J. Rosamond Johnson

J. Rosamond Johnson was an American composer, pianist and singer of the Harlem Renaissance who created Lawyer Frazier in the 1935 New York premiere of Porgy and Bess. A prodigy trained at the New England Conservatory and in London, he composed Lift Every Voice and Sing in 1899 to words by his brother James Weldon Johnson, and with Bob Cole wrote the Broadway operettas The Shoo-Fly Regiment and The Red Moon. In 1912 he became the first African American to serve as musical director for a white theatrical company, at Oscar Hammerstein's Grand Opera House in London.