Elinor Armer

Last updated

Elinor Armer
Born (1939-10-06) October 6, 1939 (age 85)
Education Mills College at Northeastern University (BA)
University of California, Berkeley
California State University, San Francisco (MA)
Occupations
  • Pianist
  • music educator
  • composer

Elinor Armer (born October 6, 1939) is an American pianist, music educator and composer.

Contents

Biography

Elinor Armer was born in Oakland, California but at the age of 2 months moved to Davis, California with her family where she would spend most of her childhood. Armer’s father worked as an engineer and worked for the Agricultural Engineering Department for the University in Davis, which prompted the family’s move. Her father was an acoustical engineer and used to set up speakers in the family’s living room, exposing Elinor to acoustics at a young age. Elinor first began sight-reading music and enjoying four-part harmony because of many hymnals found in the Armer home, due to her father’s Methodist Evangelist background.

Armer comes from a family of California artists, her grandfather was a commercial artist and her grandmother was an author. Her mother was a writer as well and who sang and played the piano. Elinor shared her love of piano with her mother; they frequently sang and played together throughout her childhood. Armer was eight years old when she began playing the piano

Though her mother played the piano also, Elinor was taught to play by a neighbor, Fritz Berens, who happened to be a piano teacher. Her early lessons focused on ear training and dictation. These early music lessons fostered her love and influenced her becoming a composer later in life.

Armer says that some of the major influences in her life include participating in a rhythm band when she was in kindergarten, the radio, and the records her siblings and parents would play around the house. [1]

She studied music under Darius Milhaud and Leon Kirchner for composition and Alexander Libermann for piano. She attended Mills College, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in 1961, the University of California, Berkeley from 1966 to 1968, and California State University, San Francisco, where she received a Master of Arts degree in 1972. She taught composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 1975 to the present day (she is scheduled to retire this year), and has performed and lectured throughout the United States. She helped co-found the organization Composers, Inc. Her papers are housed at UC Berkeley Music Library. [2] [3]

Education

In 1957, Elinor graduated from Davis High School. While she did not know it then, [4] Elinor would eventually go on to be induced into the Davis Senior High School Hall of Fame. She went on to attend Mills College for her secondary education. While there, she tried out several different majors before deciding on majoring in music composition. Her Piano teacher, Alexander Libermann, had a great deal of influence on her pursuing the piano. Libermann was a very popular professor during his time, and gave a series of lectures on the piano - how to practice, play, and teach. Elinor graduated from Mills college in 1961. From there she continued on to study her masters at UC Berkeley, although she went on to complete her graduate degree in composition from California State, San Francisco. [5]

Career

Elinor Armer has traveled throughout the U.S. as well as abroad to perform. Her music styles range from orchestral to solo. The majority of Elinor's composition including Promptu and Etude Quasi Cadenza has been written for pianist Lois Brandwynee. [6] Elinor Armer enjoys a world-renowned reputation for her work in music education. Elinor is aligned with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, in which she founded the Composition Department in 1985. [6] Along with the Conservatory of Music, Elinor teaches piano, composition, music history, and theory to students out of her home studio located in Berkeley, CA. [6]

Awards and honors

Works

Armer has produced a collaborative multi-part fantasy series with author Ursula K. Le Guin called Uses of Music in Uttermost Parts which has been recorded on the Koch International Label. [7]

While attending Mills College, Elinor would record and transcribe her lectures with her professor, Alexander Libermann. Upon his death, Elinor and a team of others consolidated these lectures and published a book known as “A Comprehensive Approach to the Piano”. [8]

Discography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darius Milhaud</span> French composer, conductor and teacher (1892–1974)

Darius Milhaud was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and Brazilian music and make extensive use of polytonality. Milhaud is considered one of the key modernist composers. A renowned teacher, he taught many future jazz and classical composers, including Burt Bacharach, Dave Brubeck, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American gamelan</span> Style and scene of gamelan music

American gamelan could refer to both instruments and music; the term has been used to refer to gamelan-style instruments built by Americans, as well as to music written by American composers to be played on gamelan instruments. American gamelan music usually has some relationship to the gamelan traditions of Indonesia, as found primarily on the islands of Java and Bali in a variety of styles. Many American compositions can be played on Indonesian or American-made instruments. Indonesian gamelan can be made of a variety of materials, including bronze, iron, or bamboo. American gamelan builders used all sorts of materials including aluminum, tin cans, car hubcaps, steel, antique milk-strainers, etc. American gamelan may also describe the original music of American ensembles working with traditional instruments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Francisco Conservatory of Music</span> Music school in California, U.S.

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) is a private music conservatory in San Francisco, California, United States. As of 2024, it had more than 440 students.

Robert M. Greenberg is an American composer, pianist, and musicologist who was born in Brooklyn, New York. He has composed more than 50 works for a variety of instruments and voices, and has recorded a number of lecture series on music history and music appreciation for The Great Courses.

Alden Jenks is an American composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luciano Chessa</span> Italian composer

Luciano Chessa is a musician, performance/visual/installation artist, and musicologist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Van Kriedt</span> American jazz musician

David Van Kriedt was a composer, saxophonist and music teacher.

Gerald M. Shapiro is an American composer of acoustic and electronic music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Cadima</span> American composer and painter

Andrew William Cadima is an American composer and painter.

Alexander Libermann (1896–1978) was a Bay Area-based pianist and educator who taught piano at Mills College.

Albert Israel Elkus was an American composer, pianist, and educator.

Jonathan Elkus is an American composer, arranger, editor, author, conductor, and teacher.

Howard Rengstorff Brubeck was a composer and music educator and the older brother of jazz pianist Dave Brubeck. His best known work, Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra, premiered at Carnegie Hall December 10, 1959, with the Dave Brubeck Quartet and Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic and was recorded on Bernstein Plays Brubeck Plays Bernstein in 1961. His California Suite, also from the 1950s, was performed in San Francisco and in Brussels. According to the Grove Dictionary of Music, "The influence of Milhaud – and sometimes echoes of Copland – can be heard in his music; a flair for orchestral writing, secure craftsmanship and sophisticated wit are also in evidence." He wrote liner notes for many of his brother's commercial recordings, and transcribed, edited, and arranged much of his brother's music for publication.

Richard James Felciano is an American composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Grodin</span> American pianist, lecturer and teacher (born 1985)

Samuel Grodin is an American pianist, lecturer and teacher. Grodin's teachers have included Nina Scolnik, Julian Martin, Robert McDonald, Antoinette Perry, Marc Durand, Joseph Kalichstein, Sharon Mann, Craig Richey, and Lucinda Carver. Grodin has worked with Emanuel Ax, Blanca Uribe, Dominique Weber, and Stephen Hough in master classes. He teaches piano at California State University, Long Beach.

David Ross Garner is an American composer of opera and vocal, instrumental, and chamber music. He is also an educator, on faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xenia Boodberg Lee</span> American concert pianist

Xenia Boodberg Lee was an American concert pianist, based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ada Clement</span> American pianist and music teacher

Ada Clement was an American pianist and music teacher. She co-founded what would become the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Regina Kastberg Hansen Willman was an American composer, born in Burns, Wyoming. She married Allan Arthur Willman in 1942; they divorced in 1956, but remained close throughout her life. Willman received a B.M. from the University of Wyoming in 1945, and a M.M. from the University of New Mexico in 1961. She studied with Darius Milhaud at Mills College, Roy Harris at Colorado College, and pursued further studies at the University of California, Berkeley, the Juilliard School, the Sorbonne, and the Lausanne Conservatory. Willman was the resident composer of the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico, from 1956–57 and 1960-61. Her papers are archived at the University of Wyoming.

Katharine Mulky Warne was an American composer, pianist and teacher, who founded the Darius Milhaud Society and organized 15 Milhaud festivals in Cleveland, Ohio, to promote his music. She was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. On June 27, 1953, She married Clinton L. Warne and they had three children: Kate, Clinton Jr. and Carolyn.

References

  1. "Chapter 1". my.sfcm.edu. Retrieved October 9, 2015.
  2. "Inventory of the Compositions of Elinor Armer, 1955–1995" . Retrieved October 12, 2010.
  3. Pendle, Karin (1997). American Women Composers, Volume 16, Parts 1-2. Psychology Press. ISBN   9789057021459 . Retrieved November 11, 2010.
  4. "Elinor Armer - Davis - LocalWiki". localwiki.org. Retrieved October 9, 2015.
  5. "Cheryl North Interviews Elinor Armer".
  6. 1 2 3 "Elinor Armer". elinorarmer.com. Retrieved October 9, 2015.
  7. 1 2 "Elinor Armer". Archived from the original on August 24, 2010. Retrieved October 12, 2010.
  8. http://my.sfcm.edu/web/sfcm/elinor-armer/chapter-2 [ dead link ]