Dorothy Rudd Moore

Dorothy Rudd Moore (June 4, 1940 – March 30, 2022) was an American composer and music educator. She was one of the co-founders of the Society of Black Composers. She is considered one of the leading women composers of color for her generation and did commissions for the National Symphony, Opera Ebony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, and solo artists. She was a member of the American Composers Alliance, BMI, New York Singing Teachers Association, and New York Women Composers. Her works were unpublished, but are available through the American Composers Alliance.

Biography Moore was born in New Castle, Delaware. She was born to a musical family, her mother encouraged her to pursue studies in music and to explore all of her interests one of them being piano lessons Moore knew she wanted to become a composer at a young age and took piano lessons as a child at the Wilmington School of Music, where she studied with Harry Andrews. She learned to play clarinet in order to join the Howard High all-male band.

Moore started her undergraduate studies at Howard University as a music education major but later switched to composition, as she was constantly inventing songs and melodies when she played, "I didn't even know that the word 'composer' existed... I just used to do the music" - Dorothy Rudd Moore 1978 . She received the Lucy Moten Fellowship to study in France where she continued her studies with Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau and in Paris in 1963, Chou Wen-Chung in New York in 1965, and Lola Hayes in 1972. Throughout her career her works was commissioned by the nation's top orchestras, including the [National Symphony], [Opera Ebony], and the [Buffalo Philharmonic].

Moore worked as a private music teacher, from 1965 to 1966 taught at the Harlem School of the Arts, in 1969 at New York University, and in 1971 at the Bronx Community College. She married cellist and conductor, Kermit Moore, in 1964. In 1968, she co-founded the Society of Black Composers in New York City.

Moore received the Lucy Moten fellowship in 1963 as her first award and followed by many other grants, and in 1968 became a co-founder of the Society of Black Composers in New York. Her works, Dirge and Deliverance, and Songs from the Dark Tower were released by Performance Records in 1981. In 1985, the world premiere of her opera, Frederick Douglass, took place in New York City by Opera Ebony.

Between 1988 and 1990, she sat on the music panel of the New York State Council of the Arts.

Awards Awards Lucy Moten Fellowship, 1963 American Music Center Grant, 1972 New York State Council on the Arts Grant, 1985 Meet the Composer grants

Works

Style According to the American Composers Alliance, Moore's music is "admired for its high level of artistry and its seriousness of purpose." Moore theorized that being a singer herself gave her insight into how to write well for voice. She did not consider herself a fast composer and preferred to have a finished product at a premiere, unlike other composers who may return to rework their music.

Moore's only opera Frederick Douglass premiered on June 28, 1985 at City College of New York with Opera Ebony. The artistic director was Benjamin Matthews with conducting by Warren George Wilson, lighting by Ron Burns, and stage direction by Ward Fleming. Frederick Douglass and his wife were portrayed by James Butler and Hilda Harris. Tim Page called it "not so much an opera as a series of musical meditations on love, death, religion, political oppression and eventual deliverance."

Selected works Moore has composed song cycles, chamber pieces, orchestral music, and an opera. Selected works include: Twelve Quatrains from the Rubaiyat, song cycle, 1962 Symphony No. 1, 1963 Three Pieces for violin and piano, 1967 Modes for string quartet, 1968 Lament for Nine Instruments, 1969 Moods for viola and cello, 1969 Songs from the Dark Tower, song cycle, 1970 Dirge and Deliverance for cello and piano, 1971 Dream and Variations for piano, 1974 Sonnets on Love, Rosebuds, and Death for soprano, violin, and piano, 1975 In Celebration, a collage to poems by Langston Hughes, 1977 A Little Whimsy, piano, 1982 Frederick Douglass, opera, 1985 Transcencion, 1986