Nancy Plummer Faxon

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Nancy Plummer Faxon (born November 19, 1914 in Jackson (Mississippi) , † February 1, 2005 in Boston ) was an American soprano, music teacher and composer for organ music.

life and career

Nancy Blanton Plummer was born to Walter George Plummer and Emily Blanton Plummer. She graduated from Millsaps College in 1936. As a young woman, she worked in theater productions with Eudora Welty . She studied at the Chicago Musical College with Rudolph Ganz and Nelli Gardini and made her master's degree in singing and piano in 1938 . She also studied composition with Max Wald.

As a young soprano in Chicago, Plummer joined the Sorrentine Touring Opera Company as a soloist in 1938 . She also sang in the Chicago Opera Company choir. From 1955 to 1980 she was a soprano in the professional choir of Trinity Church in Boston . After her marriage in 1941 she devoted herself more to teaching and church work. During World War II she taught singing in Nashville , Tennessee , and worked in the music program of a Methodist church in Evanston, Illinois . She later taught at her alma mater at Millsaps College and the Chaloff School of Music in Boston, and played the organ in a church in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts .

Plummer Faxon was a member of the American Women Composers . She wrote over 100 choral and orchestral compositions, mostly for performances at Trinity Church . The Brookline Library Music Association held a concert of their compositions in 1985. A CD entitled The Music of Nancy Plummer Faxon (2001) was recorded with The Ralph Farris Chorale and The Madison Symphony at the Old South Church in Boston. In 1986 she received the Orah Ashley Lamke Award from Mu Phi Epsilon as a distinguished student of the sorority .

Personal life

Nancy Plummer married the organist and choirmaster George Faxon († 1992) in 1941. They often worked together on the preparation and presentation of Nancy's compositions. There were three children from the marriage. Nancy Plummer Faxon died of leukemia at the New England Baptist Hospital in Boston in 2005 at the age of 90 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Mrs. Plummer's Funeral Today" Clarion Ledger (March 8, 1958)
  2. ^ A b c "Miss Nancy Plummer and George Faxon Take Vows at St. Andrew's Church" Clarion Ledger (December 28, 1941): 15th via Newspapers.com
  3. ^ "Nancy Plummer Faxon" Biographical Dictionary of the Organ .
  4. ^ "Nancy Faxon" City Lights Music website.
  5. ^ Boston Area Music Libraries, The Boston Composers Project: A Bibliography of Contemporary Music (MIT Press 1983): 185-189.
  6. ^ The Ralph Farris Chorale and the Madison Symphony, The Music of Nancy Plummer Faxon (Hedgehog Hill Press 2001).
  7. ^ Mu Phi Epsilon, Orah Ashley Lamke Award .
  8. ^ "George Faxon, Organist, Teacher, Choirmaster, Arranger; at 79" Boston Globe (June 27, 1992).
  9. ^ Tom Long, "Nancy Plummer Faxon, Classical Composer, 90" Boston Globe (February 5, 2005).
personal data
SURNAME Faxon, Nancy Plummer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American soprano, music teacher and composer for organ music
DATE OF BIRTH November 19, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Jackson (Mississippi)
DATE OF DEATH February 1, 2005
Place of death Boston