Dika Newlin
Encyclopedia
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
singer. She received a Ph.D from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
at the age of 22. She was one of the last living students of Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
, a Schoenberg scholar and a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Commonwealth University is a public university located in Richmond, Virginia. It comprises two campuses in the Downtown Richmond area, the product of a merger between the Richmond Professional Institute and the Medical College of Virginia in 1968...
in Richmond from 1978 to 2004. She performed as an Elvis impersonator
Elvis impersonator
An Elvis impersonator is someone who impersonates or copies famed American musician Elvis Presley. Professional Elvis impersonators can work all over the world as entertainers, and such tribute acts are in great demand due to the unique iconic status of Elvis...
and played punk rock while in her 70's in Richmond, Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
.
She was featured in the documentary Dika: Murder City
Dika: Murder City
Dika: Murder City is a 1995 documentary film by Michael D. Moore on the late-life punk rock career of composer/singer Dika Newlin. The film features Newlin, who was 74 years old when the film was shot, in concert at a Richmond, Virginia, club where she is wearing black leather garb and singing...
.
Early life
Dika Newlin was born in Portland, OregonPortland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
. Her name was chosen by her mother and refers to an Amazon in one of Sappho's
Sappho
Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...
poems.
Newlin was able to read the dictionary by age 3. She could play the piano by age 6 and began composing music at age 7. When she was 11 she wrote a symphonic piece, Cradle Song, that was performed three years later by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
As the fifth oldest orchestra in the United States, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra has a legacy of fine music making as reflected in its performances in historic Music Hall, recordings, and international tours...
.
She entered elementary school
Elementary school
An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...
at age 5 and finished it at age 8. She graduated from high school when she was 12 and was admitted to the freshman class at Michigan State University
Michigan State University
Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
, where her parents taught.
After graduating from Michigan State at age 16, she and her mother moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
so that she could study with Schoenberg at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Newlin kept a diary of her studies with Schoenberg, whom she called "Uncle Arnold." She published the diary in 1980 as Schoenberg Remembered: Diaries and Recollections (1938-76) (New York: Pendragon Press, 1980).
One entry in the diary relates how Schoenberg criticized her string quartet style as "too pianistic." After she acknowledged that she knew it wasn't the best writing, Schoenberg replied: "No, it is not the best, nor even the second best — perhaps the 50th best, yes?"
Newlin later wrote an biography of Schoenberg for the Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
in addition to many other articles and translations on musical subjects.
Academic and musical career
Newlin, among the last surviving students of Schoenberg, was "one of the pioneers of Schoenberg research in America," according to Dr. Sabine Feisst, a professor of musicology at Arizona State UniversityArizona State University
Arizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...
. Newlin's doctoral dissertation was published in 1947 as the book Bruckner, Mahler, Schoenberg. A revised and expanded version was issued by W.W. Norton, New York, in 1978.
Newlin's compositions include three operas, a piano concerto, a chamber symphony, and numerous chamber, vocal and mixed-media works.
Newlin also translated many of Schoenberg's works from German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
to English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. Newlin herself sang in a costumed performance of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire
Pierrot Lunaire
Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds 'Pierrot lunaire' , commonly known simply as Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 , is a melodrama by Arnold Schoenberg...
, which she had translated to English, in Lubbock, Texas
Lubbock, Texas
Lubbock is a city in and the county seat of Lubbock County, Texas, United States. The city is located in the northwestern part of the state, a region known historically as the Llano Estacado, and the home of Texas Tech University and Lubbock Christian University...
in 1999.
Punk rocker
In her 70s a new persona emerged from Newlin: a leather-clad punk rocker with bright orange hair.As a punk rocker, Newlin appeared in horror movies by Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
producer Michael D. Moore. In director Tim Ritter's 1995
1995 in film
-Top grossing films:-Events:* March 22 - The Dogme 95 movement is officially announced in Paris by Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg.* March 28 - Actress Julia Roberts and singer Lyle Lovett announce their plans for separation....
film Creep, Newlin played a person wearing a leather motorcycle jacket who puts poison in baby food at a supermarket.
That same year, Moore directed the documentary about Newlin titled Dika: Murder City. The title was taken from a song Newlin had performed in her solo "cabaret" act for a few years before it became a popular performance piece for her band ApoCowLypso, formed in 1985 with fellow area singer/songwriters Brooke Saunders and Manko Eponymous as well as Hunter Duke on drums. With Apocowlypso Newlin performed lead and backing vocals as well as percussion (washboard, tambourine, temple bells) in their peculiar live shows and on the cassette-only EP "Meat the Apocowlypso," the "Electronic Preacher/Richmond Flood" single, and the bootleg "Let It Was" recording. After going through over 20 bass players in their short time together, the members of Apocowlypso went their separate ways in 1988 to pursue other projects.
Newlin was in the GWAR movie Skulhedface in 1994.
Teaching positions
- 1949–1951 – music faculty, Syracuse UniversitySyracuse UniversitySyracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
- 1952–1964 – music faculty, Drew UniversityDrew UniversityDrew University is a private university located in Madison, New Jersey.Originally established as the Drew Theological Seminary in 1867, the university later expanded to include an undergraduate liberal arts college in 1928 and commenced a program of graduate studies in 1955...
- 1965–1973 – Composition faculty, University of North Texas College of MusicUniversity of North Texas College of MusicThe University of North Texas College of Music, based in Denton, is a comprehensive music school with the largest enrollment of any music institution accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music, and the oldest in the world offering a degree in jazz studies...
- 1978-2004 – music faculty, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityVirginia Commonwealth UniversityVirginia Commonwealth University is a public university located in Richmond, Virginia. It comprises two campuses in the Downtown Richmond area, the product of a merger between the Richmond Professional Institute and the Medical College of Virginia in 1968...
Miscellaneous
In 1939 the New York Herald TribuneNew York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
wrote that Dika Newlin had the highest I.Q. score
Intelligence quotient
An intelligence quotient, or IQ, is a score derived from one of several different standardized tests designed to assess intelligence. When modern IQ tests are constructed, the mean score within an age group is set to 100 and the standard deviation to 15...
of any Michigan State University student at that time.
Newlin posed for a pinup calendar when she was in her 70s.
Reporters who interviewed her at home noted that a medieval suit of armor was suspended over her mattress on the floor of her bedroom.
It was common for students to follow her to the various art openings in the Richmond area, because she knew where the best celery was. She was known to consume obscene proportions of jug wine and celery in her personal life.
During the 1980'sand 1990's, Dika Newlin could often be seen in Richmond wheeling her papers and other belongings along the sidewalk of Grace Street in a shopping cart, between her teaching job at VCU and her columnist job at Richmond Newspapers, some 12 blocks away. She would typically be wearing a gaudy dress and gaudier red lipstick and by the end of the walk would be huffing and puffing from the exertion. This comical image she presented in these daily walks caused her to be known locally as "The Bag Lady of Music".
Newlin died in Richmond, Virginia from complications of a broken arm she suffered in an accident on June 30, 2006.
External links
- NPR Story on her death. Features her song "Murder Kitty" based on "Murder City". (Note: All Things ConsideredAll Things ConsideredAll Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...
broadcast a correction on August 3, 2006 stating that the song was "Cat Duet" by Gioacchino RossiniGioacchino RossiniGioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...
.) - Dika: Murder City on IMDB.com
- Moore Video and Music. Features her recordings.