Marion Blackwell

Marion Blackwell (sister Mary Edward Blackwell ; * 1887 in Milwaukee , † January 7, 1987 in Sinsinawa ) is an American composer and music teacher.

Blackwell had been interested in music since childhood and had piano lessons from her older sister from the age of six. After attending St. John's Academy in Milwaukee, she went to Sinsinawa and entered the Dominican Order in 1907. She taught music at schools of the Dominican Sisters in Peoria and Bloomington and from 1922 at the newly established Rosary College in River Forest, Illinois.

In addition, she studied on the weekends at the American Conservatory in Chicago and was the first religious sister in the USA to receive degrees in music. On the mediation of the director of the conservatory she received a scholarship for a study visit from 1933 to Rim, where she was a student of Ottorino Respighi . After his death in 1936 she was invited by Nadia Boulanger to the École Normale de Musique in Paris. She made a great impression on Boulanger, who kept her in touch by letters all her life and visited her during her visits to the USA in Sinsinawa. In Paris, Blackwell also met Igor Stravinsky , who accepted her among his private students. She and his son Soulima Stravinsky had a lifelong friendship.

From 1950 Blackwell lived in the Dominkananer mother house in Sinsinawa and taught at various universities of the Dominican sisters. One of her students is the pianist, and co-founder of Alliance Publications , Anita Smisek . After some of her compositions were published by Clayton F. Summy and other Boston music publishers in the 1920s , her musical oeuvre has recently been rediscovered.

source

• Alliance Publications, Inc. - B - Blackwell, Mary Edward