Will Marion Cook (1869-1944), born in Washington, D.C., was a gifted violinist who studied music at Oberlin College, the alma mater of both his parents, followed by a year in Berlin studying with Joseph Joachim. He returned to NY and studied composing with Antonín Dvořák at the National Conservatory of Music. But composing for the musical theater is where Cook would become well known, especially for Clorindy: The Origin of the Cakewalk (1898), a one act musical comedy and his 1903 Dahomey, the first all-black show to play at a major Broadway house. He became a choral and orchestra conductor, founding the Southern Syncopated Orchestra that toured internationally, bringing jazz and ragtime to other countries. Cook wrote nearly 60 songs which still exist and his influence continued with his mentoring of such artists as Eubie Blake and Duke Ellington.