Skip to Main Content

Circle of Winners: How the Guggenheim Foundation Composition Awards Shaped American Music Culture

Online ISBN:
9780252054419
Print ISBN:
9780252045097
Publisher:
University of Illinois Press
Book

Circle of Winners: How the Guggenheim Foundation Composition Awards Shaped American Music Culture

Denise Von Glahn
Denise Von Glahn
Florida State University
Find on
Published online:
23 May 2024
Published in print:
1 August 2023
Online ISBN:
9780252054419
Print ISBN:
9780252045097
Publisher:
University of Illinois Press

Abstract

Circle of Winners is a study of the first fifteen years of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Music Composition Awards, 1925-1940. It examines Guggenheim family history, multiple motivations for the foundation’s creation, the original administrative personnel, philanthropic progenitors and offspring, organizing principles, network partners, the appointment of an all-powerful music advisor who made the awards, and the impact he had on six early composition fellows. Circle of Winners involves a large cast of actors including Carroll Wilson, legal counsel for the Guggenheim Brothers, Frank Aydelotte, president of Swarthmore College, Henry Allen Moe, a young Rhodes Scholar who became the face of the foundation and a principal actor in multiple aspects of the nation’s arts scene, Thomas Whitney Surette, the unlikely music advisor, and Nadia Boulanger, whose influence was felt from across the ocean for decades. It considers the resonance of close relationships with a mutually supportive network of institutions including the Conservatoire Américain, Yaddo, the Concord Summer School, the Society of Friends, the Oberlaender Trust, Black Mountain College, and Columbia University. It concludes with discussions of Aaron Copland, Roger Sessions, George Antheil, Ruth Crawford, William Grant Still, and Carlos Chávez and the ways their selection, encouragement, and promotion by the Guggenheim Foundation shaped their lives, their professional careers, and the nation’s high-art music culture before World War II and afterward.

Contents
Close
This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Close

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

View Article Abstract & Purchase Options

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Close