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Rachel Eubanks

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Rachel Eubanks
Eubanks in 1996
Born
Rachel Amelia Eubanks

(1922-09-12)September 12, 1922
DiedApril 8, 2006(2006-04-08) (aged 83)
Los Angeles, California
Alma mater
  • University of California (B.A. 1945)
  • Columbia University (M.A. 1947)
  • Pacific Western University (D.M.A. 1980)

Rachel Amelia Eubanks (September 12, 1922 – April 8, 2006) was an American composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist.[1][2]

Life and career

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Rachel Amelia Eubanks was born on September 12, 1922 in San Jose, California, US.[2] Her parents, Joseph Sylvester and Elizabeth Amelia Eubanks, struggled during the Great Depression, still managing to take Rachel and her brothers Jonathan and Joseph to the concerts of numerous musicians: Roland Hayes, Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson.[2] Settling in Oakland, California, Eubanks attended Roosevelt Junior High School and later Oakland High School.[3] Eubanks learned both clarinet and alto horn in elementary school, later taking piano lessons.[2] She wrote her first composition at 11 years old; after finishing a poem for Mother's Day, Eubanks considered it incomplete and decided to set it to music.[4] Other early pieces include the works Just You and I and Memories of Mother of Mine.[4] Her first serious work came at age 14: the Waters of the Ganges for piano, inspired by the stories of a family friend who went to India as a missionary.[4]

Eubanks married Mac MacDonald, a Baptist minister, in 1950.[4] Her future plans did not align with the traditional responsibilities for the wife of a pastor and the two divorced in 1952.[4] Eubanks studied at a number of American universities, beginning with University of California, Berkeley, where she studied under Charles Cushing receiving a Bachelor of Arts in composition and music theory in 1945.[3] She then received a Master of Arts, studying composition under Douglas Moore, Otto Luening and Normand Lockwood.[3] Further study included the Eastman School of Music in 1947; Berkeley with Roger Sessions in 1948; organ study at Capitol University from 1949–1950; economics, philosophy and religion at Ohio State University from 1950–1951; film scoring at the University of Southern California with Miklós Rózsa; education and language at California State University, Los Angeles in 1954; various subjects at the University of California, Los Angeles; ethnomusicology at California State University, Long Beach in 1975; music administration at Westminster Choir College in 1976; and a DMA in composition at Pacific Western University.[3] In 1977 Eubanks studied in Paris, France with Nadia Boulanger through the American Conservatory there.[5][n 1] She received a DMA from the Pacific Western University (1980).[4][3]

Eubanks headed the Albany State University, Georgia,[2] and she later taught theory and composition and was head of the music department at Wilberforce University 1949–50.[6][7] After settling in Los Angeles (LA), she began offering piano lessons out of her apartment.[2]

Eubanks founded the Eubanks Conservatory of Music and Art in 1951 as its first director.[8] Based in LA, it "began in modest accommodations on 47th and Figueroa Streets", later upsizing for increased enrollment.[7] In its heydays, the conservatory offered Associate and Masters degrees in music performance, composition, theory and history.[7] Initially a nonprofit organization, the Conservatory diminished in enrollment during the 1990s, repeatedly moved locations and has "never returned to its glory days".[2]

Eubanks died on April 8, 2006 in Los Angeles, California from colon cancer.[2]

Music

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Eubanks' compositional œuvre includes piano music, songs, orchestral and choral works.[9]

The Guide to the Pianist's Repertoire included her Five Interludes (1984), describing it as "Tense atonal writing, contrapuntal textures, unified by similar intervals in all pieces."[1] The Canadian pianist Helen Walker-Hill recorded the first and last of the Five Interludes for the 1995 Kaleidoscope: Music by African-American Women album.[9]

Her other works include the Symphonic Requiem for orchestra and four solo voices (1980) as well as a cantata, written for choir and orchestra.[9]

List of compositions

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Sources:[6][3]

  • Prelude (1942), piano
  • Five Interludes (1982), piano

References

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Notes

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  1. ^ Euabnks was part of numerous African-American women composers who studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, including Maude Wanzer Layne, Julia Perry, Evelyn LaRue Pittman, Irene Britton Smith, Dorothy Rudd Moore and possibly Nora Douglas Holt[5]

Citations

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Sources

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