Leroy Hurte

{{Infobox person

| name = Leroy E. Hurte

| other_names = LeRoy Hurte

| birth_date = May 2, 1915

| birth_place = Muskogee, Oklahoma, United States

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2011|04|16|1915|05|02}}

| burial_place = Sunset Hills Memorial Park, Apple Valley, California, United States

| education = Jefferson High School, Juilliard School

| occupation = Businessman, vocalist, music conductor, educator, composer, author, record producer

}}

Leroy E. Hurte (May 2, 1915 – April 16, 2011), was an American businessman, music conductor, composer, educator, author, guitar player and vocalist, music store owner, and record producer. He was one of the few Black symphony conductors in the United States.{{Cite news |date=1956-08-31 |title=Article clipped from The Call |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-call/166030788/ |access-date=2025-02-18 |work=The Call |pages=8 |via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite news |date=June 13, 1953 |title=Hurte Hailed As Conductor! |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-new-york-age-the-new-york-age-new-y/62984032/ |access-date=2025-02-18 |work=The New York Age |pages=7 |via=Newspapers.com}} Hurte was active in Los Angeles, California. He was a member of the music group The Four Blackbirds,{{Cite book |last=Dixon |first=Robert M. W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SS0KAQAAMAAJ&q=%22bronze+record+and+recording+company%22&dq=%22bronze+record+and+recording+company%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiG2I_14cOLAxVVmbAFHSHqGmYQ6AF6BAgFEAM |title=Blues & Gospel Records, 1890-1943 |last2=Godrich |first2=John |last3=Rye |first3=Howard |date=1997 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-816239-1 |pages=xxxix |language=en}} an owner of the Flash Records store and Bronze Recording Company. He was the founding conductor of Angel City Symphony Orchestra,{{Cite web |title=Career History |url=https://oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb4m3nb6cj;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00006&toc.id=0&brand=calisphere |website=Calisphere |publisher=University of California, Los Angeles}} had a sheet music business, and created music publications. For a few year he owned a radio station. He wrote and published The Magic of Music: An Autobiography Bronze-Lyric Publishing Co, Apple Valley, California in 1997. Ball Records issued a record of him conducting the Angel City Symphony (CAM 1502 VG). One of the pieces performed is by William Grant Still. He was a baritone and played guitar.

Early life and education

Leroy E. Hurte was born in 1915, in Muskogee, Oklahoma, his father was Black and his mother was a member of the Creek tribe.{{Cite web |last=Isoardi |first=Steven L. |date=July 20, 1995 |title=Central Avenue Sounds: Leroy Hurte |url=https://oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb4m3nb6cj&brand=calisphere&doc.view=entire_text |access-date=2025-02-18 |website=Calisphere |publisher=University of California, Los Angeles}} His family moved in 1927 to Los Angeles, California, where he attended Jefferson High School.

Huerte studied at Juilliard School in New York City. Additionally he studied under Léon Barzin, Darrell Calker, Everett Lee, and Emanuel Balaban.

Career

From 1938 to 1939, Hurte operated Flash Record Store in Los Angeles. He was an owner and producer of Bronze Recording Company in Los Angeles, from 1939 to 1950.

Hurte was the founding conductor of the Angel City Symphony Orchestra, from 1958 to 1968. He also worked as a guest conductor at the Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra, Compton Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and Inglewood Philharmonic.{{Cite news |date=October 30, 1970 |title=Hanford Man Will Direct Philharmonic |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-fresno-bee-hanford-man-will-direct-p/166030570/ |access-date=2025-02-18 |work=The Fresno Bee |pages=28 |via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite news |date=1987-11-06 |title=Orchestra Asks: Is Anyone Listening? |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-orchestra-asks-is/166043450/ |access-date=2025-02-18 |work=The Los Angeles Times |pages=25 |via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite news |date=August 29, 1956 |title=LeRoy Hurte to Conduct Jr. Symphony |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/los-angeles-tribune-leroy-hurte-to-condu/166046113/ |access-date=2025-02-18 |work=Los Angeles Tribune |pages=19 |via=Newspapers.com}}

He established a music school, Leroy Hurte School of Music, in Los Angeles from 1958 to 1960.

From 1960 until 1968, Hurte operated Lyric Music Store in Los Angeles.{{Cite web |title=Hurte, Leroy E. |url=https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n85119721.html |website=LC Name Authority File (LCNAF)}} He also sold his sheet music.{{Cite web |title=The Lyric. A Review of Serious Music (Los Angeles, 1958-1967) |url=https://ripm.org/?page=JournalInfo&ABB=LYR |access-date=2025-02-18 |website=Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals (1760–1966)}} Hurte was the publisher of Lyric magazine, active from 1958 until 1967 in Los Angeles, and later re-established the magazine with the same name in May 1970 in Hanford, California.{{Cite news |date=1970-05-16 |title=Fine Arts Magazine Now in Circulation |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-hanford-sentinel-fine-arts-magazine/166034923/ |access-date=2025-02-18 |work=The Hanford Sentinel |pages=17 |via=Newspapers.com}} Hurte owned radio station KOAD-LP in Hanford, California, from 1968 to 1971.{{Cite web |date=December 1970 |title=The Grapevine Magazine · Grapevine |url=https://omeka.library.fresnostate.edu/s/grapevine_magazine/item/9633 |access-date=2025-02-18 |website=omeka.library.fresnostate.edu |publisher=Fresno State University |via=Omeka S}}

In July 1995, Hurte was interviewed for three days by Steven L. Isoardi from the UCLA Oral History Program, where he discussed his early life and work.{{Cite book |last=Siegel |first=Susan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vWTgAAAAMAAJ |title=A Resource Guide to the Golden Age of Radio: Special Collections, Bibliography and the Internet |last2=Siegel |first2=David S. |date=2006 |publisher=Book Hunter Press |isbn=978-1-891379-04-8 |pages=98 |language=en}}

Filmography

Memories and Melodies (1935), a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer short musical film directed by James A. FitzPatrick, about festivities on a Kentucky plantation{{Cite book |last=Shiovitz |first=Brynn W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gx6uEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA147 |title=Behind the Screen: Tap Dance, Race, and Invisibility During Hollywood's Golden Age |date=2023 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-755309-1 |pages=147 |language=en}}

Publications

{{Cite book |last=Hurte |first=Leroy E. |title=So You're the Choir Director? A Handbook for the Choir and its Director |date=1984 |publisher=Lyric Pub. Co. |location=Los Angeles, California}}
{{Cite book |last=Hurte |first=Leroy E. |title=The Magic of Music: An Autobiography |publisher=Bronze-Lyric Publishing Co. |location=Apple Valley, CA |publication-date=1997}}

References

External links

[https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/hb109nb0s0/ Leroy Hurte, portrait] (1982), from Los Angeles Times Photographic Archives
[https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/129674369/leroy-e-hurte Findagrave entry]

Category:1915 births

Category:2011 deaths

Category:20th-century American composers

Category:20th-century African-American businesspeople

Category:African-American conductors (music)

Category:African-American male composers

Category:American conductors (music)

Category:American record producers

Category:Businesspeople from Los Angeles

Category:Jefferson High School (Los Angeles) alumni

Category:Juilliard School alumni

Category:Musicians from Los Angeles