Elie Siegmeister (also published under pseudonym L. E. Swift; January 15, 1909 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

– 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 Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

when Siegmeister was five, at which age he began piano lessons. Siegmeister entered

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

at age 15, and he earned a B.A. cum laude at the age of 18; he had studied music theory with

Seth Bingham Seth Daniels Bingham (April 16, 1882 – June 21, 1972) was an American organist and prolific composer. Biography Bingham was born in Bloomfield, New Jersey, the youngest of four siblings in a farming family that soon relocated to Naugatuck, Con ...

. 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 Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a ...

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

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

s, his eight

symphonies A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning com ...

, 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 Arturo Toscanini (; ; March 25, 1867January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orch ...

, Leopold Stokowski, Dimitri Mitropoulos,

Lorin Maazel Lorin Varencove Maazel (, March 6, 1930 – July 13, 2014) was an American conductor, violinist and composer. He began conducting at the age of eight and by 1953 had decided to pursue a career in music. He had established a reputation in th ...

, and Sergiu Comissiona. He also composed for Hollywood (notably, the film score of ''

They Came to Cordura ''They Came to Cordura'' is a 1959 American Western film co-written and directed by Robert Rossen and starring Gary Cooper, Rita Hayworth, Van Heflin and Tab Hunter. It was based on a 1958 novel by Glendon Swarthout. Plot In 1916, as U.S. soldi ...

'', starring

Gary Cooper Gary Cooper (born Frank James Cooper; May 7, 1901May 13, 1961) was an American actor known for his strong, quiet screen persona and understated acting style. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice and had a further three nominations, a ...

and Rita Hayworth, 1959) and Broadway (''Sing Out, Sweet Land'', 1944, book by

Walter Kerr Walter Francis Kerr (July 8, 1913 – October 9, 1996) was an American writer and Broadway theatre critic. He also was the writer, lyricist, and/or director of several Broadway plays and musicals as well as the author of several books, genera ...

). During World War II, he used to compose lullabies for his three daughters while riding on the New York City

subway Subway, Subways, The Subway, or The Subways may refer to: Transportation * Subway, a term for underground rapid transit rail systems * Subway (underpass), a type of walkway that passes underneath an obstacle * Subway (George Bush Interconti ...

. His ''Western Suite'' was premiered by Toscanini and the

NBC Symphony Orchestra The NBC Symphony Orchestra was a radio orchestra conceived by David Sarnoff, the president of the Radio Corporation of America, especially for the conductor Arturo Toscanini. The NBC Symphony performed weekly radio concert broadcasts with Tosca ...

during a broadcast concert on November 25, 1945, in NBC Studio 8-H. Maurice Abravanel and the

Utah Symphony Orchestra The Utah Symphony is an American orchestra based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The orchestra's principal venue is Abravanel Hall. In addition to its Salt Lake City subscription concerts, the orchestra travels around the Intermountain West serving c ...

later made a stereo recording of the music, which incorporates familiar cowboy tunes. Biographer Mortimer Frank said Toscanini's premiere (preserved on transcription discs) is a remarkable performance led by a conductor whose roots went not to the Old West but the Parma conservatory. 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 Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways. History The Folkways Records & Service ...

, on which he discusses the fundamentals of music. From 1977 until his death, he served on the board of directors of

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...

and chaired its Symphony and Concert Committee. Among his signal achievements, he was composer-in-residence at

Hofstra University Hofstra University is a private university in Hempstead, New York. It is Long Island's largest private university. Hofstra originated in 1935 as an extension of New York University (NYU) under the name Nassau College – Hofstra Memorial of Ne ...

1966-76, having organized and conducted the Hofstra Symphony Orchestra; established 1971 and chaired the Council of Creative Artists, Libraries, and Museums; and initiated 1978 the Kennedy Center's National Black Music competition. In 1939, he organized the American Ballad Singers, pioneers in the folk music renaissance whom he conducted for eight years in performances throughout the United States. He was the winner of numerous awards and commissions, among them those of the Guggenheim, Ford, and Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundations, the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the

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Notable students

The best known of his own students were Stephen Albert (1941–92), winner of a 1985

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

for music,

Leonard Lehrman Leonard Jordan Lehrman is an American composer who was born in Kansas, on August 20, 1949, and grew up in Roslyn, New York. Since August 3, 1999, he has resided in Valley Stream, New York. His teachers included Lenore Anhalt, Elie Siegmeister, Ol ...

, and

Michael Jeffrey Shapiro Michael Jeffrey Shapiro is an American composer, conductor, and author. The son of a Klezmer band clarinetist, Michael Shapiro spent most of his high school years in Baldwin, a Long Island suburb, where he was a music student of Consuelo Elsa ...

. For other students,

References

External links

Siegmeister page at Carl Fischer
List of Compositions''Invitation to Music''
by Bruce Duffie *, WNCN-FM, 12-Jun-1981 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Siegmeister, Elie 1909 births 1991 deaths 20th-century classical composers American male classical composers American classical composers American film score composers American male film score composers American opera composers Male opera composers People from Long Island Musicians from New York City 20th-century American composers Classical musicians from New York (state) 20th-century American male musicians Columbia College (New York) alumni