age 14. Cook's musical talent was apparent at an early age. At Oberlin, he was a student of Frederick G. Doolittle, as well as Fenelon Rice, L. Celestia Wattles, and Calvin B. Cady. With help from members of the African-American community, his benefit recitals were sponsored in order to help him afford to study abroad. From 1887 to 1889, Cook studied at the Berlin Hochschule fur Musik, working with violinist Heinrich Jacobson; Jacobson served as Chairman of the Orchestral Instruments Department. Jacobson was a former student of Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim, considered one of the supreme musicians of the age. Some accounts state that Cook studied abroad for nine years, but this has not been documented. Marriage In 1898 Cook married the young singer Abbie Mitchell; she was 14. They had a daughter, Marion Abigail Cook, in 1900, and a son, Will Mercer Cook, known as Mercer, in 1903. Their daughter was raised by family members as Mitchell herself had been. Marion later married dancer Louis Douglas. Will Mercer Cook became a professor of history at Howard University and later was appointed as United States Ambassador to Niger and Senegal. Studies with Dvořák During 1894 and 1895, Cook studied with Czech composer Antonin Dvořák, who was working in the United States for a period, and John White at the National Conservatory of Music. Cook had performed professionally as a student and made his debut in 1889 in Washington, DC. His performance career as a soloist was short lived, however. Reacting to the stricter segregation of performers in the classical music community, Cook found a home in the musical theatre. Touring and composing In 1890, Cook became director of a chamber orchestra touring the East Coast. He prepared Scenes from the Opera of Uncle Tom's Cabin for performance. The performance, which was to take place at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, was canceled. He gained a production in 1898 of his Clorindy: The Origin of the Cakewalk, a one-act musical comedy created in collaboration with poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. It was the first all-black show to play at a prestigious Broadway house; it was staged on the Roof Garden of the Casino Theatre. Because it was not staged in the theatre, and was not a full-length production, it does not have the landmark status of Cook's 1903 musical In Dahomey (see next paragraph). After this period, Cook served as composer-in-chief