Nora Holt (1885–1974)

Nora Holt (1885–1974) was a pioneer of the Black classical music scene in Chicago, Holt also became an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age in Paris. Born into the middle-class, she moved back and forth between worlds: concert artist and blues singer, newspaper columnist and club hostess, erudite scholar and scandalous socialite. Music was the through line in Holt’s life. She first made her name in classical music. For young, middle-class Black women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, classical music could open doors to salon culture, church leadership, jobs teaching music and civic engagement. While employed as a music critic for the Chicago Defender from 1917-1921, she co-founded the Chicago Music Association and the National Association of Negro Musicians. Additionally, she edited and published Music and Poetry, a magazine for Black musicians. Holt was also a music critic for the New York Amsterdam News and was the first African American inductee into the Music Critics Circle of New York.


SOURCES
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/12/arts/music/nora-holt-black-classical-music.html https://chicagopresents.uchicago.edu/greenroom/meet-women-chicagos-black-renaissance#:~:text=Four%20Seasonal%20Sketches-,Nora%20Holt,the%20Jazz%20Age%20in%20Paris.

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