Miriam Gideon

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Miriam Gideon (23 October 1906 - 1996) was an American composer.

She studied organ with her uncle Henry Gideon and piano with Felix Fox. She also studied with Martin Bernstein, Marion Bauer, Charles Haubiel, and Jacques Pillois. She studied harmony, counterpoint, and composition with Lazare Saminsky and at his suggestion also composition with Roger Sessions after which she abandoned tonality and wrote in a freely atonal or extended post-tonal style. (Hisama 2001, p.6-7)

Born in Greeley, Colorado, she moved to New York City where she taught at Brooklyn College, City University of New York (CUNY) from 1944 to 1954 and City College, CUNY from 1947 to 1955. She then taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America at the invitation of Hugo Weisgall in 1955, and at the Manhattan School of Music from 1967 to 1991. She was rehired by City College in 1971 as full professor and retired in 1976. (ibid)

In 1949 she married Frederic Ewen. Both political leftists, they become victims of McCarthyism, Ewen resigning from Brooklyn College to avoid naming names, Gideon being fired from the same and resigning from City College to also avoid naming leftist colleges. (ibid)

Gideon composed much vocal music, setting texts by Francis Thompson, Christian Morgenstern, Anne Bradstreet, Norman Rosten, Serafin and Joaquín Quintero and others. (ibid)

She was the second woman inducted into American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1975, Louise Talma being the first in 1974. (ibid)

Compositions include Lyric Piece for Strings (1942), Mixco (1957), Adon Olom, Fortunato, Sabbath Morning Service, Friday Evening Service, and Of Shadows Numberless (1966).

[edit] References

Hisama, Ellie M. (2001). Gendering Musical Modernism: The Music of Ruth Crawford, Marion Bauer, and Miriam Gideon. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-64030-X.
Kielian-Gilbert, Marianne. "Of Poetics and Poeisis", p.44-67. Discusses Of Shadows Numberless.
Perle, George (1958). "The Music of Miriam Gideon", American Composers Bulletin 7/4, 4.
Shaw, Jennifer (1995). "Moon Tides and male Poets: (En)gendering Identity in Miriam Gideon's Nocturnes, paper presented at the Feminist Theory and Music III conference, University of California at Riverside.