Before she married a Dillard University president in 1931, Ernestine Jessie Covington Dent was a concert pianist.
Born to musical parents in Houston, Dent started playing piano when she was 4 years old. According to the Texas State Historical Association, her first piano teacher was “a well-respected musician from Louisiana, who trained dozens of schoolchildren in Houston” in the early 1900s.
In 1915, Dent began taking violin lessons with New Orleans native Will Nickerson. At 14, she was accepted to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. However, her parents decided to delay her enrollment until she turned 16 in the fall of 1920.
Dent majored in piano, minored in violin and studied music theory, musicianship, music appreciation and musicology. She graduated in 1924 with a Bachelor of Music degree, and earned a master’s degree in piano in 1932. She also won four back-to-back fellowships from the Julliard Music Foundation.
Dent moved to New Orleans with her husband, Albert W. Dent, in 1932. She “wasted no time inculcating herself into the New Orleans social scene,” the Amistad Research Center states.
For instance, her suggestion led to the creation of the Ebony Fashion Fair, which raised $50 million for Dillard scholarships. “The Ebony Fashion Fair would evolve into a major event that introduced haute couture to African-American audiences on an annual basis,” Amistad states.
According to the Texas State Historical Association, Dent made a lasting impression in the music world and within the Black community.
“Throughout her adult life,” Amistad states, Dent “supported the effort of classical musicians (of color) to increase their numbers in major symphony orchestras.”
Dent, who died in 2001, was the first to receive the Amistad Research Center’s Fine Arts Award in 1985. The Jessie Covington Dent Music Festival was created at Dillard in her honor in 1998.
For more tales from New Orleans history, visit the Back in the Day archives.