Music History Monday: The Fabulous Hill Sisters!

We mark the birth on June 27, 1859 – 163 years ago today – of the American songwriter, composer, organist, pianist, and musicologist Mildred Jane Hill, in Louisville, Kentucky. She died on June 5, 1916, in Chicago, three weeks shy of her 57th birthday. Mildred Hill was the eldest of three sisters: after her came Patty (1868-1946) and then Jessica. Mildred Hill was a professional musician of real accomplishment. Along with teaching and performing, she was a songwriter and composer of some reputation. She was also a serious student and scholar of Negro Spirituals. Under the pen name of “Johann Tonsor”, she wrote extensively on the subject of Black American music. In 1892, she wrote an article called “Negro Music” that, as it turned out, had no small impact on the history of Western music!… See the full transcript, and listen to the podcast without audio breaks, only on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/68313351 See the latest Great Courses On Sale Now: https://robertgreenbergmusic.com/sale

Om Podcasten

Exploring Music History with Professor Robert Greenberg one Monday at a time. Every Monday Robert Greenberg explores some timely, perhaps intriguing and even, if we are lucky, salacious chunk of musical information relevant to that date, or to … whatever. If on (rare) occasion these features appear a tad irreverent, well, that’s okay: we would do well to remember that cultural icons do not create and make music but rather, people do, and people can do and say the darndest things.