Who Was Justin Holland?
As a personal Black History Month project, I decided to do some research on Justin Holland, a 19th century African American classical guitarist whose life I found fascinating and a shame that more guitarists are not aware of. He is considered by many to be the most important American classical guitarist of his time (of any race). He was also an activist, involved in abolition of slavery and helped slaves escape on the Underground Railroad, and became known as “the first Black professional in Cleveland.”
Justin Holland was born into a free family in Virginia in 1819 (the area where they lived had the highest percentage of free Black people in Virginia at the time). He showed interest in music at a young age and was active in his church which allowed him opportunities for education not available to most Black children. When Holland was a teenager, his family moved to Boston, in part because of new restrictions on education being imposed on free Black children in Virginia. He discovered the classical guitar after hearing a guitarist perform as part of a travelling group, and took guitar lessons on the side while working manual labor jobs. He eventually decided to pursue more serious study and enrolled in classes at Oberlin College in Ohio. In the middle of his time at Oberlin, he took a break to travel to Mexico so he could learn Spanish and study the works of guitar masters like Sor and Aguado in their original language. After his studies, he became in demand as a guitar teacher, and especially an arranger of other music for the guitar. His arrangements of music from operas for one or two guitars were especially popular. He wrote and published two methods for guitar, considered by many of his contemporaries to be the best guitar instruction books by anyone in America or Europe at the time.
Facsimiles of Holland’s music published during his lifetime are available at the Library of Congress website. It was here I found his Variations on a Spanish March, which I edited and fingered in MuseScore, and will be one of his pieces that I perform at the Serenade this Saturday. (link to audio sample)
For more information on Justin Holland:
Justin Holland (1819-1887), African American Guitarist & Composer (homestead.com)