Dorothy Rudd Moore was considered one of her generation's leading composers of color, with her music - including chamber pieces, song cycles, orchestral music, and an opera - admired for its high level of artistry and its seriousness of purpose.

Moore graduated from Howard University in 1963, where she studied with Dean Warner Lawson, Thomas Kerr, and Mark Fax. Moore received the Lucy Moten Fellowship to study in France where she continued her studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in 1963, and then with Chou Wen-Chung in New York in 1965. In 1968 she became a co-founder of the Society of Black Composers in New York City. As an educator, she taught voice, piano, and ear training courses at Harlem School of the Arts, 1965-66; at New York University, 1969; and at Bronx Community College, 1971.

In 1985, the world premiere of her opera, Frederick Douglass, took place in New York City. Forty years later, the lyricism and social activism found in Dorothy Rudd Moore's opera Frederick Douglass still resonate. The central aria, the Fourth of July Speech, takes its lyrics from the abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), whose memorable speech was given on July 5, 1852, during the height of his anti-slavery advocacy work. In his speech, Douglass questions the very idea of Independence Day for people of African descent in a nation practicing slavery: Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? Moore's opera re-examines Douglass speech and the idea of liberty in which it traffics through music and dramatic focus.

PHOTO BY BERT ANDREWS, from ACA Archives, Special Collections in Performing Arts, University of Maryland.