I don't want to leave you with the stereotype that black musicians only played in saloons and whorehouses, although both were common venues for anybody who wanted to be a musician in early 20th-century America. At the same time Scott Joplin was popular, a composer and church musician named Harry Burleigh studied at a conservatory in New York. Biographies appear on the Library of Congress website and, of course, Wikipedia. He was a serious classical musician, who made his living writing music and singing at St. George's Episcopal church in New York City. Here's a biographical video put out by the Erie Hall of Fame, a community initiative in Erie, Pa.
Burleigh's spirituals were arranged as art songs in the manner of classical German composers like Schumann and Schubert, or his contemporary Richard Strauss. We'll hear "Go Down Moses" Arranged By Harry Burleigh. Sung by Juarês de Mira, of Curitiba, Brazil, accompanied by Analaura S Pinto.
As a conservatory student in New York City, Burleigh studied under Czech composer Anton Dvorak, who was introduced by him to the African American spirituals and who famously said, "I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies. These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them." Here the Dublin Philharmonic plays a portion of Dvorak's New World Symphony that echoes the spiritual "Going Home."
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