had learned from his grandmother. He was the first black American to complete the Bachelor of Music degree at Oberlin (1908), for which he studied composition and piano. Dett toured as a concert pianist and during this period wrote only rudimentary piano compositions. He came under the influence of Emma Azalia Hackley, a soprano singer, who inspired his interest in black American folk music. Career After graduation, Dett started teaching at Tennessee's Lane College, followed by a tenure at the Lincoln Institute in Jefferson City, Missouri. During this period, his compositional activities included writing practical choral and piano pieces suitable for his students. The 1913 piece In the Bottoms contains one of his most played movements, "Dance Juba". Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler performed the work at the Chicago Music Hall. In 1913 Dett began to teach at the Hampton Institute in Virginia, and in 1926 became the first black director of music there. He remained at Hampton until 1932. During his nearly twenty-year tenure, he founded the Hampton Choral Union, Musical Arts Society, Hampton Institute Choir and its School of Music. Internationally-recognized, the choir specialized in African American sacred music and performed Dett's own compositions and arrangements. Sometimes, his arrangements were criticized for being "inauthentic" due to their similarities with Western classical music. He encouraged his Hampton student, soprano Dorothy Maynor, to pursue a career as a concert artist; she followed his advice to become one of the leading concert artists in the nation. His position as a major pianist-composer was earned in 1914. His piece Magnolia was performed at the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Club. On June 3 that year he performed Magnolia and In the Bottoms. The Chicago Evening Post reported that among the works on the "All Colored" program, his works were the most innovative, and it praised his high level of piano skills. On December 27, 1916, Dett married Helen Elise Smith. She was the first black graduate of the Institute of Musical Art in New York City, which became known as the Juilliard School of performing arts. In 1918, Dett wrote of his compositional goals: We have this wonderful store of folk music—the melodies of an enslaved people ... But this store will be of no value unless we utilize it, unless we treat it in such manner that it can be presented in choral form, in lyric and operatic works, in concertos and suites and salon music—unless