Sidney Robertson Cowell (born Sidney William Hawkins; June 2, 1903 – February 23, 1995) was an American
ethnomusicologist
Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dim ...
, collector of
folk songs, and the wife of the composer
Henry Cowell
Henry Dixon Cowell (; March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher and teacher. Marchioni, Tonimarie (2012)"Henry Cowell: A Life Stranger Than Fiction" ''The Juilliard Journal''. Retrieved 19 June 20 ...
.
Life and career
She was born on June 2, 1903, in
San Francisco, California
San Francisco (; Spanish for "Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, the daughter of Charles Albert Hawkins and Mabel Hawkins (née Morrison). She received a BA in Romance languages and philology from Stanford University in 1924. Later that year she married Kenneth Robertson, a medical student, and they went to Europe. She enrolled in 1925 in the École Normale de Musique in Paris, where she studied piano with
Alfred Cortot
Alfred Denis Cortot (; 26 September 187715 June 1962) was a French pianist, conductor, and teacher who was one of the most renowned classical musicians of the 20th century. A pianist of massive repertory, he was especially valued for his poeti ...
. Upon returning to California, she taught at the Peninsula School for Creative Education in
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County within the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the so ...
from 1926 to 1932. During that period, she studied counterpoint and analysis with
Ernest Bloch
Ernest Bloch (July 24, 1880 – July 15, 1959) was a Switzerland, Swiss-born Americans, American composer. Bloch was a preeminent artist in his day, and left a lasting legacy. He is recognized as one of the greatest Swiss composers in history. As ...
and the music of non-European cultures with Henry Cowell at the
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) is a private music conservatory
A music school is an educational institution specialized in the study, training, and research of music. Such an institution can also be known as a school of mus ...
.
After divorcing in 1934 she moved to New York City, where she directed the Social Music Program at the Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side, working with elderly Jewish immigrants. In 1936 she became an assistant to
Charles Seeger
Charles Louis Seeger Jr. (December 14, 1886 – February 7, 1979) was an American musicologist, composer, teacher, and folklorist. He was the father of the American folk singers Pete Seeger (1919–2014), Peggy Seeger (b. 1935), and Mike Seeger ...
, technical advisor of the Music Unit of the Special Skills Division of the Resettlement Administration in Washington, D.C. (later the Farm Security Administration). In this capacity she began collecting recordings of folk music in Appalachia, the Ozarks and the Upper Midwest.
[Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The librar ...]
of the Northern California Folk Music Project, which she directed from 1938 to 1940 with a staff of twenty. The project was one of the earliest attempts at conducting a large-scale ethnographic survey of American folk music in a defined region. In addition to 35 hours of sound recordings, the team complied 168 photographs of the musicians and their instruments and copious documentation.
In 1941 she married Henry Cowell, whom she had known since her teen years in California. The following year they moved to
. During
the two traveled as cultural ambassadors for the State Department, collecting music from around the world. They collaborated on numerous publishing projects. After his death in 1965 she continued to actively promote his musical legacy. She died at her home in Shady in 1995.
* (1942) ''The Recording of Folk Music in California'' (Berkeley, Calif. : University of California Press).
* (with Alan Lomax, 1942). ''American Folk Song and Folk Lore, a Regional Bibliography'' (Washington, D.C.: Progressive Education Center).
* (with Henry Cowell, 1955). ''Charles Ives and His Music'' (New York : Oxford University Press).