People, Locations, Episodes

Nora Douglas Holt, Musician, and Composer born

Nora Holt

*This date celebrates the birth of Nora Douglas Holt, a Black singer, composer, and music critic, in 1885.

Born Lena Douglas in Kansas City, Kansas, she was the daughter of Calvin Douglas, an African Methodist Episcopal Church minister, and Gracie Brown Douglas.  She graduated from Western University at Quindaro, Kansas, and later earned a bachelor's degree in music in 1917. In 1918, she earned her master's in music at Chicago Musical College, becoming one of the first Black women to complete a master's program in the United States. Her thesis composition was an orchestral work called Rhapsody on Negro Themes.

She was married five times and in 1916 married her fourth husband, hotel owner George Holt, taking his name and changing her first name to "Nora". From 1917-1921, she contributed to the Chicago Defender, a Black daily newspaper, writing musical criticism pieces. In 1919 she co-founded the National Association of Negro Musicians and then spent 12 years in Europe and Asia singing at nightclubs and private parties.  She composed over 200 works of orchestral music and chamber songs; however, upon leaving for Europe in 1926, she placed her manuscripts in storage and, upon returning, discovered that they had all been stolen. Only one piece survived because it was published before the theft and is called Negro Dance (a ragtime-based piano piece).

During the 1920s, Holt was known as a wild socialite and was fairly wealthy due to her inheritance from her fourth husband. In 1923, she married her last husband, Joseph Ray, assistant to tycoon Charles Schwab. They moved to Pennsylvania, but the marriage did not last. She soon moved to Harlem and became a part of the Harlem Renaissance. She became good friends with novelist and critic Carl Van Vechten. During the 1930s, she studied at the University of Southern California and taught music in Los Angeles for several years.

In 1943, she became an editor and music critic for the Amsterdam News. From the early 1950s to the early 1960s, Holt began hosting a radio concert series called "Nora Holt's Concert Showcase," which ended in 1964. In 1966 she was a member of the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal.   Nora Holt died on January 25, 1974, in Los Angeles.

To Become a Musician or Singer