Aug. 28, 1947: At the age of 3, Margaret Rosezarian Harris was splashed across the front page of the Sentinel, which covered her concert of classical pieces at Chicago’s Carey AME Temple.

“She was poised and showed no trace of self-consciousness,” the Sentinel said.

The only child of Dewey and Clara Harris, she gave concert tours until she was 6, when her parents decided that school was more important. At 10, she performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Also at 10, she entered the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, and she and her mother, Clara, moved there while her father, Dewey, continued in Chicago as a mechanic for the Pennsylvania Railroad. At 12, she was at the Juilliard School, where she later earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

She was the musical director for “Hair” and was the first black woman to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony and other major orchestras.

She performed her Piano Concerto No. 2 with the L.A. Philharmonic in 1972 and conducted the Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.

In 1993, she married Arthur Elmer Schofield in New York.

She died in 2000 in New York at the age of 56. Arthur Elmer Schofield died in 2006 at Howard University Hospital in Washington.

Los Angeles Times obituary.

New York Times obituary.