Dominique-René de Lerma

Dominique-René de Lerma
Name	Dominique-René de Lerma
Birth date	1928-12-26
Death date	2015-12-26
Occupation	Musicologist, Conductor, Composer, Educator
Alma mater	Oberlin Conservatory of Music, University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign
Notable works	"Black Composers in America" series
Awards	Koussevitzky Foundation (grant), Guggenheim Fellowship (if applicable)

Contents

Dominique-René de Lerma was an American musicologist, conductor, composer, and educator noted for pioneering research on African-American music and the cataloging of Black composers in the United States. He served on the faculty of the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign and contributed to scholarship on figures such as Scott Joplin, William Grant Still, James Reese Europe, Florence Price, and H. T. Burleigh. His work influenced institutions such as the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Smithsonian Institution, the American Musicological Society, and the Society for American Music.

Early life and education

De Lerma was born in Newark, New Jersey and studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he encountered faculty associated with Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, George Szell, Nadia Boulanger, and Paul Hindemith. He later pursued graduate studies at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign under mentors linked to Allen Forte, Carl Dahlhaus, Alan Lomax, Leo Sowerby, and Homer Keller. His early education connected him with archives at the Library of Congress, manuscript collections at Harvard University, and special collections at the Newberry Library.

De Lerma joined the faculty of the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, where he taught courses that intersected with curricula from Julliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, Eastman School of Music, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and Yale School of Music. He directed ensembles influenced by repertory championed by conductors such as Arturo Toscanini, Leopold Stokowski, William Steinberg, Zubin Mehta, and Seiji Ozawa. His teaching engaged with scholarship promoted by the American Historical Association, the Modern Language Association, the International Musicological Society, and the Conference on African American History and Culture.

De Lerma produced bibliographies, catalogs, and articles that intersected with primary sources from the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Archives and Records Administration, the New York Public Library, and the British Library. He authored entries and studies addressing composers linked to Julius Eastman, Undine Smith Moore, John W. Work, Jr., R. Nathaniel Dett, and Ethelbert Nevin, and his writings appeared alongside scholarship by Samuel A. Floyd Jr., Eileen Southern, Samuel Charters, Gunther Schuller, and Richard Crawford. His serial "Black Composers in America" cataloged works and biographical data and was cited by curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the New England Conservatory.

De Lerma's work foregrounded composers previously neglected by surveys such as those by Howard Taubman, Joseph Kerman, Leonard B. Meyer, Charles Rosen, and Donald Jay Grout. He helped document repertory spanning ragtime figures like Scott Joplin, orchestral composers like William Grant Still, choral tradition bearers like Hall Johnson, and salon composers like Florence Price. His archival activities aided projects at the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, the Smithsonian Folkways, the Center for Black Music Research, the Institute of Jazz Studies, and the African American Museum in Philadelphia, supporting performances by ensembles such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

De Lerma's personal papers and research materials have informed collections at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign Library, the Library of Congress, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and his influence is evident in curricula at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the Eastman School of Music, the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, the New England Conservatory, and the Julliard School. Scholars citing his legacy include Eileen Southern, Samuel A. Floyd Jr., Samuel Charters, Gunther Schuller, and Richard Crawford, and performers programming rediscovered works have included Marian Anderson, Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman, William Warfield, and Mavis Staples. He left a body of scholarship that continues to inform research at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Center for Black Music Research, the Smithsonian Institution, and the American Musicological Society.

Category:American musicologists Category:1928 births Category:2015 deaths