1. The first black composer who was instrumental in developing characteristically American music, Burleigh made black music available to classically trained artists both by introducing them to spirituals and by arranging spirituals in a more classical form.
Harry Burleigh introduced Antonin Dvorak to Black American music, which influenced some of Dvorak's most famous compositions and led him to say that Black music would be the basis of an American classical music.
Henry "Harry" Thacker Burleigh was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1866 to Elizabeth Burleigh and Henry Thacker Burleigh's grandfather, Hamilton Waters, was granted manumission from slavery in Somerset County, Maryland, after paying $55 in 1832 and receiving a certificate of freedom in 1835.
Harry Burleigh's second husband, John Elmendorf, was a veteran of the Union Navy.
Harry Burleigh helped support his family by various odd jobs: lighting gas streetlamps, selling newspapers and working as a printer's devil, as a coachman, and as a steward on Lake Erie steamboats.
Harry Burleigh studied to be an accountant at the Clark's Business College while he was in high school.
Harry Burleigh served as a doorman when various famous musicians performed at those musicales, including Venezuelan pianist Teresa Carreno and Italian tenor Italo Campanini.
Harry Burleigh was accepted, with a scholarship, to the prestigious National Conservatory of Music in New York at the age of 26.
Harry Burleigh obtained the scholarship with the help of Frances MacDowell, the mother of composer Edward MacDowell, and he would eventually play double bass in the Conservatory's orchestra.
In 1893 Harry Burleigh assisted Dvorak in copying out instrumental parts for the symphony.
Harry Burleigh graduated in 1896, and later served on the conservatory's faculty.
Harry Burleigh began his singing career as the baritone in his family's quartet.
In spite of the initial problems obtaining the appointment, Harry Burleigh became close to many members during his long tenure as a soloist at the church.
Harry Burleigh's singing "The Palms" by Jean-Baptiste Faure was a Palm Sunday tradition for 50 years, and New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia arranged a radio broadcast from his office in 1944.
Harry Burleigh sang before King Edward VII in London in 1908, among other prestigious European concerts.
From 1900 to 1925, Harry Burleigh was a member of the synagogue choir at the Temple Emanu-El in New York, the only African-American to sing there.
Harry Burleigh frequently worked with Walter F Craig and his orchestra.
Harry Burleigh disdained recording and it was long believed that no recording existed of his voice.
Harry Burleigh recorded once in 1919, for a small label run by his friend George Broome, and again in 1944 for St George's Church.
About 1898, he began to compose his own songs, and by the late 1910s, Harry Burleigh was one of America's best-known composers of art songs.
Harry Burleigh published several versions of the Negro spiritual "Deep River" in 1916 and 1917, and quickly became known for his arrangements of spirituals for voice and piano.
Harry Burleigh's arrangements helped to make spirituals a popular genre for concert singers, and within a few years, many notable singers performed Burleigh's arrangements.
The popularity of Harry Burleigh's settings contributed to an explosion of popularity for the genre during the 1920s.
Harry Burleigh set some poems by Walt Whitman to music and published music for piano and violin.
Harry Burleigh retired in 1946 because of ill health, and his son moved him from Long Island to a retirement home in Stamford, Connecticut, where he died, aged 82, from heart failure on September 12,1949.
Harry Burleigh's remains were returned for burial in Erie, Pennsylvania.
In 1917, Harry Burleigh received the Spingarn Medal, which the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People awards annually for outstanding achievement by an African American.
Harry Burleigh received honorary degrees from Howard University and Atlanta University.