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Composer Report
I chose to do my composer report on Florence Price. Florence Price was born April 9, 1887 in Little Rock, Arkansas to Florence Gulliver and James H. Smith. She had two siblings. Florence gave her first recital at four years old. She attended the same elementary school as William Grant Still where they both studied under educator Charlotte Andrews Stephens. Florence Price is considered the first black woman in the United States to be recognized as a symphonic composer. Her training was steeped in European tradition, but still Price’s music consists of mostly the American idiom and reveals her Southern roots. Her mother, who was a soprano and pianist, carefully guided her early musical training. At the age of fourteen, Price enrolled in the New England Conservatory of Music with a major in piano and organ. She studied composition and counterpoint with George Chadwick and Frederick Converse. She wrote her first-string trio and symphony in college, and graduated in 1907 with honors and both an artist diploma in organ and a teaching certificate.
She taught in Arka...
Rachel M. Harper’s The Myth of Music intentionally weaves together 1960s era jazz music and a poor African American family via metaphor and allusion to show a deep familiar bond between father and daughter.
Lucy Gayheart is a young, spirited, intelligent music student from Havorford, on the South Platte River. In the winters, she attends a conservatory in Chicago, under the tutelage of Professor Auerbach. In Chicago, she lives in a room above a German bakery, where she takes her breakfasts and suppers. These small quarters do not distress her; indeed, she craves the solitude of her own will, her own piano, her own bed. She walks hungrily through Chicago, her appetite for life never disappointed by the thriving midwestern metropolis. She is beautiful, she is talented, and her young heart has never been broke. The year is 1901. At some point in everyone's life, you meet someone whom you think can lift you beyond where you are, to a place where you al...
Louie not only made a name for herself as a Canadian composer through her unique style, but also was an strong figure in the advocacy for Canadian composers. Louie advocated for Canadian music to be played properly, to increase awareness of Canadian composers and their music, spoke with corporate sponsors, and hosted informal meetings with the public to discuss Canadian music. Most importantly, she was intimately involved with the Esprit Contemporain orchestra, which continues to perform Canadian music today. Through her advocacy for Canadian composers and their compositions, as well as her distinctive style of composition, Alexina Louie has truly left a strong, positive impact in the world as a Canadian composer.
In the traditional political history of Italy the people outside of the ruling class of the society were rarely studied. Only with the use of social history did the issues of class and gender begin to be debated by scholars. Numerous recent articles have done a great job of analysing particularly men of high status. In this paper I will look at the lower classes of Renaissance Florence. More specifically, I will center my focus on the lives of women during this era, how they were treated and viewed by people of other classes and how women were viewed and treated by men.
Nearly a century’s worth of compositions has earned Aaron Copland extensive recognition as the foremost American composer of his time. Ironically, Copland was raised the son of Russian Jewish immigrants and inhabitant of a colorless city environment, yet would become known for producing the music of “rugged-souled Americans” (Mellers 4). Unbounded by historical musical constraints such as those present in the culture of France, where Copland studied for many years, Copland found himself free to explore and experiment in pursuit of a unique, undoubtedly American sound.
Women’s sufferage was at it’s peak with the ratification of the United States Nineteenth Amendment. Women recived more independence after the end of the First World War and took a greater part in the work force. In the 1920s, there were many famous women Jazz artists such as Lovie Austin, a piano player and band leader, Lil Hardin Armstrong, a pianist who was originally a member of King Oliver’s band, and Bessie Smith, an African-American blues singer who inspired women like Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin. Although women were also making a difference in the Jazz industry, it wasn’t until the 1930s when they were recongnized as successful artists in the music world.
Let me begin by offering a tidbit of biographical information about Florence Price. Florence Beatrice Smith Price was born April 9, 1888 in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was the third child born to Dr. James H. Smith, a dentist, and Florence Irene Gull, a schoolteacher. Previous to studying composition and organ at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Florence received her first musical training from her mother at age four. After much musical education, she was soon found teaching in the music departments at Shorter College in Arkansas (1906-1910), and Clark University in Georgia (1910-1912). In 1912, she married Thomas J. Price and together they had three children. Florence successfully established herself as a concert pianist, church organist, composer, and teacher, which soon became her claim to fame. A prominent composer of the Harlem Renaissance, Florence Price published her first composition at age eleven, and at age sixteen began receiving modest fees for her publications. Among her most famous compositions is the Symphony in E Minor, which received its world premiere at a performance by the Chicago Symphony in 1933. Florence died on June 3, 1953 of a stroke in Chicago, Illinois. It wasn’t until after her death in 1953, that she became well known for her miraculous musical talent.
Florence Beatrice Smith Price was born April 9, 1887 in Little Rock, Arkansas to James and Florence Smith. Her father was a dentist and her mother had numerous careers working as a piano teacher, school teacher, and businesswoman. She had two siblings who both knew how to play the piano. Florence as well as her siblings, received music lessons from her mother who published some of her musical works. Price gave her first piano performance at the very young age of four. However, she did not write her first published composition until the age eleven; the other com positions were published while in high school. She graduated as valedictorian at the age of 14 from Capitol High School in 1903. She followed the footsteps of her mother and went on study at The New England Conservatory of Music, where she was only allowed to attend because she could pass as a Mexican. Despite racial issues Smith was able to forge all the right friendships with other African American composers who led her to the best of the best mentors. She was mentored by George Whitefield Chadwick and Fredrick Converse. There she earned and received her degree as an organist and a piano teacher in 1906.
For almost half a century, the musical world was defined by order and esteemed the form of music more highly than the emotion that lay behind it. However, at the turn of the 19th century, romantic music began to rise in popularity. Lasting nearly a century, romantic music rejected the ideas of the classical era and instead encouraged composers to embrace the idea of emotionally driven music. Music was centered around extreme emotions and fantastical stories that rejected the idea of reason. This was the world that Clara Wieck (who would later marry the famous composer, Robert Schumann) was born into. Most well known for being a famous concert pianist, and secondly for being a romantic composer, Clara intimately knew the workings of romantic music which would not only influence Clara but would later become influenced by her progressive compositions and performances, as asserted by Bertita Harding, author of Concerto: The Glowing Story of Clara Schumann (Harding, 14). Clara’s musical career is an excellent example of how romantic music changed from virtuosic pieces composed to inspire awe at a performer’s talent, to more serious and nuanced pieces of music that valued the emotion of the listener above all else.
Across Europe, between 1400 and 1650, there were women present in all major styles of time. They worked along side of great artists and were developing new techniques and styles. Women also played a very important role in the Renaissance. Although not as well documented as their male counterparts, women worked along with the other great masters, were just as innovating, and were key in developing new techniques.
Amy Beach was a very famous and influential composer and pianist from New Hampshire, United States. She fought long and hard to get to where she got in her lifetime. Back in the late 1800’s, it was hard for women to get noticed because they believe that their role in society was to stay at home and take care of the family. Amy Beach defeated all the odds of a female gender role in her lifetime. She became a role model for young girls wanting to become a composer or becoming anything they wanted to be, as long as they fought for it. She has made an enormous impact on music in America. The following paper will discuss Beach’s life, her struggles, her musical training, how her music was shaped by the society she lived in and famous compositions
In spite of controversy Mary Lucinda Cardwell Dawson was a leader in the campaign to promote African-American participation in and appreciation of opera. Against colossal financial issues and racism, Dawson mounted together a legacy that continues on (through**) her students. At the age of 60, Mary Lucinda Cardwell Dawson died in Washington D.C. suffering from a fetal heart attack. In appreciation of her achievements to the black community the National Negro Opera Company’s home on Frankstown Avenue in Pittsburgh is presently being modernized as a historical site. Mary Lucinda Cardwell Dawson has prevailed against critics through her cultural, social, and economical experiences by installing her own ideas, styles, and genres to shape her view of an impartial nation.
The brilliant composer Clara Schumann was born as Clara Josephine Wieck on 13 September 1819. Even before her birth, her destiny was to become a famous musician. Her father, Friedrich Wieck, was a piano teacher and music dealer, while her mother, Marianne Wieck, was a soprano and a concert pianist and her family was very musically gifted. Her father, Friedrich, wanted to prove to the world that his teaching methods could produce a famous pianist, so he decided, before Clara’s birth, that she would become that pianist. Clara’s father’s wish came true, as his daughter ended up becoming a child prodigy and one of the most famous female composers of her time.
First is about the effect of slave music on American history and African American music. The slave music’s
Shakespeare's comedies usually follow a clearly defined pattern. He presents a conflict, and the characters eventually resolve the conflict in a relatively happy ending, which involves marrying off the hero and his entourage to the heroine and her companions, leaving the villain outside the "magic circle" of protagonists. In The Merchant of Venice, Antonio is presented as the hero, and Shylock the villain, but neither is within the circle of marriages at the end of Act V. In fact, Antonio's depression exposed at the beginning of the play seems unresolved at the end, and he goes on his melancholy way, as he supposes he must. Can The Merchant of Venice, then, be considered a true comedy?