The MacDowell Concert Party

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The
 MacDowell Concert Party




REDPATH





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The
 MACDOWELL CONCERT PARTY



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The
 MACDOWELL CONCERT PARTY
PERSONNEL


LUELLA FEIERTAG, 
Soprano


VIRGINIA BURCH, 
Contralto


JAMES O'HARA, 
Tenor


JOHN SHENK, 
Basso


ANNABELLE KRELL, 
Pianist



I
N presenting the MacDowell Concert Party to Lyceum committees the Redpath Bureau has a double mission to perform.  It offers to music lovers a notable musical organization featuring the compositions of the great American composer, Edward MacDowell, and also acquaints them with the work being done at the famous MacDowell Colony at Peterborough, N. H.



Edward MacDowell was the first native-born American musician to develop an original style, and his music personality has become as distinctive as that of Grieg or Schumann.




The MacDowell Concert Party, named in honor of the composer, and consisting of four notable singers and pianist, will be heard this season in a splendid program consisting principally of some of the best known MacDowell compositions.  Another enjoyable feature of the company's program will be the rendition, in costume, of selections from favorite light operas.  On request the company will render a program consisting entirely of MacDowell music.




The members of the MacDowell Concert Party are musicians of prominence.  Each one is a soloist of experience.  In ensemble numbers the voices of the singers blend in complete harmony and are especially adapted to the artistic rendition of MacDowell compositions.  Their program is one of the best arranged concert programs for Lyceum audiences.




The MacDowell Colony



The establishing of the MacDowell Colony at Peterborough, N. H., by the MacDowell Memorial Association, an organization founded shortly after the death of the great composer, in 1907, has perpetuated Edward MacDowell's dream of a colony where creative genius could be developed with the aid of harmonious working conditions and under the stimulus of the give and take of ideas among creative minds.




In accordance with her husband's wishes, Mrs. MacDowell deeded to the Association the MacDowell farm at Peterborough, N. H., at that time a deserted farm of eighty acres.  Today it has grown to an estate of 500 acres, and for the past sixteen years poets, painters, sculptors, writers, have found in the Colony a place of inspiration and an opportunity to do some of their best creative work.  The MacDowell Colony is fulfilling a mission of real value to our national life.





Some Noted Men and Women Who Have Worked at Peterborough:



Composers



Mrs. H. H. A. Beach


William Henry Humiston


Edward Ballantine


Rossetter G. Cole


Chalmers Clifton


Ethel Glenn Hier


Edgar Stillman Kelley


F. Marion Ralston


Henry F. Gilbert


Wintter Watts





Painters and Sculptors



Helen Farnsworth Mears


Ursula Whitlock


Ida McClelland Stout


Frederick A. Bosley


Katharine Beecher Stetson


Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones


Bashka Paeff


Jay Van Everen





Writers



George Pierce Baker


Leonora Speyer


Maxwell Bodenheim


Harriet T. Comstock


Josephine Preston Peabody


Margaret Widdener


Edwin Arlington Robinson


Padraic Colum


Elinor Wylie


William Rose Benet


Du Bose Heyward







The
 MacDowell Colony at Peterborough, N. H.



Written by
 
HERBERT S. GORMAN
 
for the New York Times


T
HE origin of the now famous MacDowell Colony at Peterborough, N. H., was an old farm house that Edward MacDowell, the composer, purchased in 1895.  There, in the woods, he built for himself a log cabin, and in that cabin, which still stands, shutting out the whole world, he did the larger part of his musical work.  It was his hope that other workers in the arts, not necessarily musical composers, might enjoy the same privileges of quietude and peace, and it is the realization of that hope that meets the eye of the visitor today.


A score of studios, beautifully built, each one with its fireplace for chilly days, are scattered over a tract of land that is now much larger than the original farm.  Each studio is an oasis in itself, hidden from the others.  The worker sees nothing but the sky overhead and the varying emerald of trees on all sides.  There is a central building known as Colony Hall, from which the workers depart each morning for their respective studios.  All day they remain secluded; lunch is left for them on their doorsteps.  The long, clear day is all their own, to compose their music in, to paint their pictures, to write their dramas and poems and novels.




It is here that authentic work can be done.  It is in an atmosphere like this that the creative artist may develop the best that is in him.  And it is to perpetuate this admirable undertaking that Mrs. Edward MacDowell, first of all, and the MacDowell Association have dedicated their time and energy.  The income of the MacDowell Colony may be divided into but three classes.  First, there are the annual dues of the MacDowell Association, dues ranging from five to one hundred dollars a year.  But the Association is small, the dues are limited, the expenses are large.  Under this head might be placed the absurdly small sums that artists pay for sleeping quarters, food, studios and other comforts.  Then there are the donations to the general fund, gifts by interested people and the yearly recitals of Mrs. Edward MacDowell.




One can but point out a few of the men and women of some importance to the American arts who have found the leisure they needed for excellent work at Peterborough.  These people have done some of their best work at Peterborough.




Great care is taken in admitting colonists.  The poet who would enter must be vouched for as a man or woman of authentic promise by two recognized poets of standing—and so on through the other arts.  In no sense of the word is the MacDowell Colony a philanthropic enterprise for penniless writers.  It is a place for talent, and the low fees might be regarded as the tuition paid much the same as a college student pays.  If the artist has done something or gives indubitable promise of doing something, he deserves a place where he can work at top speed, with the necessary fresh air, sound sleep and unhampered days.  This is the ideal of the MacDowell Colony, and it is now an ideal that has been made a practicality.






From Mrs. MacDowell



THE REDPATH BUREAU, 
GENTLEMEN
:




Thanks for your splendid interest in the MacDowell Association, and I am glad to give the Redpath Bureau permission to name the new company 
The MacDowell Concert Party.
  Much of my husband's music arranges finely for concert and quarter work, and I am sure the public will enjoy this presentation of his compositions.  I hope some time I may have the pleasure of hearing this Redpath organization.




Marian MacDowell (
MRS. EDWARD MACDOWELL
.)





Partial List of MacDowell Clubs and Donors:



Mrs. Edward Bok


Mrs. Elizabeth Coolidge


Mr. Otto H. Kahn


MacDowell Association, Denver, Colo.


MacDowell Colony League, Boston, Mass.


Musical Courier, MacDowell Fund


Mr. Robert M. Parmelee


MacDowell Club of Oklahoma


MacDowell Association, Chicago, Ill.


Elizabeth Shaw Montgomery


Alan Seeger Chapter, Wellesley Hills, Mass.


Augusta Cottlow Chapter, New York


Boston Chapter, Boston, Mass.


Hamilton Chapter, Hamilton, O.


Music Study Club, Newark, N. J.


MacDowell Club of Allied Arts, Oklahoma City, Okla.


Mrs. W. J. Morrison, Atlanta, Ga.


MacDowell Club, Omaha, Neb.


Mr. and Mrs. Henry Morgenthau, New York City


New Jersey Federation of Women's Clubs


Eclectic Music Club, Orlando, Fla.


Matinee Musicale, Ann Arbor, Mich.


Richmond Chapter, Richmond, Ind.


Birmingham Chapter, Birmingham, Ala.


Miss Elisabeth Frothingham


Mrs. Edgar Speyer


Mrs. Thomas J. Emery


Monday Music Club of Orange, N. J.


Mrs. Perkins Bass


Mrs. John W. Alexander