Edmond Dede

AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN
In 1803, the United States was considering the largest single land-acquisition in its history - buying the French Republic's territory of "Louisiana." The purchase was opposed not only by Eastern businessmen and land speculators (who understood the primary tax burden for buying the land would fall on them), but also Southern landowners backing then-President Jefferson, who were disturbed that as many as 50,000 French, Spanish, and non-slave black residents would gain American citizenship.
And the free black inhabitants of the territory (many of whom had recently fled from civil wars in Haiti or oppression in Spanish Caribbean possessions) were even more opposed - fearful their individual freedom might be challenged or even administratively overturned. Over the next few decades, thousands took ship for France, England, and other countries to escape racial segregation and discrimination.
Those African-American sojourners and expatriates soon added to their number black artists (Victor Sejour, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Charles Ethan Porter, Robert Duncanson), writers (Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown), students (Alexander Crummell, James McCune Smith) and slaves/escapees (Sally Hemings, Hariet Jacobs, Henry "Box" Brown). Shortly thereafter, Black American performers ('Juba' Lane, Elizabeth T. Greenfield) and - from the middle of the 19th century - blackface minstrel shows became popular on European stages. After WW1, more than 200,000 African-Americans remained, attracted by the less-oppressive discrimination. In the 1950s and through the American civil-rights era, a number of outspoken black Americans chose to live in Europe in order to retain their freedom of expression.
Edmond Dédé was born in 1827 to a free Creole merchant family already established in New Orleans for several generations after leaving the French West Indies.   His father was a leading member of an amateur military-style band, and gave young Edmond his first music lessons on the clarinet. He soon prevailed on the band's conductor, Constantin Debergue, to give the boy violin lessons. When the boy's aptitude became apparent he was referred to the director of the St. Charles Theater orchestra, Ludovico Gabici.
New Orleans was a main transshipment point for soldiers returning from the 1846-48 war in Mexico, including sick, wounded, and discharged. Some agitated against the comfort and safety enjoyed by the city's free black community, so the teen-aged Edmond left to study in Mexico. When he returned in 1851, it was to work for the Tinchant cigar factory, earning money to study in Europe. At this time, he wrote and published “Mon Pauvre Coeur” (My Poor Heart). The following year, with his savings and contributions from family and friends, he left for Belgium. There he and his friend Joseph Tinchant established an office for that family's cigar business.
After several years with Tinchant, Edmond felt free to go to Paris and became in 1857 an 'auditeur' at the Conservatory (CNSMDP), studying violin, orchestral conducting, and composition. His Quasimodo Symphony was written during this period - it was given an American premier at the New Orleans Theatre in 1865.
In 1864, he accepted a position as assistant conductor for the ballet at the Grand Théâtre in busiest of French port-cities, Bordeaux. He remained in that city more than thirty years, also conducting the orchestras for the Théâtre l'Alcazar and the Folies Bordelaises. During the Franco-Prussian War, while the national government relocated from Paris to Bordeaux, he was probably the most prominent musician in France (which - for a contemporary of Ravel and Debussy - is something!).   
During his long tenure in France, Dédé was a prolific composer, writing ballets, operettas, opera-comiques, overtures, and more than 250 songs and dances. He only returned to New Orleans once, in 1893 (the ship on which he travelled foundered near Galveston Tx, and his Cremona violin was lost during the rescue).   
Dédé married Sylvie Leflet, a Frenchwoman of moderate wealth, in 1864; their son Eugene followed his father's vocation as a conductor and composer.   After Edmond returned from America in 1894, they settled in Paris. He presented his papers and musical manuscripts to the National Library, where they remain. Edmond died at the beginning of 1901.
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https://youtu.be/hYdxoKck6_U