William H. Tyers

William H. Tyers (1876-1924), a remarkably versatile African-American musician who studied theory and orchestration in Germany. Tyers also served for a time as the Castles’ music director. This versatile, Jamaican-born and European-trained African-American composer was active as an arranger for several New York publishers as well. One of Tyers’s compositional specialties was Spanish-American music; he wrote the very influential tango Maori in 1908, and it became the first hit song in habanera rhythm by a North American, and anticipated the tango fever that swept the US five years later.

Admiration, composed in 1915, is another example of a habanera-style piece.

Notes by Roy Wiseman