1976) was an American soprano singer and music educator. She was one of the founding members of the National Association of Negro Musicians in 1919.
Early life[edit]
Cleota Josephine Collins was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Ira A. Collins and Josie Collins. Her father was a clergyman.[1] Cleota Collins studied music at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, and abroad in France and Italy, as the student of Emma Azalia Hackley,[2] with further studies in New York.[3]
Career[edit]
Cleota Collins "toured extensively".[4] In 1924 she gave educational recitals at schools in Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina.[5] She toured southern schools again in 1936 and in 1938.[6][7] She taught voice and piano at Florida Baptist Academy, Sam Houston College, Tuskegee Institute,[8] and Virginia State College in Petersburg, among other posts.[9] She was one of the founding members of the National Association of Negro Musicians in 1919.[4][10] She operated the Lacy School of Music and was a church music director in Cleveland in the 1930s.[11][12]
In 1932, sculptor Henry Bannarn created a portrait bust of Cleota Collins; it was his earliest known work.[13]
Personal life[edit]
Cleota Collins married George Corinth Lacy, a lawyer, in 1917.[14] She married William Johnson Trent Sr., the president of Livingstone College, as his fourth wife, in 1953.[15][16] She may have married a third time, as her grave marker is for "Cleota Collins Moore." She died in 1976, aged 83 years, in Pasadena, California. Her gravesite is in Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery.[17]
References[edit]
- ^ "An Honored Pastor Gone" Ohio State Monitor (April 12, 1919): 1. via Ohio History Connection
- ^ Darryl Glenn Nettles, African American Concert Singers Before 1950 (McFarland 2003): 50-51. ISBN 9780786414673
- ^ "A Singer" The Crisis (April 1919): 287.
- ^ a b Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans: A History (W. W. Norton 1997): 282-283, 312. ISBN 9780393038439
- ^ "The Horizon" The Crisis (March 1924): 227.
- ^ "Returns from Tour" The Crisis (June 1936): 170.
- ^ "Cleota Collins to Make Concert Tour" Chicago Defender (December 11, 1937): 3. via ProQuest
- ^ "Miss Cleota Collins a Recent Visitor Here" Chicago Defender (June 25, 1938): 14. via ProQuest
- ^ Nora Douglas Holt, "Music" Chicago Defender (June 12, 1920): 10. via ProQuest
- ^ Nora Douglas Holt, "Musicians Organize National Organization" Chicago Defender (August 9, 1919): 15. via ProQuest
- ^ "Prominent Musician" Chicago Defender (September 30, 1933): 6. via ProQuest
- ^ "Mrs. C. C. Lacey Music Director at Carey Church" Chicago Defender (October 10, 1931): 6. via ProQuest
- ^ Henry Bannarn, Cleota Collins (1932), Minneapolis Institute of Art.
- ^ Who's who in Colored America, Volume 6 (1942): 310.
- ^ "Collins, Trent Vows Spoken" Carolina Times (July 4, 1953): 3. via North Carolina Newspapers
- ^ "College Prexy, Socialite Wed" Chicago Defender (June 27, 1953): 1. via ProQuest
- ^ Funeral Announcements, Los Angeles Times (July 9, 1976): 46. via Newspapers.com
External links[edit]
- Cleota Collins Moore's gravesite on Find a Grave.
- A 1921 photograph of Nora Douglas Holt, Cleota Collins Lacey, Portia Evans, Clarissa Hardy, Estelle E. Pinkney, Camille L. Nickerson and Gussie Rue Harris, Beinecke Library, Yale University.