Daisy Wood Hildreth

Hildreth was born in Moulton, Iowa, and graduated from Iowa Wesleyan College after studying voice and piano. She completed graduate work at Highland Park College in Des Moines, Iowa, and New York City.{{cite news |date=April 27, 1931 |title=Daisy Hildreth, Iowa Composer, Is Attending Biennial |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/99303007/the-gazette/ |work=The Gazette |via=Newspapers.com}} She moved to Seattle, Washington.{{cite book |date=1938 |title=Musical Iowana 1838—1938 |publisher=Success Composition and Printing Company |page=101}}

Her husband worked as a salesman at Frederick & Nelson.{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/experiencesinpro0000unse |title=Experiences in a promised land : essays in Pacific Northwest history |date=1986 |location=Seattle |publisher= University of Washington Press |isbn=978-0-295-96328-0}}

Hildreth wrote songs for cello, violin, piano, string quartet, and vocals. The Times Colonist wrote in a 1928 review of her Victoria, British Columbia performance of four songs on the piano, sung by Florence Beeler, that Hildreth "is a pianist of high attainment, with rare musical understanding and poetic imagination."{{cite news |date=October 18, 1928 |title=Seattle Trio Charms Local Music Lovers |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/99303269/times-colonist/ |work=Times Colonist |via=Newspapers.com}} The songs were "Romance", "Dance Caprice", "Shadows", and "The Blind Girl" which received much applause. Violinist Margaret Lang performed Hildreth's "Poem" among songs by other musicians. She was a guest at the Iowa Federation of Music Clubs Biennial in 1931 and her songs were part of the program, sung by Helen Kacena Stark. In 1940, Hildreth and soprano Edna Hartman were invited to the Bellingham Woman's Music Club to lecture about her music and then perform. Songs from other composers were performed as well.{{cite news |date=January 3, 1940 |title=Seattle Artists Guests Of Club |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/99303554/the-bellingham-herald/ |work=The Bellingham Herald |via=Newspapers.com}} During the same year, Hildreth opened a gala event for those associated with the General Federation of Women's Clubs with a talk dealing with poetry and music. Four of Hildreth's vocal compositions were sung and she played three of her songs on the piano.{{cite news |date=April 15, 1940 |title=Coterie Will Present Annual Spring Musicale |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/99302418/the-seattle-star/ |work=The Seattle Star |via=Newspapers.com}}

Hildreth's music and Emma McHenry Glenn's lyrics for "The College Chimes" was chosen in 1921 by the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in Ames, Iowa, as their alumni song and has been sung at alumni reunions.{{cite book | last=Hanford | first=Cornelius Holgate | title=Seattle and Environs, 1852–1924, Volume 1 | publisher=Pioneer Historical Publishing Company |year=1924 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-IsGAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA625 | page=625}}{{Cite book |last=Iowa State College |url=http://archive.org/details/inmemoriamedgarw00iowa |title=In memoriam, Edgar Williams Stanton, eighteen hundred and fifty, nineteen hundred and twenty |date=1921 |publisher=Iowa City, Ia., Clio press |others=The Library of Congress |page=140}} A new alumni song was chosen in 1931 after another contest.{{cite web |url=https://www.music.iastate.edu/files/page/files/visions1999.pdf |title=The Story of the Bells of Iowa State |date=1999 |website=Iowa State University |publisher=Iowa State University Visions |access-date=April 9, 2022}} The Gazette said in 1931 that "The Road to Kinsay", "The Blind Girl", and "Come Greet the Morn" were Hildreth's best known songs.

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Category:Year of birth unknown

Category:1969 deaths

Category:People from Moulton, Iowa

Category:Classical musicians from Iowa

Category:Songwriters from Iowa

Category:Iowa Wesleyan University alumni