Cleota Collins

Cleota J. Collins (September 24, 1893 — July 7, 1976) was an American soprano singer and music educator. She was one of the founding members of the National Association of Negro Musicians in 1919.

Cleota J. Collins, from a 1919 publication.

Early life

Cleota Josephine Collins was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Ira A. Collins and Josie Collins. Her father was a clergyman.[1] Cleota Collins studied music at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, and abroad in France and Italy, as the student of Emma Azalia Hackley,[2] with further studies in New York.[3]

Career

Cleota Collins "toured extensively".[4] In 1924 she gave educational recitals at schools in Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina.[5] She toured southern schools again in 1936 and in 1938.[6][7] She taught voice and piano at Florida Baptist Academy, Sam Houston College, Tuskegee Institute,[8] and Virginia State College in Petersburg, among other posts.[9] She was one of the founding members of the National Association of Negro Musicians in 1919.[4][10] She operated the Lacy School of Music and was a church music director in Cleveland in the 1930s.[11][12]

In 1932, sculptor Henry Bannarn created a portrait bust of Cleota Collins; it was his earliest known work.[13]

Personal life

Cleota Collins married George Corinth Lacy, a lawyer, in 1917.[14] She married William Johnson Trent Sr., the president of Livingstone College, as his fourth wife, in 1953.[15][16] She may have married a third time, as her grave marker is for "Cleota Collins Moore." She died in 1976, aged 83 years, in Pasadena, California. Her gravesite is in Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery.[17]

References
  1. "An Honored Pastor Gone" Ohio State Monitor (April 12, 1919): 1. via Ohio History Connection
  2. Darryl Glenn Nettles, African American Concert Singers Before 1950 (McFarland 2003): 50-51. ISBN 9780786414673
  3. "A Singer" The Crisis (April 1919): 287.
  4. Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans: A History (W. W. Norton 1997): 282-283, 312. ISBN 9780393038439
  5. "The Horizon" The Crisis (March 1924): 227.
  6. "Returns from Tour" The Crisis (June 1936): 170.
  7. "Cleota Collins to Make Concert Tour" Chicago Defender (December 11, 1937): 3. via ProQuest
  8. "Miss Cleota Collins a Recent Visitor Here" Chicago Defender (June 25, 1938): 14. via ProQuest
  9. Nora Douglas Holt, "Music" Chicago Defender (June 12, 1920): 10. via ProQuest
  10. Nora Douglas Holt, "Musicians Organize National Organization" Chicago Defender (August 9, 1919): 15. via ProQuest
  11. "Prominent Musician" Chicago Defender (September 30, 1933): 6. via ProQuest
  12. "Mrs. C. C. Lacey Music Director at Carey Church" Chicago Defender (October 10, 1931): 6. via ProQuest
  13. Henry Bannarn, Cleota Collins (1932), Minneapolis Institute of Art.
  14. Who's who in Colored America, Volume 6 (1942): 310.
  15. "Collins, Trent Vows Spoken" Carolina Times (July 4, 1953): 3. via North Carolina Newspapers
  16. "College Prexy, Socialite Wed" Chicago Defender (June 27, 1953): 1. via ProQuest
  17. Funeral Announcements, Los Angeles Times (July 9, 1976): 46. via Newspapers.com
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