Ruth Shaw Wylie was a U.S.-born composer and music educator. She described herself as “a fairly typical Midwestern composer,” pursuing musical and aesthetic excellence but not attracting much national attention: “All good and worthy creative acts do not take place in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

,” she wrote in 1962, “although most good and worthy rewards for creative acts do emanate from there; and if we can’t all be on hand to reap these enticing rewards we can take solace in the fact that we are performing good deeds elsewhere.” She was among the many twentieth-century American composers whose work contributed to the recognition of American “serious” music as a distinct genre.

Biography

Ruth Shaw Wylie was born in Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...

 and grew up in Detroit, Michigan

Detroit, Michigan

Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...

, where she received her undergraduate degree and a master's degree in music composition at Wayne State University

Wayne State University

Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...

 (WSU). In 1939 she entered the doctoral program in music composition at the Eastman School of Music

Eastman School of Music

The Eastman School of Music is a music conservatory located in Rochester, New York. The Eastman School is a professional school within the University of Rochester...

 where she studied with Bernard Rogers

Bernard Rogers

Bernard Rogers was an American composer.Rogers was born in New York City. He studied with Arthur Farwell, Ernest Bloch, Percy Goetschius, and Nadia Boulanger. He taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music, The Hartt School, and the Eastman School of Music...

 and Howard Hanson

Howard Hanson

Howard Harold Hanson was an American composer, conductor, educator, music theorist, and champion of American classical music. As director for 40 years of the Eastman School of Music, he built a high-quality school and provided opportunities for commissioning and performing American music...

. She was awarded the PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in 1943 and took a position teaching at the University of Missouri

University of Missouri

The University of Missouri System is a state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, five research and technology parks, and a publishing press. More than 64,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses...

 where she stayed until 1949. In the summer of 1947 she studied with Arthur Honegger

Arthur Honegger

Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les six. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which is interpreted as imitating the sound of a steam locomotive.-Biography:Born...

, Samuel Barber

Samuel Barber

Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings is his most popular composition and widely considered a masterpiece of modern classical music...

, and Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

 at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood

Tanglewood

Tanglewood is an estate and music venue in Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is the home of the annual summer Tanglewood Music Festival and the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, and has been the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home since 1937. It was the venue of the Berkshire Festival.- History...

. She returned to Detroit to teach at WSU where she remained for twenty years, retiring from teaching as Professor Emerita in 1969. She moved to Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...

, and then to Estes Park, Colorado

Estes Park, Colorado

Estes Park is a town in Larimer County, Colorado, United States. A popular summer resort and the location of the headquarters for Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park lies along the Big Thompson River. Estes Park had a population of 5,858 at the 2010 census...

 in 1973, and continued composing.

At WSU Wylie taught music theory and composition and served as head of composition; during one year she served as interim chair of the music department. In the early 1960s she founded, directed, and performed with the WSU Improvisation Chamber Ensemble; she continued to count her work with group improvisation as among her most significant contributions. She received a number of awards, including "Friends of Harvey Gaul" and the ASCAP Standard Award. Wylie was a resident fellow at the Huntington Hartford

Huntington Hartford

George Huntington Hartford II was an American businessman, philanthropist, filmmaker, and art collector. The heir to the A&P supermarket fortune, he owned Paradise Island in the Bahamas, and had numerous other business and real estate interests over his lifetime including the Oil Shale Corporation...

 Foundation (1953–54) and at the MacDowell Colony

MacDowell Colony

The MacDowell Colony is an art colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, U.S.A., founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell. She established the institution and its endowment chiefly with donated funds...

 (1954 and 1956). She composed The Long Look Home for the Michigan Chamber Orchestra for a Bicentennial Celebration commission from the Michigan Council for the Arts.

Wylie published articles on music in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to the study of aesthetics and art criticism. It is published on behalf of the American Society for Aesthetics....

, in the Detroit journal Criticism

Criticism

Criticism is the judgement of the merits and faults of the work or actions of an individual or group by another . To criticize does not necessarily imply to find fault, but the word is often taken to mean the simple expression of an objection against prejudice, or a disapproval.Another meaning of...

, and elsewhere.

Compositions

Wylie composed about 60 titles. Her earlier works—from the 1940s into the 1960s—include sonatas, symphonies, string quartets, and didactic pieces for piano; in these works she develops her own interpretation of American neoclassicism. Examples are Five Madrigals from William Blake (1950); Concerto Grosso for string orchestra and seven solo woodwinds (1952); String Quartet No. 3 (1954), completed during a Huntington Hartford Foundation residency; Sonata for Viola and Piano (1954), completed at the MacDowell Colony

MacDowell Colony

The MacDowell Colony is an art colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, U.S.A., founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell. She established the institution and its endowment chiefly with donated funds...

; and Sonata for Flute and Piano (1959).

Her later works, almost entirely instrumental, are noticeably freer in their construction in accordance with avant-garde

Avant-garde music

Avant-garde music is a term used to characterize music which is thought to be ahead of its time, i.e. containing innovative elements or fusing different genres....

 ideas of the 1960s and 1970s. Wylie explained in 1985, “I try to study and evaluate all the new musical trends as they arise—twelve-tone

Twelve-tone technique

Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...

, electronic

Electronic music

Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...

, aleatory, computer

Computer music

Computer music is a term that was originally used within academia to describe a field of study relating to the applications of computing technology in music composition; particularly that stemming from the Western art music tradition...

, tonal modifications, microtones—whatever. Then I may use, at least to a limited extent, what in all of these trends I find to be aesthetically sound and creatively honest.” Examples include Involution (1967) for orchestra; Psychogram for piano (1968); The Long Look Home (1975), a multimedia

Multimedia

Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...

 work for orchestra with poetry and slides (1975); Incubus for flute, clarinet, percussion, and cello ensemble (1973); Views from Beyond, suite for orchestra (1978); Music for Three Sisters for flute, clarinet and piano (1981); Seven Scenes from Arthur Rackham

Arthur Rackham

Arthur Rackham was an English book illustrator.-Biography:Rackham was born in London as one of 12 children. At the age of 18, he worked as a clerk at the Westminster Fire Office and began studying part-time at the Lambeth School of Art.In 1892 he left his job and started working for The...

for two flutes, oboe, viola, cello, piano and percussion (1983); Flights of Fancy (1984), commissioned by Doriot Anthony Dwyer

Doriot Anthony Dwyer

Doriot Anthony Dwyer is an American flautist. She was the first woman to be awarded principal chair for a major U.S. orchestra. She was the principal flute for the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1952 until 1990. She was second flute for the National Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles...

; and Concerto for Flute and Strings (1986).

Works

Ballet

• Spring Madness (1951)
• Façade, Op. 18 (1956)
• The Ragged Heart, Op. 21 (1961)

Orchestral

• Suite for string orchestra (1941)
• Suite for orchestra, Op. 2 (1941)
• Suite for chamber orchestra, Op. 3 (1942)
• Symphony No. 1 "Archaic", Op. 6 (1943)
• Symphony No. 2, Op. 11 (1948)
• Holiday Overture (Good Luck Overture), Op. 14 (1950)
• Involution for small orchestra, Op. 24 No. 2 (1967)
• The Long Look Home for speaker and orchestra, Op. 30 No. 2 (1975); words by Jeanne Wylie Torosian
• Memories of Birds, Op. 32 No. 1 (1977)
• Views from Beyond, Op. 33 No. 1 (1978)
• Shades of the Anasazi for small orchestra, Op. 38 (1984)

Concertante

• Concerto Grosso for string orchestra and seven solo woodwinds, Op. 15 (1952)
• Clarinet Concertino, Op. 24 No. 1 (1967)
• Concerto for flute and strings orchestra (1986)

Chamber music

• String Quartet No. 1, Op. 1 (1941)
• String Quartet No. 2, Op. 8 (1946)
• Song and Dance for clarinet and piano, Op. 9 (1947)
• Seven Wishful Duets for Two Wistful Recorders (1953)
• Wistful Piece for oboe, or flute, or violin and piano, Op. 16 No. 2 (1953)
• Sonata for viola and piano, Op.16 No.3 (1954)
• String Quartet No. 3, Op. 17 (1956)
• Sonata for flute and piano, Op. 20 (1960)
• Theme Music for "Keep Michigan Beautiful" Campaign for soprano recorder, alto recorder and snare drum (1966)
• Pieces [Music] for Improvisation Ensemble (1968)
• Three Inscapes for flute, viola, guitar, piano and percussion, Op. 26 (1970)
• Five Occurrences for woodwind quintet, Op. 27 (1971)
• Incubus for flute, clarinet, percussion and 16 (or 8, or 32) cellos, Op. 28 (1973)
• Imagi for any combination of flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, cello and piano, Op. 29 (1974)
• Nova for vibraphone solo, flute, violin, clarinet, cello and percussion, Op. 30 No. 1 (1975)
• Toward Sirius for piano, harpsichord, flute, oboe, violin and cello, Op. 31 (1976)
• Airs above the Ground for flute, clarinet, violin and 4 cellos, Op. 32 No. 2 (1977)
• Terrae Incognitae for flute, viola, guitar, piano and percussion, Op. 34 (1979)
• Music for Three Sisters for flute, clarinet and piano, Op. 35 (1981)
• November Music for cello and piano, Op. 36 (1982)
• Scenes from Arthur Rackham for 2 flutes, oboe, viola, cello, piano and percussion, Op. 37 (1983)
• String Quartet No. 4, Op. 37 No. 3 (1983)
• Flights of Fancy for flute solo, Op. 38 No. 2 (1984)
• Signs and Portents for flute, cello and piano (1988)

Piano

• Five Easy Pieces, Op. 4 (1942)
• Sonata No. 1, Op. 7 (1945)
• Sonatina, Op. 10 (1947)
• Five Preludes, Op. 12 (1949)
• Sonata No. 2, Op. 16 No. 1 (1953)
• Six Little Preludes, Op.19, No. 2 (1959)
• Soliloquy for piano left hand, Op. 23 (1966)
• Psychogram, Op. 25 (1968)
• Mandala, Op. 33 No. 2 (1978)
• The White Raven, Op. 37 No. 4 (1984)

Vocal

• The Wanderer for voice and piano (1940)
• God's Grandeur for voice and piano, Op. 13 No. 2 (1950)
• Light for voice and piano, Op. 16 No. 4 (1953)

Choral

• I Sing of a Maiden, Carol for mixed chorus a cappella, Op. 5 (1942); 14th century anonymous text
• Five Madrigals for mixed chorus a cappella, Op. 13, No. 1 (1950); poems by William Blake
  William Blake
  William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
  
  
• Toward Nowhere for mixed chorus a cappella (1953); words by Jeanne Wylie
• ... in Just Spring for female chorus, 2 flutes, piano and percussion, Op. 19 No. 1 (1958); words by E. E. Cummings
  E. E. Cummings
  Edward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...
  
  
• Echo for female chorus and string orchestra, Op. 22 (1965); words by Christina Rossetti
  Christina Rossetti
  Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems...
  
  

Discography

• Ruth Shaw Wylie: Chamber Music – Tim Fain
  Tim Fain
  -Early life and education:A native of Santa Monica, California, violinist Tim Fain is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied with Victor Danchenko, and The Juilliard School, where he worked with Robert Mann. Before Curtis, Fain studied with Eduard Schmieder...
  
  , Cyrus Beroukhim (violins); Dov Scheindlin (viola); Arash Amini (cello); Eveline Kuhn (flute); Melissa Marse (piano); RSW Productions 383027 (2010)

Wistful Piece for violin and piano, Op. 16 No. 2

Flights of Fancy for solo flute, Op. 28 No. 2

Sonata for viola and piano, Op. 16 No. 3

String Quartet No. 3, Op. 17

November Music for cello and piano, Op. 36

• Piano Music of American Composers Frank Retzel and Ruth Shaw Wylie – Barry David Salwen (piano); recorded in 1991 at Brooklyn College, City University of New York; Opus One CD 165 (1994)

Five Preludes, Op. 12

The White Raven, Op. 37 No. 2

Soliloquy for Left Hand Alone, Op. 23

Mandala, Op. 33 No. 2

Psychogram, Op. 25

• American Contemporary Instrumental Music – Psychogram; Rosemary Catanese (piano); LP disc; CRI
  Composers Recordings, Inc.
  Composers Recordings, Inc. was an American record label dedicated to the recording of contemporary classical music by American composers. It was founded in 1954 by Otto Luening, Douglas Moore, and Oliver Daniel, and based in New York City....
  
   SD 353 (1976); reissued on CD, CRI SD 353-P.

External links

• Ruth Shaw Wylie: List of works