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Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953) is frequently considered the most significant American female composer in this century. Joining Aaron Copland and Henry Cowell as a key member of the 1920s musical avant-garde, she went on to study with modernist theorist and future husband Charles Seeger, writing ...

Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953) is frequently considered the most significant American female composer in this century. Joining Aaron Copland and Henry Cowell as a key member of the 1920s musical avant-garde, she went on to study with modernist theorist and future husband Charles Seeger, writing her masterpiece, String Quartet 1931, not long after. But her legacy extends far beyond the cutting edge of modern music. Collaborating with poet Carl Sandburg on folk song arrangements in the twenties, and with the famous folk-song collectors John and Alan Lomax in the 1930s, she emerged as a central figure in the American folk music revival, issuing several important books of transcriptions and arrangements and pioneering the use of American folk songs in children's music education. Radicalized by the Depression, she spent much of the ensuing two decades working aggressively for social change with her husband and stepson, the folksinger Pete Seeger. This engrossing new biography emphasizes the choices Crawford Seeger made in her roles as composer, activist, teacher, wife and mother. The first woman to win a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in music composition, Crawford Seeger nearly gave up writing music as the demands of family, politics, and the folk song movement intervened. It was only at the very end of her life, with cancer sapping her strength, that she returned to composing. Written with unique insight and compassion, this book offers the definitive treatment of a fascinating twentieth-century figure.

Chronologically following Tawa's The Coming of Age of American Art Music, this new study examines, in cultural context, the music of the most prominent composers active from 1900 to 1930, among them Frederick Shepherd Converse, Edgar Burlingame Hill, Mabel Daniels, Deems Taylor, Charles Wakefield ...

Chronologically following Tawa's The Coming of Age of American Art Music, this new study examines, in cultural context, the music of the most prominent composers active from 1900 to 1930, among them Frederick Shepherd Converse, Edgar Burlingame Hill, Mabel Daniels, Deems Taylor, Charles Wakefield Cadman, Arthur Farwell, Scott Joplin, Marion Bauer, and John Alden Carpenter. Unjustly neglected by latter-day critics interested in the avant-garde, this music deserves a hearing today. Tawa evaluates the composers and compositions on their own merits and concludes that much of the music will delight anyone not irrevocably opposed to romanticism.

Designed as a practical reference guide for professional pianists and piano teachers, A Guide to Piano Music by Women Composers, Volume I, is an annotated catalogue of the available piano music in print composed by 144 women born before the 20th century. The work also features biographies and ...

Designed as a practical reference guide for professional pianists and piano teachers, A Guide to Piano Music by Women Composers, Volume I, is an annotated catalogue of the available piano music in print composed by 144 women born before the 20th century. The work also features biographies and extensive bibliographical information for each composer. Arranged alphabetically by composer into categories including single works, collections, and anthologies, the music is also described in terms of grade level, genre, mood, style characteristics, and technical requirements, and ranges in difficulty from late elementary to virtuoso concert repertoire. As far too many teachers, students, professional musicians, and audiences are unaware of the contributions made by women in music, and of the beauty and merit of their specific compositions, this reference work provides an invaluable addition to the current literature.