Lawrence Schenbeck

Racial Uplift and American Music, 1878 – 1943 (University Press of Mississippi) by Lawrence Schenbeck (Mus’70, MA’72) traces racial uplift ideology’s effect on African Americans’ embrace of classical music. It covers the time period beginning with the collapse of Reconstruction at the turn of the previous century to the death of composer R. Nathaniel Dett, whose music epitomized “uplift.” Lawrence is associate professor of music at Spelman College in Atlanta and is author of Joseph Haydn and the Classical Choral Tradition (Hinshaw Music). He lives in Newnan, Ga.