Ray Allen & Ellie M. Hisama 
Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Worlds [PDF ebook] 
Innovation and Tradition in Twentieth-Century American Music

Interdisciplinary perspectives on the life and work of the esteemed ‘ultra-modern’ American composer and pioneering folk music activist, Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953).


Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Worlds offers new perspectives on the life and pioneering musical activities of American composer and folk music activist Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953). Ruth Crawford developed a unique modernist style with such now-esteemed works as her
String Quartet 1931. In 1933, after marrying Charles Seeger, she turned to the work of teaching music to children and of transcribing, arranging, and publishing folk songs.

Thiscollection of studies by musicologists, music theorists, folklorists, historians, music educators, and women’s studies scholars reveals how innovation and tradition have intertwined in surprising ways to shape the cultural landscape of twentieth-century America.


Contributors: Lyn Ellen Burkett, Melissa J. De Graaf, Taylor A. Greer, Lydia Hamessley, Bess Lomax Hawes, Jerrold Hirsch, Roberta Lamb, Carol J. Oja, Nancy Yunhwa Rao, Joseph N. Straus, Judith Tick.


Ray Allen (Brooklyn College) is author of
Singing in the Spirit: African-American Sacred Quartets in New York City.

Ellie M. Hisama (Columbia University) is author of
Gendering Musical Modernism: The Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger, Marion Bauer, and Miriam Gideon.

Tabella dei contenuti

Writing the Music of Ruth Crawford into Mainstream Music History – Judith Tick

Ruth Crawford’s Precompositional Strategies – Joseph N. Straus

Linear Aggregates and Proportional Design in Ruth Crawford’s
Piano Study in Mixed Accents – Lyn Burkett

In Pursuit of a Proletarian Music: Ruth Crawford’s ‘Sacco, Vanzetti’ – Ellie M. Hisama

The Receptioin of an Ultramodernist: Ruth Crawford in the Composers’ Forum – Melissa J. de Graaf

Ruth Crawford’s Imprint on Contemporary Composition – Nancy Yunhwa Rao

Reminiscences on
Our Singing Country: The Crawford Seeger/ Lomax Alliance – Bess Lomax Hawes

Philosophical Counterpoint: A Comparison of Charles Seeger’s Compositioin Treatise and Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Folk Song Appendix Appendix – Taylor A. Greer

Composing and Teaching as Dissonant Counterpoint – Roberta Lamb

‘Cultural Strategy’: The Seegers and B.A. Botkin as Friends and Allies – Jerrold Hirsch

Performing Dio’s Legacy: Mike Seeger and the Urban Folk Music Revival – Ray Allen, Book Reviews

Peggy Seeger: From Traditional Folksinger to Contemporary Songwriter – Lydia Hamessley