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Book Review
May. 8th, 2016 05:34 pmRuth Crawford Seeger: A Composer's Search for American Music
by Judith Tick
This biography of Ruth Crawford Seeger, American composer and leading figure in the the folk revival of the mid-20th century, was extremely good. Well written and well-researched, this book delves into the complexities of Crawford Seeger's life as both a woman and a musician. Tick explores her life as a composers, folksong scholar, teacher, and mother. Not only was Crawford Seeger and important and influential modernist composer up through the 1930s, she was also a leader in the rediscovery of American folk music in the 1940s and 1950s. She was especially instrumental in reorganizing elementary school music education around American folk music.
Tick also explores the tensions between and among these roles and endeavors in Crawford Seeger's life. Crawford Seeger all but ceased composing after the mid-1930s, as domestic life, teaching, and folksong scholarship took up more of her time. She only returned to it shortly before her untimely death from cancer in 1953. It's interesting that it seems that her creative life was hampered more by the expectations that she, as a woman, would carry all the responsibility for child-rearing and running a household than by negative attitudes regarding women's musical abilities.
by Judith Tick
This biography of Ruth Crawford Seeger, American composer and leading figure in the the folk revival of the mid-20th century, was extremely good. Well written and well-researched, this book delves into the complexities of Crawford Seeger's life as both a woman and a musician. Tick explores her life as a composers, folksong scholar, teacher, and mother. Not only was Crawford Seeger and important and influential modernist composer up through the 1930s, she was also a leader in the rediscovery of American folk music in the 1940s and 1950s. She was especially instrumental in reorganizing elementary school music education around American folk music.
Tick also explores the tensions between and among these roles and endeavors in Crawford Seeger's life. Crawford Seeger all but ceased composing after the mid-1930s, as domestic life, teaching, and folksong scholarship took up more of her time. She only returned to it shortly before her untimely death from cancer in 1953. It's interesting that it seems that her creative life was hampered more by the expectations that she, as a woman, would carry all the responsibility for child-rearing and running a household than by negative attitudes regarding women's musical abilities.
