Julia Smith (composer)

This article is about the composer. For the television director, see Julia Smith.

Julia Frances Smith ( January 25, 1905 – April 18, 1989) was an American composer, pianist, and author on musicology.

Life and career

She was born in Denton, Texas. She graduated from University of North Texas College of Music (1930) and then continued with graduate studies in piano and composition at the Juilliard School from 1932 to 1939, earning a diploma. She simultaneously studied at New York University earning a Masters degree in 1933 and a PhD in 1952. From 1932 to 1939 she served as pianist for the Orchestrette Classique of New York, a women’s orchestra. During this time she also gave concerts of mostly American music in Latin America, Europe, and throughout the United States. As a performer she became particularly associated with the works of Aaron Copland. From 1941 to 1946 she taught at the Hartt School, where she founded the department of music education.

As a composer Smith is best known for her operas and orchestral works, which have all been performed. Her music incorporates elements of jazz, folk music and 20th-century French harmony. Her compositional style has an appealing directness and although tonal, makes interesting use of dissonance. Among her works are The String Quartet, which uses irregular metres and driving rhythms, and the operas Cynthia Parker and Cockcrow, which employ folk music within a generally conservative tonal idiom.

Smith was the recipient of several commissions and awards and was active in several music organizations, especially the National Federation of Music Clubs, for which she chaired the Decade of Women Committee (1970–79). As a writer her publications include Aaron Copland: his Work and Contribution to American Music (New York, 1955) and a Directory of American Women Composers (Chicago, 1970), of which she was the editor.

She died in New York City.

Selected compositions

• Cynthia Parker, opera (c. 1939)
• Stranger of Manzano, opera; libretto by John William Rogers
• Characteristic Suite for piano (c. 1949)
• Cockcrow, one-act opera (1953)
• American Dance Suite for two pianos, four hands (c. 1957)
• Two Pieces for viola and piano (1966)
• Concerto in E minor for piano and orchestra (1938 ; rev. 1971)
• "Glory to the Green and White", University of North Texas alma mater
• Daisy, opera in 2 acts; libretto by Bertita Harding
• God Bless This House from the American opera Daisy; text from the poem "Blessing the House" by Anna Hempstead Branch (c. 1974)
• Five pieces, for Double Bass and Piano, double bass part edited by Homer R. Mensch (c. 1985)
• Prairie Kaleidoscope: five songs for voice and piano, poems by Ona Mae Ratcliff (née Minnick; 1909–2001), music by Julia Smith (1981)
• Suite for Wind Octet, (1980)

Selected writings

• Julia Smith, Aaron Copland, his work and contribution to American music, Dutton, New York (1955)
• Directory of American women composers, with selected music for senior & junior clubs, compiled and edited by Julia Smith, National Federation of Music Clubs (1970)

Teaching positions

• 1935: Smith began part-time teaching at the Hamlin School, Fair Lawn, NJ
• 1940–42: taught at Juilliard
• 1941–46: taught at the Hartt School, where she founded and served as head of the Department of Music Education
• 1944–46: taught at Teachers College of Connecticut

Family

On April 23, 1938, Julia Smith married Oscar Albert Vielehr (b. Aug. 4, 1892, Rochester, NY; d. Nov 30, 1975, New York, NY), an engineer and inventor who worked for the Gyroscope Company, an Army ordnance plant. They met at a concert.

Sources

• Who's Who in American Music: Classical, R.R. Bowker, New York (1983)
• Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Eighth edition, revised by Nicolas Slonimsky (1894–1995), Macmillan Publishing Co., New York (1992)
• Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Ninth edition, edited by Laura Diane Kuhn (born 1953), Schirmer Books, New York (2001)
• Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Classical Musicians, by Nicolas Slonimsky (1894–1995), Schirmer Books, New York (1997)
• Baker's Dictionary of Opera, edited by Laura Diane Kuhn (born 1953), Schirmer Books, New York (2000)
• Contemporary Authors. A bio-bibliographical guide to current writers in fiction, general nonfiction, poetry, journalism, drama, motion pictures, television, and other fields, Volume 128. Detroit: Gale Research, Detroit (1990)
• The New American Dictionary of Music, by Philip David Morehead (born 1942) with Anne MacNeil, Dutton, New York (1991)
• The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, four volumes, edited by Stanley Sadie (1930–2005), Grove's Dictionaries of Music, New York. ISBN 0-333-73432-7 and ISBN 1-56159-228-5
• The New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers, edited by Julie Anne Sadie & Rhian Samuel, Macmillan Publishers, London; W.W. Norton, New York (1994) OCLC 31761482

External links

• Interview with Julia Smith by Bruce Duffie, May 3, 1987