Elie Siegmeister
Elie Siegmeister (also published under pseudonym L. E. Swift;[1] January 15, 1909, in New York City – March 10, 1991, in Manhasset, New York) was an American composer, educator and author.
Early life and education
Elie Siegmeister was born January 15, 1909, in New York City. Both parents were of Russian-Jewish ancestry. His father was a surgeon. The family moved to Brooklyn when Siegmeister was five, at which age he began piano lessons.
Siegmeister entered Columbia University at age 15, and he earned a B.A. cum laude at the age of 18;[2] he had studied music theory with Seth Bingham. He studied conducting with Albert Stoessel at the Juilliard School and counterpoint with Wallingford Riegger. He was among the numerous American composers, including Aaron Copland and Virgil Thomson, who were students of the influential teacher Nadia Boulanger in Paris.
Career
His varied musical output showed his concern with the development of an authentic American musical vocabulary. Jazz, blues and folk melodies and rhythms are frequent themes in his many song cycles, his nine operas, his eight symphonies, and his many choral, chamber, and solo works. His 37 orchestral works have been performed by leading orchestras throughout the world under such conductors as Arturo Toscanini, Leopold Stokowski, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Lorin Maazel, and Sergiu Comissiona. He also composed for Hollywood (notably, the film score of They Came to Cordura, starring Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth, 1959) and Broadway (Sing Out, Sweet Land, 1944, book by Walter Kerr). During World War II, he used to compose lullabies for his three daughters while riding on the New York City subway.[3]
His Western Suite was premiered by Toscanini and the
Siegmeister wrote a number of important books on music, among them "Treasury of American Song" (Knopf, 1940–43, text coauthored with Olin Downs, music arranged by Siegmeister), second edition revised and enlarged (Consolidated Music Publishers); "The Music Lover's Handbook" (William Morrow, 1943; Book-of-the-Month Club selection), revised and expanded as "The New Music Lover's Handbook" (1973); and the two-volume "Harmony and Melody" (Wadsworth, 1985), which was widely adopted by college and conservatory curricula. In 1960, Siegmeister also recorded and released an instructional album of music, Invitation to Music, on Folkways Records, on which he discusses the fundamentals of music.
From 1977 until his death, he served on the board of directors of
Notable students
The best known of his own students were Stephen Albert (1941–92), winner of a 1985 Pulitzer Prize for music, Leonard Lehrman, and Michael Jeffrey Shapiro. For other students, See: List of music students by teacher: R to S#Elie Siegmeister.
References
- ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.
- ^ "Columbia College Today". www.college.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2021-10-02.
- ^ "The Balladeer of the BMT," by Henry Beckett. New York Post, 14 August 1943
- ISBN 9781574670691. Retrieved 2012-07-24.
External links
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- Siegmeister page at Carl Fischer
- List of Compositions
- Invitation to Music
- Elie Siegmeister Society
- Elie Siegmeister interview by Bruce Duffie
- David Dubal interview with Elie Siegmeister on YouTube, WNCN-FM, 12-Jun-1981
- Elie Siegmeister at IMDb