Introduction

Biography

Henry was the son of Hen­ry T. Bur­leigh and Eli­za­beth Lo­vey Wa­ters Elm­en­dorf, and hus­band of Re­bec­ca Lou­ise Als­ton (who used stage names of Prin­cess Red­fea­ther and Prin­cess Na­don­is Sha­wa).

Around 1892, he went to New York Ci­ty and won a au­di­tion for a schol­ar­ship at the Na­tion­al Con­ser­va­tory of Mu­sic, and be­gan stu­dy­ing with An­to­nín Dvoř­ák.

Burleigh was one of the orig­in­al mem­bers of the Am­eri­can So­ci­ety of Com­pos­ers, Au­thors, and Pub­lish­ers (ASCAP), and joined its board of di­rect­ors in 1941.

He sang ba­ri­tone, but his real gift was in com­po­si­tion: He be­gan com­pos­ing around 1899, com­plet­ing al­most 300 works:

Works

• Deep River
• Saracen Songs
• Five Songs of Laur­ence Hope
• Passionale
• Jean
• Little Mot­her of Mine
• The Grey Wolf