Julia Smith (composer)

Julia Frances Smith ( born January 25, 1905 in Denton / Texas, † April 27, 1989 in New York City ) was an American composer and pianist.

Life

Smith took in her youth lessons with Harold Mick joke at the Institute of Musical Art in Dallas. She then studied until at North Texas State Teachers College, and from 1932 to 1939 at the Juilliard School of Music composition with Rubin Goldmark and Frederick Jacobi and piano with Carl Friedberg. At the New York University, she earned a master's (1933 ) and doctoral degrees ( 1952). Her dissertation Aaron Copland: His Work and Contribution to American Music appeared in 1955 in New York in press. In 1963 her book Master Pianist: The Career and Teaching of Carl Friedberg.

From 1933 to 1942, Smith was a member of the Orchestrette Classic of New York, an all-girl orchestra founded by Frédérique Petrides, which premiered several of her compositions. Anlässliche the 100 -year celebration of the State of Texas Smith composed the opera Cynthia Parker, with their performance in 1939 she became known to a wider audience. In addition to five other operas composed it, inter alia, a symphony orchestra, two suites, a brass overture, a piano concerto, chamber music, piano pieces, choral works and songs.

In 1935, Smith taught at the Hamlin School in New Jersey, from 1940 to 1942 at the Juilliard School. In 1941, she founded the Department of Music Education at the Hartt College, which she ran until 1949. From 1946 to 1948 she also taught at the Teachers College of Connecticut. Since the 1950s, she sat strengthened for the promotion of women composers in the United States. In 1951 she organized a concert with works by Marion Bauer. With Merle Montgomery, she prepared in the late 1960s before a concert with works by American composers in the Musicians Club of New York. As chairman of the American Women Composers, she released her 1970 Directory of American Women Composers. From 1970 to 1979 she was director of the Decade of Women Committee of the National Federation of Music Clubs.

In addition, she has always been more active as a composer. At the inauguration of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 Remember the Alamo originated! , Their last opera Daisy based on the life of Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts in the United States.