Eliza Jane McKissack

Eliza Jane McKissack ( Eliza Jones Aykroyd 11 December 1828, in New Bern, North Carolina – 15 January 1900, in Nashville, Tennessee) was a music teacher who, in 1890, became the founding head of music at the University of North Texas College of Music, then called Normal Conservatory of Music, part of Texas Normal College and Teacher Training Institute, which was founded in 1890 as a private institution. The College of Music, today, is a comprehensive school with the largest enrollment of any institution accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music. It is the oldest (and first) in the world offering a degree in jazz studies. Since the 1940s, the College of Music has been among the largest in the country.

McKissack, from Nashville, was highly recommended for the college position – as pianist and vocalist – by Bishop Charles Quintard of Tennessee, U.S. Senator Edward C. Walthall of Grenada, Mississippi, and Orville Brewer of Chicago. She had received her musical training in Boston and New York.

McKissack remained at the college for two academic years: 1890–1991 and 1891–1892. Three years after leaving Denton, records show that McKissack studied at the New England Conservatory in the academic year 1895–1896. While there, she studied piano with Reinhold Faelten (1856–1949) and took courses in Hand Culture and Sight Playing. At that time, her permanent address was listed as Oxford, Mississippi. Her Will (probated in Davidson County, Tennessee), provides two address: 1897 – Boscobel College, Nashville; January 1899 – Oxford, Mississippi.

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