Sonneck Society for American Music
Bulletin, Volume XXIV, no. 1 (Spring 1998)
Members in the News
Jeff Taylor is currently a Fellow at the Humanities at Brooklyn College. He is
at work on a book tentatively titled Black Jazz Pianists in the Twenties: A Musical
and Cultural History. He would be delighted to hear from other Sonneck members
who have expertise or interest in the topic. Christopher Shultis,
Professor of Music at the University of New Mexico, has received an ASCAP Deems
Taylor Award for his article "Cage in Retrospect: A Review Essay." It appeared
in The Journal of Musicology 14, no. 3 (Summer 1996): 400-423.
This past October, David Hildebrand, with his wife Ginger, hosted a national
broadcast from their studio via the cable network C-SPAN. The topic was music in America
c.1830, when Alexis de Tocqueville made his U.S. historic tour, which resulted in his
oft-quoted book, "Democracy in America." Ginger and David performed a fiddle tune
("The White Cockade") from an 1830 dance manuscript, a piece for voice and guitar, and
"The Carrollton March" (1938), by Philip Corri, among other selections. David
laments: "O, that we had had the Sonneck Society Brass Band!"
Judith Tick's biography Ruth Crawford Seeger: A Composer's Searc for
American Music (Oxford University Press, 1997) was listed in the Los Angeles
Times "Year in Review" column, 21 December 1997 by the music critic, Mark Swed, in his
top-ten list, as follows: "The American Century Life to Life: Three exceptional
new biograpies of American composers were published that go a long way toward helping
us understand not only the kind of music we make but the kind of people we are and
the kind of society we enjoy. Anthony Tomassini's engrossing Virgil Thomson:
Composer on the Aisle is a wonderful study of a sometimes not-so-wonderful
character. Judith Tick's Ruth Crawford Seeger is both a startling
reminder of what a fine composer Pete Seeger's stepmother was and of all the social
issues, from gender to racial politics, that affected music and life in the first half
of the twentieth century. Ken Emerison's Doo Dah! Stephen Foster and the Rise of
Popular Culture provides a gripping account of our cultural roots."
The Christina Cultural Arts Center of Wilmington, DE opened their new series entitled
Masters of African American Music with a lecture/recital by Guthrie Ramsey entitled,
"It's a Familty Affair: Black Family Histories and Black Music History. The purpose of
this series is to expose students and members of the community to master musicians
working in all styles of African American Music through a series of lectures, recitals,
and workshops.
Harry Hewitt, who has been composing for 65 years, had his first recording
released on 1 December 1997. The CD, titled Mileto Plays Hewitt, is an
overview of the composer's solo guitar works from 1952-1987, performed by the
Italian guitarist Stefano Mileto. The record was released by Penn Sounds Recordings
BHH-101; distributed by Composer Services Inc., (
eh1958@voicenet.com, (215) 985-0963).
Portia Maultsby, Professor of Afro-American Studies and Adjunct Professor
of Music and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University, was selected the 1997-1998
professor to the Belle van Zulyen chair, a distinguished visiting professorship,
at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Hosted by the Music Department, she will
teach an undergraduate course and a graduate seminar on African-American music during
the spring semester. Pine Tree Productions has announced the publication of "Simple
Gifts" by Roger Hall (MusBuff@aol.com,
(781) 334-6954).
Scarecrow Press recently published Cecil Effinger: A Colorado Composer
by Larry Worster. University of California Press has just published a book edited
by Ralph P. Locke and Cyrilla Barr: Cultivating Music in America:
Women Patrons and Archivists since 1860. The book received publishing subventions
from both the Sonneck and American Musicological Societies. In addition to five chapters
by one or both of the editors, the book contains chapters by other Sonneck members:
Joseph Horowitz, Doris Evans McGinty, Carol J. Oja, Emanuel Rubin,
Ruth A. Solie, and Linda Whitesitt. Cyrilla Barr also published
a richly illustrated brochure, The Coolidge Legacy (Washington: Library of
Congress, 1997) and gave a public lecture in October to celebrate the reopening of the
Coolidge Auditorium. In September and October, Ralph Locke organized two concerts
featuring Eastman School of Music students performing music by Reginald De Koven and
Arthur Farwell among others.
In Memoriam: Betty Ch'maj
Betty Ch'maj, long-time Sonneck Society member, died Sunday, 9 November, in a single-car
automobile accident in California. Betty, who taught in the Humanities Department at
California State University-Sacramento from 1972 to 1994, was well known as an early
advocate of women's studies at her own institution and in the wider American Studies
community. She was one of the founding members of the Sonneck Society's Music and Gender
Interest Group, served on the board as member-at-large, and helped bring our organization
into the mainstream of this important field. Music was one of Betty's many passions; in her
several papers on Ives and other topics given for the Sonneck Society, she helped us understand
music from the broader "American Studies" perspective. By the same token, she exhorted
her American Studies colleagues to give the study of music a more prominent place in their
scholarship and teaching. Always a lively presence in the Sonneck Society, she will be
missed.
An American Studies scholarship fund is being established in her name. Please contact
Keith Atwater at CSU Sacramento if you would like to contribute
(keithla@saclink.csus.edu). At her
memorial service in Sacramento, her family and friends honored Betty in the spirit
in which she lived her life. In the words of her niece, "she said that at her memorial
she wanted us to play games and sing songs, and we're going to do it that way."
Updated 4/20/98