Donald Heywood

Biography

Composer ("I'm Coming Virginia"), author and conductor, educated at Queens Royal College in Trinidad, Fisk University, Northwestern University (medical school), and Mordkin Moser Conservatory in New York, plus private study. He was awarded an honorary Mus. D. from the Caribbean College of Music. He directed traveling theatrical orchestras and was a member of Will Marion Cook's American Syncopated Orchestra. He wrote songs for Rosa Raisa, Schumann-Heink and others. He won the MERRICK award for the greatest contribution of Negro to American music in 1948. His Broadway stage scores include "Hot Rhythm", "Blackberries of 1932" and also "Africana", and he trained and presented singers including Leslie Uggams and Marie Young. Joining ASCAP in 1934, his other popular-song compositions include "Home Beyond the River", "Emaline", "Stop Beating Those Drums", "No Need to Tell Me That You Love Me", "Where Are You Now", "There's a Spirit in My Heart", and "Morning".