The collection also contains ephemera including publicity flyers, printed programs, imprints from Dett’s personal library, and a published history of Niagara Falls. The collection holds printed music composed or arranged by Nathaniel Dett, manuscript scores by Dett, and printed scores and manuscripts of works by other composers. He last served as Music Director for the United Service Organizations in Battle Creek, Michigan, where he died on October 2, 1943. In 1919 he helped found the National Association of Negro Musicians. From 1913 until 1931 he served as the Director of Music at the Hampton Institute, where he developed the choir which received critical acclaim in the USA and Europe. He published his first work in 1900 as a composer he often found his inspiration in African-American folk music. Throughout his career he was active as teacher, composer, and pianist. He graduated with a MMus degree from the Eastman School of Music in 1932. He pursued additional studies at Columbia, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, the American Conservatory, and with Nadia Boulanger in France (1929). He graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory in 1908, the first African American to receive a BMus. He studied piano as a child, and began more serious musical studies at the Oliver Willis Halstead Conservatory in Lockport, New York.
(Robert) Nathaniel Dett was born in Drummondsville (now Niagara Falls), Ontario, Canada, on October 11, 1882.
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