Since July, I have been concentrating solely on female composers. You can read about that in my post from July 19. If I can’t find one born on the calendar day, I won’t post. On with today’s composer.
Eveyln La Rue Pittman was born in Oklahoma and went to Langston University where she studied violin, trombone, and harmony. In Oklahoma City, she founded a professional choir and had her own radio show. She obtained certificates to teach in any Oklahoma school and then went to New York where she studied composition at Julliard. Her professor there recommended her to Nadia Boulanger, with whom she studied in Paris. She is most known for her arrangement of African American spirituals, but she also wrote three operas, the last, in 1970, called Freedom Child which celebrated the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Alas, I can find recordings of only one of her works, a spiritual entitled “Anyhow.”
| Anyhow |
Another Version of Anyhow
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Kurt Nemes' Classical Music Almanac 