Gertrude Ross (1889-1957) was a versatile American composer and pianist who wrote music for films and stage as well as songs and instrumental works. She researched Japanese and Hebrew music for her own compositions and collected Spanish folksongs from early California settlers. [1] [2]
Ross was born in Dayton, Ohio, [3] to Emma Corinne McCreary and Abner L. Ross. She showed early musical talent as a child, playing music by ear and giving concerts starting at age 10. She attended the Cumnock School of Expression in Los Angeles for three years, then studied at the University of Southern California for an additional year. [4]
Ross married in 1903 and had a daughter, Corinne, in 1904. In 1910, Ross left her husband and resumed using her maiden name. She studied piano for two years in Germany with Severin Eisenberger and Theodor Leschetitzky. Later, she studied counterpoint with Nadia Boulanger. [4] [5] [6]
After returning to the U.S., Ross toured with and accompanied singers such as Katherine Fisk, Blanche Hamilton Fox, Jeanne Gerville-Reache, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, and Regina Vicarino, as well as cellist Elsa Ruegger and vioinist Ignaz Heroldi. She accompanied Schumann-Heink at the 1915 San Francisco Exposition, and appeared with the Russian Symphony Orchestra Society in New York. [4] [5]
Ross learned Japanese and studied Japanese instruments to compose Art Songs of Japan. Japanese citizens in California gave her a key to Japan in appreciation of this work. Ross also collected and published the traditional melodies played by the early Spanish settlers of California. In 1923, she composed new music for the outdoor performance The Pilgrimage Play: The Life of Christ by Christine Wetherill, incorporating Hebrew chants, scales, and instruments like the shofar. [4] She helped raise money to build the Hollywood Bowl and gave public lectures about the music played on its summer concert series. [7] [8]
In 1919, Ross helped found the California Federation of Music Clubs. The same year, she served as president of Los Angeles’ Dominant Club for female musicians. [9] In 1928, she chaired the National Federation of Music Clubs American Composers group, as well as the Hollywood Bowl Annual Composition Prize Committee. [10] [6] In her role as president of the Los Angeles Pro Musica chapter, she helped sponsor early performances of Arnold Schoenberg’s music. [11]
Ross’ works were recorded commercially by Columbia (W14770) and Victor Records (B-13820, B-28458, and BVE-34210). [12] Her composition Three Songs of the Desert inspired paintings by Arthur Hill Gilbert. [4] Her students included Elinor Remick Warren. [13]
Ross’ works were published by Edwin H. Morris and Company, G. Schirmer Inc., Huntzinger & Dilworth, J. Fischer and Bros., R. W. Heffelfinger, and the White Smith Music Publishing Company. [2] [8] [9] [14]
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. Among the first modernist composers to write music of dense motivic relations saturating the musical texture, he propounded concepts like developing variation, the emancipation of the dissonance, and the "unity of musical space".
Lee Ann Remick was an American actress and singer. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the film Days of Wine and Roses (1962).
Ernestine Schumann-Heink was a Bohemian-born Austrian-American operatic dramatic contralto of German Bohemian descent. She was noted for the flexibility and wide range of her voice. Heink and Schumann were her two husbands' surnames.
Dika Newlin was a composer, pianist, professor, musicologist, and punk rock singer. She received a Ph.D. from Columbia University at the age of 22. She was one of the last living students of Arnold Schoenberg and was a Schoenberg scholar and a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond from 1978 to 2004. She performed as an Elvis impersonator and played punk rock while in her seventies in Richmond, Virginia.
Jeppe: The Cruel Comedy is a 2001 opera created and commissioned by librettist-director Claes Fellbom with composer Sven-David Sandström, based on Ludvig Holberg's play, Jeppe of the Hill, updated to a contemporary setting, with television as a major theme. Its creation was to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Folkoperan, for which Fellbom is managing director. It ran there for more than forty performances. Fellbom translated his libretto into English and directed the first English language production at the Indiana University Bloomington School of Music in February 2003, where Sandström was on the faculty. This production ran four performances, which is the standard run of all Indiana University opera productions.
Katherine Kennicott Davis was an American composer, pianist, arranger, and teacher, whose most well-known composition is the Christmas song "Carol of the Drum," later known as "The Little Drummer Boy".
Bethany Beardslee is an American soprano and grandmother to ex-model Ella Winham. She is particularly noted for her collaborations with major 20th-century composers, such as Igor Stravinsky, Milton Babbitt, Pierre Boulez, George Perle, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and her performances of great contemporary classical music by Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern. Her legacy amongst mid-century composers was as a "composer's singer"—for her commitment to the highest art of new music. Milton Babbitt said of her "She manages to learn music no one else in the world can. She can work, work, work." In a 1961 interview for Newsweek, Beardslee flaunted her unflinching repertoire and disdain for commercialism: "I don't think in terms of the public... Music is for the musicians. If the public wants to come along and study it, fine. I don't go and try to tell a scientist his business because I don't know anything about it. Music is just the same way. Music is not entertainment."
Ida Joséphine Phoebe Éva Gauthier was a Canadian-American mezzo-soprano and voice teacher. She performed and popularized songs by contemporary composers throughout her career and sang in the American premieres of several works by Erik Satie, Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky, including the title role in the latter's Perséphone.
Elinor Remick Warren was an American composer of contemporary classical music and pianist. Her mother had been a student of a pupil of Franz Liszt, and introduced her daughter to art music. Warren's father was considered a fine amateur singer who had once considered singing professionally. Warren trained as a pianist with Kathryn Cocke through high school and took composition lessons from Gertrude Ross starting her second year in high school. She sent an early composition to the Schirmer music publishing company and received her first contract to publish with them before she graduated from high school. Between high school and college, Warren studied piano with Harold Bauer and Leopold Godowsky. After attending Mills College for a year, she moved to New York, where she studied privately with composers Frank La Forge and Clarence Dickinson, both of whom were known for their art songs. Warren supported herself as an accompanist for singers and went on tour with contralto Margaret Matzenauer.
Abbie Jane Gerrish-Jones was an American composer, librettist and music writer.
Oscar Rasbach was an American pianist and composer and arranger of art songs and works for piano.
Fay Foster was an American pianist, composer, and teacher.
Olga Steeb was an American pianist and music educator, based in Los Angeles, California.
Constance L. Balfour was an American soprano, based in California.
Ruth Erskine Tripp was an American composer, music critic, educator, and pianist. She administered the Works Progress Administration's Federal Music Project in the state of Rhode Island from 1940 to 1943.
Gertrude Sans Souci was an American organist, pianist and song composer. After study in Germany, she developed a national career as a keyboard performer in the US and published some two dozen songs.
Grace Adele Freebey was an American pianist, music teacher, and composer, based in Los Angeles.
Agnes Gardner Eyre de Jahn was an American pianist, composer, and piano teacher, a student of Theodor Leschetizky.
Grace Worcester Root was an American actress and composer who died from chloroform poisoning. She published her music under the name Grace W. Root.
Gertrude Jane Martin Rohrer was an American author and composer who wrote many songs, including the state song of Pennsylvania, a book, and at least one operetta. She was active in several music clubs.
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