Maud Cuney Hare papers

Maud Cuney Hare, (1874 - 1936), a concert pianist and folklorist, was born in Galveston, Texas to Norris Wright Cuney and Adelina (Dowdy) Cuney. The Cuney's were a cultured family. The mother had a fine soprano voice and publicly sang and played the piano. The father, aside from being a well-known figure in Texas political affairs, enjoyed old Irish songs and melodies from Italian opera. He also enjoyed Byron and Shakespeare. Maud Cuney Hare later eulogized her father in a biography, Norris Wright Cuney: A Tribune of the Black People (1913).

Young Cuney Hare's musical instruction began first at the New England Conservatory of Music, where, despite being subjected to the school's discriminatory practices, she managed to remain. Upon completion of her studies, Cuney Hare returned to Texas to become Director of Music at the Texas Deaf, Dumb and Blind Institute in Austin, Texas for two years. She subsequently joined the faculty of Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College for African Americans in Prairie View, Texas. In 1906, she returned to Boston where she married William P. Hare.

In 1927, Cuney Hare founded and directed the Allied Arts Center, a cultural center with the purpose of "discovering and encouraging musical, literary, and dramatic talent, and to arouse interest in the artistic capabilities of the African American child. It lasted for several years, presenting romantic and historical plays, including one for which Cuney Hare wrote the music, "Antar, Negro Poet of Arabia."

Cuney Hare also went on to compile other literary works. Among them were plays, and poems in the anthology, The Message of the Trees, with an introduction by William S. Braithwaite. She also edited the music column in Crisis magazine and contributed articles to such publications as Musical America, Musical Quarterly and the Christian Science Monitor.

The Cuney Hare Collection is a reflection of her interest in collecting songs from far off beaten paths of Mexico, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Cuba. She was the first to bring to the attention of the concert public New Orleans Creole music. Following her travels and research of folk material, Cuney Hare wrote the manuscript for her book,Negro Musicians and Their Music, which she completed shortly before her death. The book is about African music from its earliest traces, African influences in America, folk songs, and the African American idiom. There are chapters that reveal the contributions of little-known African American musicians of the likes of violinist George Bridgetower who was the first interpreter of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata. Cuney Hare herself paired with baritone William H. Richardson in several lecture-recitals on folk songs of Afican Americans. The musical pairing of Cuney Hare and Richardson "was so satisfying Cuney Hare dedicated Negro Musicians and Their Music to Richardson 'In Remembrance of Twenty Happy Years of Musical Partnership.'"

(Jessie Carney Smith, Notable Black American Women, Detroit: Gale Research, Inc. [1992], p.243-245).