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

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

– March 10, 1991, in

Manhasset, New York Manhasset is an affluent Hamlet (New York), hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in Nassau County, New York, Nassau County, on the North Shore (Long Island), North Shore of Long Island, in New York (state), New York, United States. It is co ...

) 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 Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

when Siegmeister was five, at which age he began piano lessons. His older brother Walter Siegmeister was an esoteric writer and promoter of

Hollow Earth The Hollow Earth is a concept proposing that the planet Earth is entirely hollow or contains a substantial interior space. Notably suggested by Edmond Halley in the late 17th century, the notion was disproven, first tentatively by Pierre Bougue ...

theory and UFOs. Siegmeister entered

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

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

Albert Stoessel Albert Frederic Stoessel (October 11, 1894 – May 12, 1943) was an American composer, violinist and conductor. Biography He was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1894. He studied music at the Berlin Hochschule as a pupil of Emanuel Wirth and ...

at the Juilliard School and counterpoint with Wallingford Riegger. He was among the numerous American composers, including

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, critic, writer, teacher, pianist, and conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as the "Dean of American Compos ...

and

Virgil Thomson Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassic ...

, who were students of the influential teacher

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

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 History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

s, 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 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 orche ...

Leopold Stokowski Leopold Anthony Stokowski (18 April 1882 – 13 September 1977) was a British-born American conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra. H ...

Dimitri Mitropoulos Dimitri Mitropoulos (; – 2 November 1960) was a Greek and American conductor, pianist, and composer. Life and career Mitropoulos was born in Athens, the son of Yannis and Angelikē (Angeliki) Mitropoulos. His father owned a leather goods s ...

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 t ...

, and Sergiu Comissiona. He also composed for Hollywood (notably, the film score of '' They Came to Cordura'', starring

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and

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, 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. 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, the parent corporation of the National Broadcasting Company especially for the conductor Arturo Toscanini. The NBC ...

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

Maurice Abravanel Maurice Abravanel (January 6, 1903 – September 22, 1993) was an American classical music conductor. He is remembered as the conductor of the Utah Symphony for over 30 years. Life Abravanel was born in Salonika, Rumelia Eyalet, Ottoman Emp ...

and the Utah Symphony Orchestra 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 The Conservatorio di Musica Arrigo Boito, better known in English as the Parma Conservatory, is a music conservatory in Parma, Italy. It was originally established as the Regia Scuola di Canto, a school for singing in 1819 by Marie Louise, Duches ...

. 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, broadc ...

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, private research university in Hempstead, New York, United States. It originated in 1935 as an extension of New York University and became an independent college in 1939. Comprising ten schools, includ ...

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 The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, commonly known as the Kennedy Center, is the national cultural center of the United States, located on the eastern bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Opened on September 8, ...

'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

United States Information Agency The United States Information Agency (USIA) was a United States government agency devoted to propaganda which operated from 1953 to 1999. Previously existing United States Information Service (USIS) posts operating out of U.S. embassies wor ...

Notable students

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

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

for music, Leonard Lehrman, and Michael Jeffrey Shapiro. 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 American classical composers American film score composers American male film score composers American opera composers American male opera composers People from Long Island Composers from New York City Classical musicians from New York (state) 20th-century American male musicians Columbia College (New York) alumni