Julia Perry in New York
The following is a transcript of my talk, “Julia Perry in New York,” delivered at The New School in Manhattan, New York as part of the Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival on March 14, 2024. Please contact me for access to the complete slide presentation that accompanies this talk.
To begin, I would like to thank Dr. Louise Toppin for inviting me to participate in this extraordinary symposium. I am humbled to be here alongside the other speakers who presented earlier today and those who are yet to share their expertise. As you can see from this title slide, I am here to share what I have found about Julia Perry’s musical experiences in New York. This festival is not only a monumental moment in her legacy as a composer, it also rivals the heights of her success in this city. All of us — the performers, presenters, and audiences at this centenary celebration — are making history for Julia Perry this week. Thank you for being here and helping me participate in that magic this afternoon.
Although I’m sure many of you have already learned an incredible amount about Julia Perry today, or, perhaps, you came to this week’s events already familiar with her, I still feel I should introduce her. Or, rather, I would like to take the chance to let Julia introduce herself, in her own words, in her own voice, exactly as she did to an audience of around 900 New Yorkers at Columbia University’s McMillan Theatre on the evening of Saturday, February 20, 1954.
What you are about to hear comes from archival audio of the post-concert talk following a performance of Perry’s Stabat Mater and George Antheil’s Ballet Méchanique. Julia is on stage, seated between Antheil and Aaron Copland, who moderates the discussion. You will also hear an unidentified voice assisting Copland.
My favorite thing about that recording is how it shows us Julia Perry’s personality, her charm, and her sense of humor. This performance was a significant milestone in her career, especially with respect to her opportunities in New York City, and it was so successful that Columbia invited her back later this same year for the world premiere of the opera we heard her mention, The Cask of Amontillado. I think it is also important to point out how she sounds like a peer to Copland, and that he treats her respectfully, if not also a little playfully. The audience clearly receives her well, which suggests fondness for the Stabat Mater they would have just heard. And, critic Ross Parmenter wrote favorably about Perry’s composition in his New York Times review.
Julia Perry’s February 1954 appearance at Columbia marks the beginning of what we can see as the most successful decade of her career, both in New York and elsewhere. When this period concludes in 1965, it will be evident that she has a much less friendly relationship with the city’s major music institutions. We can also glean, from the way Julia introduced herself in this post-concert talk, that place occupied a large role in her life, at least inasmuch as she worked extensively in Europe and the United States throughout the 1950s.
But, Julia Perry’s journey to that stage at Columbia University begins much earlier. By now, you have already heard that she was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1924. Dr. Angela Hammond, of the Kentucky Racing Commission, will talk at 4:30 about the Perry family’s incredible history there and Julia’s connection to that place. Right before this talk, Christopher Wilkins, of the Akron Symphony, and Dr. Toppin, my colleague at the University of Michigan, gave a wonderful presentation about the significance of Akron, Ohio to Perry’s life, which endures to this day. This is where we find the origins of Julia’s relationship to New York City as a meaningful site of her musical activity.
Beginnings in New York: 1945-1953
Even when Julia Perry was most known and celebrated in Ohio — as a talented young musician, with equally impressive sisters from a prominent Black family — New York City loomed as a significant destination. This 1945 article in the Cleveland Call And Post details how the Perrys and their community saw New York as a proving ground for Julia’s musical career, a path her older sister Clara had already forged through vocal performance studies at Juilliard and Columbia. The author describes that Julia would visit New York City regularly while she was a student at Westminster Choir College. In fact, the feature’s subheadline alludes to a notable episode from the spring of 1945 in which Julia gave an impromptu vocal performance not far from here at Greenwich Village’s Cafe Society night club, the first integrated establishment of its kind in the United States. Julia’s singing impressed pianist Dorothy Donegan so much that she offered Perry $250 per week to perform there for the summer. The article states:
“‘It made me feel awfully good,’ Julia laughs, ‘but I didn’t consider it. She was probably only fooling anyway.’”
We know from the archival audio we listened to a few minutes ago that Perry studied orchestral conducting at Juilliard in 1950. And, she made her concert debut as a composer in New York the previous year with pianist Marc D’Albert’s performance of a solo piano work entitled Lament at Times Hall on December 11, 1949. A relevant notice in The New York Times acknowledges this performance as the work’s New York premiere. In April 1950, Perry had two pieces performed in as many days. The cantata, Ruth, appeared in concert at Riverside Church on April 16, and, then, vocalist Virginia Shuey performed two unnamed, “manuscript,” songs of Perry’s at the Barbizon Hotel on April 18. This period of New York performances continues in January 1951, with Perry’s first appearance on a Town Hall program. Her music is featured on two concerts in 1952, including her Carnegie Hall debut in a showcase of composers carried by the publisher Southern Music. And, in 1953, soprano Adele Addison, who may have been a classmate of Perry’s at Westminster Choir College, performs two spirituals at Town Hall.
This initial phase in Perry’s New York career establishes a few important and lasting trends. First, it doesn’t take long for her music to find itself in major New York venues. Second, her vocal music, namely songs and spiritual arrangements, is very popular. And, third, singers, especially Black women, were her strongest advocates. Ellabelle Davis, who was the first Black soprano to star in a production of Giuseppi Verdi’s opera Aida, takes Perry’s songs on a tour that includes stops in Boston and Atlanta. Adele Addison, is another emerging Black soprano of this period.
These examples evidence an additional trend with respect to the significance of Black newspapers as documents of Perry’s career and musical activity. My primary sources for the performance data I reference in this talk come from historical newspapers I accessed via ProQuest. I will also share several items from the New York Philharmonic archives when I discuss the months leading up to the orchestra’s fateful 1965 performance of Perry’s Study for Orchestra. But, my approach today, and its dependence on contemporaneous newspaper reviews and advertisements, underscores the value of publications like The New York Amsterdam News — without it, and its peers across the country, we would know so much less about the impact of Julia Perry’s music.
The Decade of Success: 1954-1964
I have already stated that 1954 was a big year for Julia Perry in New York, and it began with the Columbia University presentation of Stabat Mater that February, which featured Virginia Shuey as soloist. This work will become Perry’s most popular in the city of all time. Of the other three concerts featuring her music in 1954, I want to direct special attention to the event that took place at the Community Church of New York in April. Here, the legendary African-American violinist and composer, Clarence Cameron White (1880-1960), conducted a concert of Black composers’ music across two generations, including works by Perry, Margaret Bonds, and William Grant Still.
The remainder of this decade extends the aforementioned trend of interest in Perry’s vocal music as well as her appearances at major New York City venues. Shirley Verrett’s 1963 recital at Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall, for instance, marks Perry’s debut as a composer there. The Stabat Mater is also very popular at this time. For those of you curious to learn more about that piece, Tad Biggs will present an in-depth analysis in the next session. Betty Allen’s two Town Hall performances of Stabat Mater in 1958 mark the start of the singer’s multi-decade attachment to Perry’s music: Allen also gave the work’s Chicago premiere in 1970.
Ross Parmenter, the same New York Times critic who covered Julia Perry’s first appearance at Columbia, also reviewed Allen’s December 1958 performance of Stabat Mater and was very positive:
“The poem tells of Mary’s sorrows as she stood at the cross. Miss Perry obviously has imagined them deeply and the intensity of her feeling, frequently conveyed through vividly expressive string coloration makes her work impressive, even though at times it seems to be somewhat lacking in form. Combined with this she knows, being a singer herself, how to write effective declamation for the voice. The work was brilliantly sung by Miss Allen and it had a marked success with the audience.”
This period between 1954 and 1964 also sees more attention paid to Perry’s instrumental and ensemble music. In 1955, Short Piece for Orchestra received its first New York performance at Town Hall. In 1959, an orchestral work entitled Requiem for Orchestra, which is probably the work we now know as Hommage to Vivaldi, received its world premiere at Cooper Union. And, in 1962, Perry’s Flute Septet, which is also known as Pastoral, appeared at Columbia University, the last time her music is played there in her lifetime. You can hear Pastoral at tonight's chamber concert in Tishman Auditorium.
The peak of Perry’s decade of success comes in 1964, when she receives a citation from the National Institute for the Arts. Shown here, an announcement of her award held in conductor William Steinberg’s papers in the New York Philharmonic Archives praises Perry’s artistry and vision:
“A fine composer whose works display the unusual combination of being truly original and at the same time widely accepted. Whatever she undertakes is forceful and right.”
This award is, like Perry’s endearing post-concert talk at Columbia from a decade earlier, an important moment of legitimation signifying her well-deserved place in the most privileged echelons of American musical life. To this end, Perry’s communication with the New York Philharmonic leading into their 1965 performance of Study for Orchestra — a new orchestration of a 1952 work entitled Short Piece for Orchestra — suggests this commendation helped persuade conductor William Steinberg to take interest in Perry’s music. She received her award from the National Institute for the Arts on May 20, 1964, and she began corresponding with the Philharmonic about Study around a month later, on Jun 23.
The Pivotal Year: 1964-1965
Ironically, Julia Perry’s contact with the New York Philharmonic represents the end of her meaningful experiences in this city. Correspondence between Perry and the orchestra indicates frustration was present from the beginning of their collaboration. Despite being honored to have the Philharmonic take interest in Study, Julia desperately wanted them to play a newer work called Liberation for Orchestra, and attempted to change conductor William Steinberg’s mind throughout the summer of 1964.
This undated handwritten note from Julia to New York Philharmonic managing director Carlos Moseley describes her unsuccessful effort to speak with Leonard Bernstein about Liberation at the National Institute for the Arts Award Ceremony:
“Please submit my orchestral score “LIBERATION” to Leonard Bernstein. At the May ceremonial of the National Institute of Arts and Letters before I could disengage myself from the congratulatory aggregation comprised of Quincy Parker (Yale University) Otto Luehning (Columbia University) Lillian Hellman etc., etc., etc., — Mr. Bernstein exited before I had the opportunity to speak with him about my LIBERATION FOR ORCHESTRA.”
On August 6, 1964, Julia sent a telegram additionally advocating for Liberation, noting that it is the same length and instrumentation as Study. Eight days later, Moseley replied and reiterated Steinberg’s programming choice. And, an administrative memo from September 16 notes that Julia dropped off part of the score for Liberation at the Philharmonic offices, ostensibly to show her ability as a copyist, but also, perhaps, in a final attempt to convince the orchestra to program that work. One interesting detail from the documents held in the New York Philharmonic Archives is that there are two copies of Julia’s handwritten note, one of which is completely crossed out.
The aforementioned memo from September 16, 1964 is also the first instance noting Perry’s economic insecurity at this time:
“She expressed then — and later more urgently in a telephone call — her drastic financial situation, in the hope that the money we had originally said would be forthcoming would actually be given to her before the week is out…she is very low on funds.”
Two days later, Carlos Moseley sent Julia a check for $50, one third of the overall payment the Philharmonic offered her to provide new parts for Study by November 1.
Newspaper reports from 1942 onward repeatedly describe Julia’s need for scholarship and community support to participate in various opportunities. In 1961, she ran an advertisement in The New York Amsterdam News announcing a teaching studio, and we already heard her say teaching is something she hoped to avoid. But, despite this effort, her longstanding international career, and the $2500 stipend that came with her award from the National Institute for the Arts, money remained a problem for Perry in 1964 and 1965.
She sent multiple collect telegrams to New York Philharmonic staff in this period, and the handwritten note we looked at earlier, which likely dates from the summer or fall of 1964, describes her inability to afford $15 reproduction costs from a printing service in Akron. A dilemma emerged in which Perry could not pay for a copyist to create parts for Study, nor was she able to do this herself to the satisfaction of the Philharmonic’s librarians. A letter the orchestra sent Julia on November 5, 1964, a few days after she had delivered a set of self-produced parts, lists many unacceptable issues.
An internal communique from November 30, presumably sent by one the orchestra librarians to Carlos Moseley, reveals more consternation between the New York Philharmonic organization and Julia Perry caused be her financial needs, personality, and the unresolved question of the parts for Study:
“(Miss Perry seems to move about a great deal without any warning: she called the first time from the MacDowell Colony and then from New York)”
“Miss Perry has again called — today — she is in New York “indefinitely”. What she wants is for us to do the necessary copying job and deduct $50 from her fee…If Miss Perry wants Joe to do this, all well and good, Joe will have to have a chance to sit down and analyze the amount of work, which will be over $50. Miss Perry is pushing us for an answer”
A contentious letter from William Weisel, an assistant to Carlos Moseley, to Julia Perry dated January 7, 1965 further reflects the friction between the composer and orchestra administrators. But, a handwritten note she sent to William Steinberg in December 1964 is much warmer in tone, and also references the score to her Piano Concerto No. 2, which she sent Steinberg to consider for future programming.
Despite the challenges indicated by Julia’s communication with the Philharmonic from the summer of 1964 through the winter of 1965, acceptable parts for Study arrived in time for the orchestra to perform it on May 6, 7, 8 and 10. The first three of these concerts featured Van Cliburn performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 4 in G Major, and the last featured Itzahk Perlman performing Bruch’s Violin Concerto no. 1 in G minor. It seems possible the orchestra’s goal was to highlight rising stars of American classical music. Princess Benedikte of Denmark attended the concert on May 6. But, Julia Perry was present for none.
Perry resided at the Tatham House on East 38th Street through at least January 1965, but, by May, she had returned to Akron and, although the Philharmonic offered to cover the costs of her travel to New York, she was unable to attend these performances. This collect telegram she sent Carlos Moseley on May 29 outlines her desperate financial situation:
“Unemployed at this time I am without barest essentials please wire me the $125 check which would have been allotted to me as guest of the Philharmonic if I could have afforded the trip for performance on May 6 and 7.”
Moseley responded in a letter dated June 1 that informed Julia any additional payments from the orchestra would not be possible; but, he hoped she would, “find a rapid solution to [her] problems.” She did not — on October 16, 1965, Julia Perry placed a classified ad in the Cleveland Call and Post offering her self-made language dictionaries, totally 15,000 words, for $500.
Julia’s other communications with the New York Philharmonic in May 1965 also include multiple overtures for continued work with the ensemble, either as a conductor or composer. A telegram she sent on May 26 indicates it accompanied a copy of the score to her Third Symphony, which she describes as, “20 minutes long.”
Julia Perry’s Death and Legacy in New York: 1965-1979
As far as I can tell from newspaper sources, Perry’s music received only four more performances in New York City before her death. In fact, except for the Manhattan School of Music percussion ensemble’s 1966 recording of Homunculus C.F., her music appears to have fallen silent in New York after 1965 and did not return there until soprano Juanita King’s 1970 Carnegie Hall recital that featured Perry’s, “By The Sea.” Many of you may have heard Laquita Mitchell sing this piece beautifully alongside pianist Samantha Ege at the festival’s opening concert last night. It appears Study for Orchestra was not heard again in New York until the year 2000, and it took until 2022 for the New York Philharmonic to program it once more.
One factor for this decline in the popularity of Perry’s music in New York may have been many years of bad reviews in mainstream outlets. Even Study drew negative comments from New York Times critic Harold Schonberg in 1965:
“Miss Perry’s Study of Orchestra starts out in a buoyant manner and then bogs down, never fulfilling the promise of its initial statement. The harmonic idiom is neutral — modern but not too modern, lacking punch and personality. Melodically, the piece is uninteresting.”
I have already mentioned Perry’s relationship to The New York Times through critic Ross Parmenter, who wrote fondly about Stabat Mater twice in the 1950s. But, he was an outlier among his colleagues. For instance, Parmenter essentially reviewed the same piece as Schonberg in February 1955, when Thomas Scherman conducted Perry’s Short Piece for Orchestra, the original version of Study, at Town Hall.
Unlike Schonberg ten years later, Parmenter’s review was extremely positive:
“This is a piece that is gentle and spirited by turns. It has plenty of material and perhaps could have been longer to its own advantage, for Miss Perry is both gifted and individual in style.”
We find a similar phenomenon in 1958 involving Betty Allen’s two performances of Perry’s Stabat Mater at Town Hall. We have already seen Parmenter’s complimentary review of the concert from December of that year, but Allen also performed the piece with a string quartet in January, and another New York Times critic received Perry’s music very differently:
“Miss Perry’s ‘Stabat Mater’ is essentially an unvocal piece, full of awkward leaps and difficult intervals…Miss Allen, assisted by the Beaux Arts Quartet, performed the work without evident strain, even adding vocal refinements that made the music sound better than it deserved to…There was much enthusiasm at the work’s conclusion, but one could not help suspecting it was for the soloist rather than the composition. After the ‘Stabat Mater’ it was a pleasure to hear some music.”
When Julia Perry died in 1979, the only New York newspaper to publish an obituary, that I have found, was The New York Amsterdam News. Their legendary critic, Roaul Abdul, wrote effusively about Perry on multiple occasions, including two remembrances the year she died. Coincidentally, Abdul attended the same 1958 performance of Stabat Mater featuring Betty Allen at Town Hall that Ross Parmenter praised, and it seems this is the moment Abdul fell in love with Perry’s music. As he wrote in 1976:
“I first heard Miss Perry’s work on a Clarion Concert in 1958. On that evening at Town Hall, it was immediately clear that here was a composer of great individuality, daring and technical skill.”
As I mentioned earlier, almost all of Julia Perry’s biggest advocates on stage and in the press during her life were African-American. In contrast to the isolated support she received from mainstream journalists, African-American newspapers covered and supported Perry’s career consistently, both in local publications, like the Cleveland Call and Post, and in nationally syndicated columns, like Nora Holt’s Major and Minor. For example, when The New York Times panned Perry’s opera, The Cask Of Amontillado, in 1954, The Call in Kansas City, a weekly African-American paper, published a response in her defense. There was almost uniform pride in Perry’s successes and notoriety amongst Black media of this time, and the same cannot be said for white-led outlets. This discrepancy is a notable indication of the negative impact segregation and racialized discrimination had on Perry’s career.
Julia Perry’s Death and Legacy in New York: 1979-2023
Prior to 2024, I found evidence of only eight posthumous performances of Julia Perry’s music in New York City. As comprehensive as I feel my methods were, I acknowledge that there are probably some smaller concerts and recitals I missed because they were not recorded in newspapers I could access. Moreover, Perry’s music did find its way onto some programs in a handful of other American cities after her death. But, what we see in New York in this period aligns with the broader erosion of interest in her music from 1979 onward.
Overall, I found thirty-two programs with Perry’s music in New York City concert venues over the last seventy-five years. This graphic delineates the performances that happened during Julia’s life with a solid outline, and the posthumous presentations with a dotted outline. Vocal music dominates, and the Stabat Mater is, by far, her most popular work here, with nine appearances. Only eight events, one quarter of the total shown, have taken place in the forty-five years since Julia Perry died, and two-thirds of these performances came in 1965 or earlier. If that is when she left New York for good, then it seems fairly clear that she was the primary driver for her music’s life in this city. Although some strong connections endured among certain vocal soloists and around the popular Stabat Mater, Julia simply lacked enough support to either stay in New York permanently or continue her success there in absentia.
But, that may change this week, with this festival’s incredible series of performances, which represent the greatest concentration of her music in this place at any point in her life or posthumous legacy. Hopefully, the advocacy of the musicians here, others across the country, and even more around the world who will celebrate Julia Perry’s centenary this year — along with the new, increasing accessibility of her scores — will lead us into an unprecedented period of engagement with her music. Thank you.
