Clara Kathleen Rogers

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Clara Kathleen Rogers (Cheltenham, January 14, 1844 – Boston, March 8, 1931), was an American composer, singer, writer and music educator.


Contents

[edit] Biography

Clara Kathleen Barnett Rogers was born into a musical family. Her grandfather, Robert Lindley, was a cellist; her father, John Barnett, was a composer and was the first music teacher his children had; her mother, Eliza, was a singer. At the age of twelve, her family moved to Germany in order further the musical education of the children. Clara was denied acceptance to the Leipzig Conservatory, but that decision was later changed in view of her talent, making her the youngest student ever admitted. During this time, John Barnett returned to England while Eliza Bsrnett stayed with her children, a trend that continued through-out the early part of Rogers's career.

While at Leipzig, Rogers began her studies at the piano, but was unable to study composition as composition classes were not available for women until after she graduated. Rogers spent three years at the Conservatory, graduating at sixteen with honors.

Rogers chose to pursue a vocal career and became an opera singer. Using the pseudonym Clara Doria, she debuted in 1863 in Italy in a performance of Robert le diable by Giacomo Meyerbeer. Touring all over Italy and also in London and America, Rogers spent a 15 years as a singer with at least three different troupes. Her singing career ended in 1878 when she married Henry Munroe Rogers, a lawyer living in Boston. Moving to Boston rogers had many artistic friends, such as Amy Beach, Margaret Lang, George Chadwick, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Amy Lowell, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Longfellow wrote the poem “Stay at Home, My Heart, and Rest” especially for Rogers.

After her marriage, Rogers took up teaching and composing, which she said was “a supreme delight – amounting at times almost to intoxication!” By the early 1880s, she had begun publishing some of her songs with the Arthur P. Schmidt company. In 1888, she helped found the Boston Manuscript Club and was invited to join the Manuscript Club of New York in 1895 by Amy Beach. Although she had rejected a teaching position there in the past, Rogers joined the faculty of the New England Conservatory in 1902, where she taught voice, and began to write on music. Her literary works (see below) include six books on diction and technique and three autobiographies. She died in 1931 in Boston. Her correspondences and manuscripts are kept in the Library of Congress.

[edit] Musical Output

  • Around 100 songs
  • Four piano works
  • Two String Quartets
  • Sonata for violin and piano
  • Sonata for cello and piano

[edit] Other publications

  • The Philosophy of Singing, published in 1893
  • My Voice and I, published in 1910
  • English Diction in Song and Speech, published in 1912
  • Memories of a Musical Career, published in 1919/1920
  • The Voice in Speech, published in 1915
  • Your Voice and You, published in 1925
  • Clearcut Speech in Song, published in 1927
  • The Story of Two Lives, published in 1932
  • Journal-Letters from the Orient, published in 1934

[edit] Discography

  • Women at an Exposition: Music Composed by Women and Performed at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. Susanne Mentzer, mezzo-soprano; Sunny Joy Langton, soprano; Elaine Skorodin, violin; Kimberly Schmidt, piano. Koch International Classics 3-7240-2H1, 1993.


[edit] Bibliography

  • Block, Adrienne Fried. “Women in American Music, 1800-1918.” Women & Music: A History. Ed. Karin Pendle. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. 212-215.
  • Bomberger, E. Douglas. “The Nineteenth Century.” From Convent to Concert Hall. Eds Sylvia Glickman and Martha Furman. Westport: Greenwood, 2003. 172.
  • Fox, Pamela. “Rogers [née Barnett], Clara Kathleen [Doria, Clara].” Grove Music Online. Ed. L. Macy. (Accessed March 19, 2007), [1].
  • Radell, Judith and Delight Malitsky. “Clara Kathleen Rogers.” Women Composers: Music Through the Ages. Eds. Sylvia Glickman and Martha Furman Schleifer. 12 vols. New York: G. K. Hall & Co., 1999.
  • “Rogers, Clara Kathleen.” International Encyclopedia of Women Composers. Ed. Aaron I. Cohen. 2 vols. New York: Books & Music, Inc., 1987.