Scott Joplin was born around 1867 or 1868 in Texas. The exact date and place of his birth is unknown. By 1880, his family moved to Texarkana where he began to take piano lessons, eventually moving on to travel through the Midwest. In 1895, he studied music at George R. Smith College in Sedalia, Missouri. Then, in 1900 he moved to St. Louis to work closely with music publisher John Stark. After publishing his first extended work using ragtime techniques, Joplin wrote an instruction book, The School of Ragtime. In this instruction book, Joplin outlined his musical styles which were widely imitated.
Joplin’s legacy is in his classic rags for piano and his three-act opera, Treemonisha, which had only one semipublic performance during his lifetime.
Scott Joplin passed on April 1, 1917. In 1976, he was posthumously awarded a special Pulitzer Prize for his contributions to American music.
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