Alice Parker

Alice Stuart Parker Pyle (December 16, 1925 – December 24, 2023), known professionally as Alice Parker, was an American composer, arranger, conductor and teacher.

Early life and education Parker was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1925, to Gordon Parker, who worked in the hardwood business, and Mary Shumate Stuart, who founded and directed a plastics laminate company.

Career Having begun her career as a high school teacher, Parker also collaborated with Robert Shaw on arrangements of materials to be recorded by the Robert Shaw Chorale,

In addition to her work with the Chorale, Parker wrote a total of 5 operas, 11 song-cycles, 33 cantatas, 11 works for chorus and orchestra, 47 choral suites, and more than 40 original hymns. She also arranged spirituals, hymns, and folk songs, including French, Spanish, Hebrew, and Ladino folk songs, many of which have become part of the repertoire of choirs around the world.

Having divided her time between a New York apartment and her home in Hawley, Massachusetts, Parker decided, at the age of 70, to move permanently to Singing Brook Farm in Hawley, which her father had purchased in 1920 and where she had spent her childhood summers. In Hawley she founded the professional choir Melodious Accord in 1985, with which she released 14 albums and established a fellowship program to enable mid-career musicians to study with her. Parker attended the Federated Church in nearby Charlemont, Massachusetts, and assisted with its music program. She was a Fellow of the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada, and was awarded grants from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and the American Music Center. It was selected for the 2020 Virginia Film Festival.

Personal life and death In 1954 Parker married Thomas F. Pyle (1918−1976), a baritone soloist and member of the Robert Shaw Chorale, with whom she had two sons and three daughters. Following his death from a heart attack, a choir made up of 400 of his acquaintances sang Brahms's A German Requiem at his memorial service at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.

Parker died at her home in Hawley on December 24, 2023, at the age of 98.

Selected works

Operas

Original songs or arrangements

Books