Alice Crane Williams
{{short description|American composer}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Alice Crane Williams
| image = AliceCraneWilliams1926.png
| alt = A white woman with dark hair in a short bouffant style, wearing a dark top with a crocheted lace neckline
| caption = Alice Crane, later Williams, from a 1926 publication
| birth_name = Alice Ella Crane
| birth_date = August 29, 1879
| birth_place = Garrettsville, Ohio, U.S.
| death_date = October 24, 1964
| death_place = University Heights, Ohio, U.S.
| other_names =
| occupation = Composer, literary editor
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
| spouse(s) =
| relatives = Hart Crane (nephew)
}}
Alice Ella Crane Williams (August 29, 1879 – October 24, 1964) was an American composer and literary editor. She was president of the Composers and Authors Association of America.
Early life and education
Alice Crane was born in Garrettsville, Ohio, the daughter of Arthur Edward Crane and Ella M. Beardsley Crane. Her brother was confectioner Clarence Arthur Crane, the inventor of Life Savers candy,{{Cite web |date=2018-05-11 |title=Life Savers|url=https://case.edu/ech/articles/l/life-savers |access-date=2024-05-23 |website= Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, Case Western Reserve University |language=en}} and her nephew was poet Hart Crane.{{Cite book |last=Bryer |first=Jackson R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K18jAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22Alice+Crane%22+composer&pg=PA82 |title=Sixteen Modern American Authors: Volume 2, a Survey of Research and Criticism Since 1972 |date=1990 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-0976-5 |pages=82 |language=en}} She graduated from Hiram College,{{Cite journal |date=June 1899 |title=Among Our Schools and Teachers |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V2e4nI7Yf7MC&q=%22Alice+Crane%22&pg=PA235 |journal=The Musician |volume=4 |issue=6 |pages=235}} and pursued further music studies in Europe.
Career
Crane was a pianist, composer, and lecturer.{{Cite journal |date=August 1926 |title=Personalities: Alice Crane, A Natural Composer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4EY2kAK1nswC&dq=%22Musical+Advance%22+%22Alice+Crane%22&pg=PP18 |journal=Musical Advance |volume=14}} Her compositions were called "quite modern in trend and of immense interest" by a 1926 publication.{{Cite journal |date=November 26, 1926 |title=Alice Crane |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5eELbpb4ztgC&dq=%22Musical+Advance%22+%22Alice+Crane%22&pg=RA21-PA28 |journal=Music News |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=28}} She also taught music.{{Cite journal |date=October 1927 |title=Alice Crane |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GNkU0XsUgSoC&dq=%22Alice+Crane%22+composer&pg=RA7-PA40 |journal=Musical Observer |volume=26 |issue=10 |pages=40}}
Crane gave a performances of her recent works at the National League of American Pen Women conference in Washington in 1926,{{Cite journal |date=January 1927 |title=Studio Notes |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GNkU0XsUgSoC&dq=%22Alice+Crane%22+composer&pg=PA41 |journal=Musical Observer |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=41}} and at the Poetry Society of America's annual concert in New York in 1927.{{Cite journal |date=March 1927 |title=Untitled brief news item |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GNkU0XsUgSoC&dq=%22Alice+Crane%22+composer&pg=RA2-PP31 |journal=Musical Observer |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=45}} She was president of the Composers and Authors Association of America in the 1940s.{{Cite news |date=1946-06-07 |title=Convention of Composers and Authors Group Opens Here |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/fort-worth-star-telegram-convention-of-c/148044067/ |access-date=2024-05-25 |work=Fort Worth Star-Telegram |pages=12 |via=Newspapers.com}} From 1945 to 1964, Williams edited American Weave, a literary journal based in Cleveland, with her husband, Loring Eugene Williams.[https://digitalmaine.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1784&context=maine_writers_correspondence Loring Eugene Williams Correspondence], Maine State Library.
Compositions
- "Mountain Harmony" (1926){{Cite journal |date=October 1, 1926 |title=Crane |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5eELbpb4ztgC&dq=%22Alice+Crane%22+composer&pg=RA13-PA36 |journal=Music News |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=36}}
- "Touch Me Not" (1926)
- "Cloudland" (1926, setting for text by William Sharp)
- "The Veil" (1926, setting for text by Walter de la Mare)
- "Music" (1926)
- "The Revelation" (1926, setting for text by Edwin Markham)
- "Danish Suite" (1926)
- "River Trilogy" (1926, lyrics by Ruth Mason Rice)
- "This thy hour o soul" (1953, setting for text by Walt Whitman){{Cite web |title=Alice Crane Williams Song Texts |url=https://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_settings.html?ComposerId=7536 |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=LiederNet}}
- "In the Cathedral" (1954, organ suite){{Cite book |last=United States Copyright Office |url=http://archive.org/details/CopyrightCards1946-1954_Part2 |title=1946-1954 Copyright Registration Cards (O-Z) |date=1946}}
- "Flight of the Mariner" (1954, a song cycle based on poems of Dorothy Rudolph Byard){{Cite book |last=United States Copyright Office |url=http://archive.org/details/CopyrightCards1946-1954_Part2 |title=1946-1954 Copyright Registration Cards (O-Z) |date=1946}}
- "Autumn Song" (1960, setting for text by William Blake)
- "March Triomphale", "Voix Celeste", "Vox Humana" (date unknown){{Cite book |last=Heinrich |first=Adel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gE_EEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Alice+Crane%22+composer&pg=PA135 |title=Organ and Harpsichord Music by Women Composers: An Annotated Catalog |date=1991-06-30 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA |isbn=978-0-313-38790-6 |language=en}}
Personal life
Crane married Loring E. Williams in 1937. She died in 1964, at the age of 85, in University Heights, Ohio.{{Cite news |date=1964-10-26 |title=Williams |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-plain-dealer-williams/148044194/ |access-date=2024-05-25 |work=The Plain Dealer |pages=45 |via=Newspapers.com}} Loring Williams organized the Hart Crane and Alice Crane Williams Memorial Fund, to support literary publications, and an annual poetry award.{{Cite news |last=Cook |first=Julia A. |date=1967-09-28 |title=Helping Hand Extended to Poets by Loring Williams/Julia A. Cook |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/journal-tribune-helping-hand-extended-to/148042279/ |access-date=2024-05-25 |work=Journal Tribune |pages=21}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [https://library.uta.edu/digitalgallery/img/20033203 A 1946 photograph of Williams] at a convention in Texas, from the UTA Galleries Digital Gallery
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Alice Crane}}