Jump to content

Radie Britain

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Caitib01 (talk | contribs) at 23:48, 17 December 2024 (Added biographical information and citations). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Radie Britain
Born(1899-03-17)March 17, 1899
DiedMay 23, 1994(1994-05-23) (aged 95)
Occupationcomposer

Radie Britain (March 17, 1899 – May 23, 1994) was an American composer, pianist, writer and music educator.

Life

Early Life and Education

Radie Britain was born near Silverton, Texas, the third child of Edgar Charles and Katie (Ford) Britain.[1] Her unusual first name was reportedly her mother's choice, as Britain described in her autobiography, with her mother stating, "I wished to call you Radie. It's a strong name, and you will make it stronger by making a name for yourself."[2]

In 1905, the Britain family moved to a ranch nearClarendon, Texas to be closer to education opportunities for the children.[3] From a young age, Radie Britain took piano lessons with a local teacher, Miss Wedgewood, who had graduated from the Dresden Conservatory in Germany. Katie Britain had taken some music lessons on the organ in her younger years, and Edgar was able to play fiddle square dance tunes on the violin and frequently sang "cowboy tunes" at the top of his lungs, but despite the fact that they were not musicians by trade, Britain's parents took music education very seriously. Radie was required to practice for several hours a day and quickly became a skilled pianist.[3]

Sometime around 1911, Britain began studying piano at Clarendon College in Texas with R. Deane Shure who had studied music at the Leipzig Conservatory. He was a highly supportive teacher who believed Britain would have a long career in music as long as "she did not marry too early."[3]


and at the American Conservatory in Chicago with Heniot Levy, graduating with a Bachelor of Music degree in piano in 1921.[4] After completing her degree, Britain taught music for a year at Clarendon College and privately in Amarillo.[5] In 1922 she studied with organist Pietro Yon in Dallas, in 1923 with Marcel Dupré in Paris, and in 1924 with Adele Aus der Ohe in Berlin and Albert Noelte in Munich who encouraged her to pursue composition. She made her debut as a composer in Munich in May 1926. She returned to Texas after the death of her sister, and later taught at the Girvin Institute of Music and Allied Arts in Chicago. She composed orchestral works in the tradition of German post-romanticism during these years.

Britain's Heroic Poem (1929) won the Juilliard National Publication Prize in 1945, making her the award's first female winner.[6][a] With the assistance from the Federal Music Project, her works were played by symphony orchestras for a decade. She married Chicago businessman Leslie Edward Moeller in 1930 and had a daughter Lerae in 1932. Britain spent the summers of 1935 and 1936 at the famed MacDowell Colony. The couple divorced in 1939, and she moved to Hollywood, California, and married Italian sculptor Edgardo Simone in 1940. In 1941, Britain settled in Hollywood, continued career as Texas composer, and received international or national awards. She was given an honorary doctorate by the Musical Arts Conservatory in Amarillo in 1958. After Simone died in 1949, Britain wrote an unpublished autobiographical novel, Bravo, based on her relationship with him. She married aviation pioneer Theodore Morton in 1959. She died in Palm Desert, California, and her papers are housed at several locations.[7]

Works

Britain incorporated musical idioms from the southwestern United States into her compositions. Selected orchestral works include:

  • Angel Chimes
  • Brothers of the Clouds with TTBB chorus
  • The Builders with SATB chorus
  • Cactus Rhapsody
  • Chicken in the Rough
  • Chipmunks for woodwinds, harp, percussion
  • Cosmic Mist Symphony, dedicated to her 3rd husband Theodore Morton[8]
  • Cowboy Rhapsody
  • Drouth
  • The Earth Does Not Wish for Beauty with SATB chorus
  • Earth of God (String Orchestra)
  • Les Fameux Douze The Famous Twelve for small orchestra
  • Four Sarabandes for small orchestra
  • Franciscan Sketches
  • San Luis Rey
  • Saint Francis of Assisi
  • Heroic Poem
  • Infant Suite
  • In Living Ecstasy with solo voice
  • Jewels of Lake Tahoe
  • Kambu
  • Lament with solo violin
  • Little per cent
  • Minha Terra
  • Mother: A Melody of Love with narrator
  • Nisan with SATB chorus[9]
  • Withered Flowers, song[3]

References

Notes

  1. ^ Radie received her award in 1945, substantiated by an extant announcement letter dating from June 8, 1945. Her award is commonly misreported as dating to 1930, possibly to due an early misprint, see Macdonald 2012, p. 27

Citations

  1. ^ Barkley, Roy R. (2003). The handbook of Texas music. Texas State Historical Association.
  2. ^ Britain, Radie (1996). Ridin' herd to writing symphonies : an autobiography. Internet Archive. Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow. ISBN 978-0-8108-2733-2.
  3. ^ a b c d Bailey, Walter B.; Bailey, Nancy G. (1990). Radie Britain: a bio-bibliography. Bio-bibliographies in music. New York: Greenwood Press. p. 100. ISBN 978-0-313-26277-7.
  4. ^ Claghorn, Charles Eugene (1996). Women composers and songwriters: a concise biographical dictionary.
  5. ^ Fuller, Sophie Fuller (1994). The Pandora guide to women composers: Britain and the United States.
  6. ^ Macdonald 2012, p. 27.
  7. ^ "BRITAIN, RADIE". Texas State Historical Society. Retrieved February 1, 2011.
  8. ^ Ammer, Christine (2001). Unsung: a history of women in American music (Century ed.). Portland, OR: Amadeus. p. 170. ISBN 978-1-57467-058-5.
  9. ^ "Radie Britain Collection:Orchestral Music". William and Gayle Cook Music Library. Retrieved February 1, 2011.

Sources


This article about a United States composer born in the 19th century is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Radie_Britain&oldid=1263664169"