Roland Hayes

Biography shared in College Bulletin from April 1945,

"Roland Hayes, who will be featured at the Second Summer Music Institute, was a musician from his earliest childhood. From his father he learned to imitate the bird calls in the deep woods of Georgia; from his mother he learned self-discipline and the enormous patience required of any artist.

His first music teacher was W Arthur Calhoun of Chattanooga, Tennessee; under him he studied a year and a half. Later he studied for four years under Jennie A Robinson at Fisk University. He was a pupil of Arthur J Hubbard of Boston, Massachusetts, for eight and a half years.

He studied in Europe in 1920 under Ira Aldridge, Victor Beigel, Sir George Henschel and Dr Theodore Lierhammer. He conducted his own concert tour of the United States from 1916 to 1920, went to Europe in 1921 to continue his studies and to conduct concert tours, gave a command performance before Queen Mother Maria Christina of Spain in April of 1925.

Mr Hayes has sung with Orchestra Collenno in Paris and with Orchestra Hengelberg in Amsterdam; he has also sung in Vienna, in Berlin, and in all the other important centers of Europe. He has toured the United States widely, singing with the Boston, the Philadelphia, the Detroit, and the New York Symphony Orchestras.

He has won wide recognition for his interpretation of traditional Negro melodies. He was awarded the Spingarn Medal for “the most outstanding achievement among colored people” in 1925. "

A fantastic biography was written on Roland's life and is shared here