Gena Branscombe was a Canadian pianist, composer, music educator and choir conductor who lived and worked in the United States.

Life

Gena Branscombe was born in Picton, Ontario

Picton, Ontario

Picton is an unincorporated community located in Prince Edward County in southern Central Ontario, Canada. It is the county seat and largest community. Picton is located at the south-western end of Picton Bay, a branch of the Bay of Quinte, which is along the northern shoreline of Lake Ontario...

, and studied at the Chicago Musical College

Chicago Musical College

Chicago Musical College is a division of Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt UniversityIt was founded in 1867, less than four decades after the city of Chicago was incorporated...

 from 1897-1903 with Alexander von Fielitz for songwriting, Felix Borowski

Felix Borowski

Felix Borowski was a British/American composer and teacher.Felix Borowski was of Polish descent but was born in the English village of Burton-in-Kendal, Westmorland. His father, who was quite a musician, was of distinguished Polish stock. His mother was English and very accomplished in music...

 for composition, and Florenz Ziegfeld

Florenz Ziegfeld

Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. , , was an American Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies , inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He also produced the musical Show Boat...

, Arthur Friedheim

Arthur Friedheim

Arthur Friedheim was a Russian-born pianist, conductor and composer who was one of Franz Liszt's foremost pupils.Friedheim was born in Saint Petersburg in 1859. He began serious study of music at age eight...

, Hans von Schiller

Hans von Schiller

Hans von Schiller was an airship captain. Born in 1891 in Schleswig-Holstein, the young Hans von Schiller joined the navy at the beginning of World War I. Impatient for action he volunteered for Zeppelin service and was active on numerous Zeppelin raids against the British. After the war Hans...

 and Rudolph Ganz

Rudolph Ganz

Rudolph Ganz was a Swiss pianist, conductor and composer. He claimed direct descent from Charlemagne.-Biography:...

 for piano. She won gold medals in composition in 1900 and 1901.

After completing her degree, Branscombe taught piano in Chicago from 1903 to 1907 and then took a position as director of the piano department at Whitman College

Whitman College

Whitman College is a private, co-educational, non-sectarian, residential undergraduate liberal arts college located in Walla Walla, Washington. Initially founded as a seminary by a territorial legislative charter in 1859, the school became a four year degree granting institution in 1883...

, Walla Walla

Walla Walla

Walla Walla can refer to:*Walla Walla people, a Native American tribe after which the county and city of Walla Walla, Washington, are named-Places:Washington state, United States*Walla Walla River, the river along which the Walla Walla tribe lived...

, Washington. She left Whitman in 1909 to continue her studies with Humperdinck in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, and then moved to New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 in 1910, where she founded the Branscombe Chorale. She received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Whitman College in 1932.

Branscombe's choral drama Pilgrims of Destiny won the League of American Pen Women annual prize in 1928. Also in 1928 she became president of the Society of American Women Composers and from 1950 she served as vice-president and director of the National Association of American Composers and Conductors. She died in New York.

After her death, her manuscripts were donated to the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center houses one of the world's largest collections of materials relating to the performing arts. It is one of the four research centers of the New York Public Library's Research library system, and it is also one...

.

Works

Selected works include:

• The Bells of Circumstance, Unfinished opera, 1928
• Festival Prelude for orchestra, 1913
• Quebec Suite (excerpt from Bells of Circumstance) 1928
• Ten (in Prologue) for orchestra
• Baladine for chamber orchestra, 1930
• Procession for orchestra, 1930.
• Elegie for orchestra, 1937
• Just in the Hush before the Dawn, 1946
• The Morning Wind (Banning) for female voices, orchestra, 1912
• Dear Lad O'Mine (Hale) for female voices, orchestra, 1915
• Spirit of Motherhood (Driscoll) for female voices, orchestra, 1923
• A Wind from the Sea (Longfellow) for female voices, orchestra, 1924
• The Dancer of Fjaard (Branscombe) for soli, female voices, orchestra, 1926
• The Phantom Caravan (Banning) for male voices, orchestra, 1925
• At the Postern Gate (Banning) for male voices, orchestra, 1918
• Pilgrims of Destiny (Branscombe) for soli, SATB, orchestra, 1919

Branscombe wrote professional articles including:

• "The sound of trumpets", Showcase, vol 61, no. 3, 1962

External links

• List of works
• Gena Branscombe scores in the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.