Ruth Crawford Seeger's Music for Small Orchestra

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers!

https://youtu.be/O_JDzIpuELE

Ruth Crawford (1901–1953) was an atonal composer when she met Charles Seeger, but she always had an interest in American folk music. After she married Seeger, she worked with the Lomaxes at the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress. She also arranged and published transcriptions of dozens of American folk songs. She is now seen as one of the most important modernist composers of the 20th century.

Crawford Seeger composed Music for Small Orchestra in 1926, following a stint as a percussionist for the Chicago Civic Orchestra. Dave Lewis says, "Crawford submitted the score of Music for Small Orchestra to a scholarship committee sponsored by the Institute of Musical Art, shortly to become the Juilliard School, along with her Sonata for Violin and Piano. Crawford won the scholarship, but the work was never performed in her lifetime. Music for Small Orchestra was first performed at West Texas State University in 1969; the piece did not appear in print until 1993, edited by Judith Tick and Wayne Schneider."

My classical music post for today is Ruth Crawford Seeger's Music for Small Orchestra.

 


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