AFRICAN AMERICAN PERFORMERS AND COMPOSERS OF THE ART SONG – A CHRONOLOGY
  A Resource Outline Prepared by Dr. Hansonia L. Caldwell (12/17/06)

The tradition of the African American composer and performer of Art Song develops across the centuries within the multiple stage context of African Diaspora Evolution.  The Caldwell Framework for analyzing the full African Diaspora Evolution includes six stages (click a stage to learn more):
   
Stage 1:  Cultural Birth in the African Homeland – the creation of communal culture within the African homeland 

Stage 2:  1440 – 1870 - Dislocation – Birth of the African Diaspora & The Terror of the Transatlantic Holocaust

Stage 3:  1619 – 1865 - Africans in the Americas, Stage A (Enslavement, Escape into New Africa)

Stage 4:  1865 – 1900 - Africans in the Americas, Stage B (Emancipation & Institution -Building in spite of Jim Crow & Racism)

Stage 5:  1896 – 1990 - Africans in the Americas, Stage C (Cultural Renaissance I/Pan Africanism – including the commodification of communal culture and the conscious development of representative culture)

Stage 6:  1956 – Present - Africans in the Diaspora (Pan African/Transnational Cultural Renaissance II)

The Art Song Genre acquires an African American foundation in AD Stages 1, 2 and 3.   Concurrently, during AD Stages 3 and 4, the Art Song acquires its European foundation.