Lucie Bigelow Rosen portrait photograph - Genthe

Lucie Bigelow Rosen (June 28, 1890 – November 27, 1968) was an American

Theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone, etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named aft ...

soloist known for popularizing the use of the instrument in the 1930s and 1940s, and a founder, along with her husband, Walter Tower Rosen, of the

Caramoor festival The Caramoor Summer Music Festival is a music festival founded in 1945 that is held on the estate of the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, which includes a Mediterranean-style stucco villa and is located about north of New York City in Ka ...

Life

Lucie Bigelow Dodge was born in

Bernardsville, New Jersey Bernardsville (Melisurgo, Len NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, June 23, 2017. Accessed December 1, 2024. "Same goes with the neighboring borough of Bernardsville. (It should be pronounced BERN-ards-vil.)") is the northernmost borough in Somerset C ...

in 1890, and married the lawyer and banker Walter Tower Rosen in 1914. They shared a common passion for art and culture, especially Italian, making frequent European trips and collecting works of art for their Caramoor estate that they developed from 1929 to 1939. By 1930 Lucie was part of a ten-person theremin ensemble rehearsing for their debut at the Carnegie Hall with

Leon Theremin Lev Sergeyevich Termen ( 18963 November 1993), better known as Leon Theremin, was a Russian inventor, most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments and the first to be mass-produced. He also worke ...

. Sometime afterward, the Rosens offered Theremin the use of their 37 West Fifty-fourth Street townhouse at low rent. By 1938 Leon Theremin needed money to return to Russia and, according to the Rosen's daughter Anne Bigelow Stern, Walter offered him ten thousand dollars to create a new machine for Lucie together with all technical papers and rights to produce more for personal use only. After Walter died in 1951, Lucie expanded the series of musical performances the couple hosted at Caramoor under the auspices of The Westchester Friends of Music and The Walter and Lucie Rosen Foundation into the Caramoor festival. She died in New York City in 1968.

Family

Her parents were Flora Bigelow and Charles Stuart Dodge; they divorced in 1902. Flora was given custody of Lucie and her brother John Bigelow Dodge. She remarried to Lionel Guest, a cousin of

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

and moved to Canada and later to London. Lucie's paternal grandfather was

Charles C. Dodge Charles Cleveland Dodge (September 16, 1841 – November 4, 1910) was a Brigadier general (United States), brigadier general in the American Civil War and one of the youngest in history, receiving his commission at the age of twenty-one. He was the ...

who was a brigadier-general during the American Civil War and had married Maria Theresa Schieffelin, daughter of

Bradhurst Schieffelin Bradhurst Schieffelin (New York City, 21 September 1824 – Staten Island, 9 March 1909) was an American druggist and activist. He was the son of Henry Hamilton Schieffelin and Maria Teresa (Bradhurst) Schieffelin, and was educated in New York ...

. Her great-grandfather was

William E. Dodge William Earl Dodge Sr. (September 4, 1805 – February 9, 1883) was an American businessman, politician, and activist. He was referred to as one of the "Merchant Princes" of Wall Street in the years leading up to the American Civil War. Dodge ...

who helped found Phelps Dodge & Co and secured the family wealth. Her maternal grandparents were

John Bigelow John Bigelow Sr. (November 25, 1817 – December 19, 1911) was an American lawyer, diplomat, and historian who edited the complete works of Benjamin Franklin and the first autobiography of Franklin taken from Franklin's previously lost original ...

and Jane Tunis Poultney. In 1913 Lucie disappeared from her mother's home in London, resulting in a much publicized search involving Scotland Yard. She was discovered six days later living in London's West End theatre district. She returned to her mother's home but soon after returned to New York, and married Walter Rosen in August, 1914. They had two children, Anne Bigelow Rosen and Walter Bigelow Rosen. Walter Bigelow Rosen was killed in a plane crash in England in 1944 following a bombing mission to Germany whilst serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force.

References

External links

Lucy Rosen's 1940's Theremin Notebook

Bohuslav Martinů and Lucie Rosen: the Path to Fantasia for Theremin

Lucy Bigelow Rosen interview 1938 (restored)
2 minutes 38 seconds radio interview linked fro

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Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosen, Lucie Bigelow 1890 births 1968 deaths Musicians from Somerset County, New Jersey American patrons of music People from Bernardsville, New Jersey Dodge family Theremin players American women in electronic music 20th-century American musicians