Langston Hughes

Missouri-born Langston Hughes used his poetry, novels, plays, and essays to champion his people and voice his concerns about race and social justice. He was a central figure of the flowering of African-American culture in 1920's and 30's known as the Harlem Renaissance.

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      Langston Hughes’s childhood was marked by poverty, the separation of his parents (his father emigrated to Mexico, where Hughes would later visit), a matriarchal, church-going education, and a nomadic series of moves. Eventually the young man arrived in New York City in 1921. There, with some money sent by his father, he enrolled in Columbia University, wrote his first verse, and began to publish in The Crisis, the historic magazine of the N.A.A.C.P., founded by W.E.B. Du Bois.

      When funds for college dried up, Hughes moved to Harlem at the height of its golden era. For the remainder of the decade he would associate with all her prominent figures–Du Bois, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Jean Toomer, Arna Bontemps, and Carl Van Vechten. He would receive patronage from the formidable but controlling Charlotte Mason, make voyages of self-discovery to Africa and Europe, and return to the United States with a freer, more confident vision of his own identity as an African-American, an artist, a leftist (he would later spend some time in Russia and answer for it during the McCarthy hearings), and a homosexual.

      Hughes’s prolific literary career was launched in 1926 with a volume of jazz poems called The Weary Blues, written for performance with musical accompaniment in the famous Harlem clubs of the era. It captured both the Opportunity Prize and the prestigious Spingarn Award, and financed for Hughes the completion of his education, at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Among his many poetry collections, The Negro Mother (1931), The Dream Keeper (1932), and Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951) argue passionately for his belief in human equality, his wish for color-blind brotherhood, and his growing disillusionment with the American dream. His novel Tambourines to Glory (1958) appeared as a musical play (1963), and his two volumes of autobiography, The Big Sea and I Wonder as I Wander, together with his essay about his involvement with the N.A.A.C.P. and the civil rights movement, “Fight for Freedom,” chart Hughes’s long commitment to comradeship and equality. As those dreams began to bear fruit in the tumultuous 60’s, Hughes was lionized with increasing frequency. He continued to devote his pen to the ideals of his youth, and took an increasing interest in the movement toward Afrocentric values for black Americans. Hailed as “the Negro Poet Laureate,” Hughes died in his beloved Harlem on May 22, 1967.

      –Thomas Hampson and Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold, PBS I Hear America Singing

      Photo: Academy of American Poets

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      Wry Fragments (Olly Wilson)
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      Key B Major (Medium voice)
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      Key f minor (Medium voice)
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      Voice Type: Medium/High

      Buy via Classical Vocal Reprints

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      Composer(s): Dorothy Rudd Moore

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      Buy via American Composers Alliance

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      Composer(s): John Alden Carpenter

      Song(s): 1. Shake Your Brown Feet, Honey!
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      Composer(s): Ricky Ian Gordon

      Song(s): 1. Winter Moon
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      3. Kid in the Park
      4. To Be Somebody
      5. Troubled Woman
      6. Strange Hurt: Long Version
      7. Strange Hurt: Short Version
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      9. Border Line
      10. My People
      11. Joy

      Buy via Hal Leonard

      Genius Child

      Composer(s): Robert Owens

      Voice Type: Baritone

      Buy via Classical Vocal Reprints

      Madam To You

      Composer(s): Elie Siegmeister

      Buy via Sheet Music Plus

      Minstrel Man

      Composer(s): Hermann Reutter

      Buy via Schott Music

      Mother to Son

      Composer(s): Hall Johnson

      Buy via Carl Fischer Music

      Only Heaven

      Composer(s): Ricky Ian Gordon

      Song(s): Harlem Night Song
      Daybreak In Alabama
      When Sue Wears Red
      Late Last Night
      Port Town
      Angel Wings
      Luck
      Delinquent
      Dream Variations
      In Time Of Silver Rain
      Song For A Dark Girl
      Drum
      Litany
      Dream
      Night: Four Songs
      Demand
      Stars

      Buy via Hal Leonard

      Shadow of the Blues

      Composer(s): John Musto

      Song(s): 1. Silhouette
      2. Litany
      3. Island
      4. Could Be

      Buy via Hal Leonard

      Song for a Dark Girl

      Composer(s): Hermann Reutter

      Buy via Schott Music

      Songs of Our Time

      Composer(s): Ricky Ian Gordon

      Song(s): Virginia Woolf
      Friend
      Little Horse
      Spell against Sorrow
      The Light Comes on by Itself
      Pont Mirabeau
      A Poem of Unrest
      This Room
      If You Can
      Aspen Tree
      Three Floors
      The Crazy Woman
      Child
      Dreams / Feet o' Jesus

      Buy via Carl Fischer Music

      Songs of Separation

      Composer(s): William Grant Still

      Buy via William Grant Still Music

      The Breath of a Rose

      Composer(s): William Grant Still

      Voice Type: High

      Buy via Sheet Music Plus

      The Face of War

      Composer(s): Elie Siegmeister

      Voice Type: Low

      Find it at your Local Library

      When Sue Wears Red

      Composer(s): Hermann Reutter

      Buy via Schott Music

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