Public lecture from musicologist/pianist Samantha Ege.

Nora Douglas Holt remade the world in her own image, radiating and relishing Black women’s ingenuity in all that she touched. Composer, philosopher, Jazz-Age icon, Harlem Renaissance muse, social activist, and pleasure seeker: Holt was all these things and more. In 1918, she became the first person of African descent in the United States to attain a master of music degree, and throughout the Roaring Twenties both personal scandals and professional triumphs kept her in the headlines. A contemporary of Florence Price and a friend of Josephine Baker, Holt was an omnipresent figure in both classical music and popular culture. In this talk, musicologist and pianist Samantha Ege traces the multifaceted musical socialite's tangled beginnings and illustrious career.