Gertrude Ross

1915 photograph of Gertrude Ross playing the piano with the soprano Yvonne de Tréville listening. Gertrude Ross (1889–1957) was an American composer and pianist who wrote music for films and stage as well as songs and instrumental works. She researched Japanese and Hebrew music for her own compositions and collected Spanish folksongs from early California settlers.

Biography

Ross was born in Dayton, Ohio, to Emma Corinne McCreary and Abner L. Ross. She showed early musical talent as a child, playing music by ear and giving concerts starting at age 10. She attended the Cumnock School of Expression in Los Angeles for three years, then studied at the University of Southern California for an additional year.

Ross married in 1903 and had a daughter, Corinne, in 1904. In 1910, Ross left her husband and resumed using her maiden name. She studied piano for two years in Germany with Severin Eisenberger and Theodor Leschetitzky. Later, she studied counterpoint with Nadia Boulanger.

After returning to the U.S., Ross toured with and accompanied singers such as Katherine Fisk, Blanche Hamilton Fox, Jeanne Gerville-Reache, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, and Regina Vicarino, as well as cellist Elsa Ruegger and violinist Ignaz Heroldi. She accompanied Schumann-Heink at the 1915 San Francisco Exposition, and appeared with the Russian Symphony Orchestra Society in New York.

In 1919, Ross helped found the California Federation of Music Clubs. The same year, she served as president of Los Angeles’ Dominant Club for female musicians. In 1928, she chaired the National Federation of Music Clubs American Composers group, as well as the Hollywood Bowl Annual Composition Prize Committee.

Ross’ works were recorded commercially by Columbia (W14770) and Victor Records (B-13820, B-28458, and BVE-34210). Her composition Three Songs of the Desert inspired paintings by Arthur Hill Gilbert.

Ross’ works were published by Edwin H. Morris and Company, G. Schirmer Inc., Huntzinger & Dilworth, J. Fischer and Bros., R. W. Heffelfinger, and the White Smith Music Publishing Company.

List of compositions Chamber Serenade (violin, cello and piano) The Girl I Loved (play based on poem by James Whitcomb Riley) “At Close of Day” “Consider the Lilies” “Delight of the Out of Doors” “God’s Service Flag” (text by Harold Seton) “I Know Not if You Love Me (Yo no sé si me quieres)” Sunbonnet Songs War Trilogy (text by Corinne B. Dodge) “Wynken, Blynken and Nod” (text by Eugene Field)