Julia Klumpke playing the violin.

Julia Klumpke, often spelled Julia Klumpkey (August 13, 1870 — August 23, 1961),[1] was an American concert violinist and composer.

Family and education

Julia Klumpke was born in San Francisco, California, the daughter of wealthy realtor John Gerald Klumpke and Dorothea Mattilda Tolle.[2] She was one of eight children, and among her siblings were the astronomer Dorothea Klumpke-Roberts, the painter Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, and the neurologist Augusta Déjerine-Klumpke.[2] Although reviews and other publications in her own day nearly always used the original spelling of her surname, the spelling is now often Americanized to Klumpkey.[2]

Klumpke studied for one year at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts, working with Emil Mahr and Herman Hartmann (violin) and with Percy Goetschius (composition).[2] She graduated in 1895 with a degree in violin performance.[2][3] She got further training abroad in the 1920s, studying violin with Eugène Ysaÿe, Leopold Auer, William Henley, and Maurice Hewitt and viola with Henri Benoit.[3] She took lessons in composition from Nadia Boulanger and Annette Dieudonné in Paris.[3]

Music career

Klumpke gave one of her earliest recitals in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1908.[2] Beginning sometime between 1906 and 1910, Klumpke taught violin at Converse College, a woman's college in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and directed the Spartanburg Symphony Orchestra; these positions lasted with interruptions through 1922.[2][3][4] During World War I, she left for a time to do war work in Europe, assisting her sister Anna, who had converted her home outside Paris into a hospital for wounded soldiers.[5][6]

In 1928, she went on a world tour. In the mid-1930s, Klumpke returned live in San Francisco, where she was a member of several musical associations, including the Women Musicians Club and the Women's City Club (both of San Francisco), the California Composers Society, and the Music Teacher's Association of California.[2][3][4]

Klumpke composed over four dozen pieces of music, mainly chamber music, songs, and choral music.[3][4] She composed a dramatic tone poem, The Twin Guardians of the Golden Gate, for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition.[4]

Klumpke died in San Francisco and is buried there in the Neptune Society's Columbarium with her father and two of her sisters.[2] In her will, she left scholarships to both the San Francisco Symphony (for an outstanding string player) and Converse College.[2] Her personal papers and musical manuscripts are held in the Julia Klumpkey Collection at the New England Conservatory.[2]

Works

Chamber works
  • Quatre pièces (Four Pieces, 1932; for viola and piano)
  • Second Suite for Viola and Piano (1935)
  • Lullaby for Viola and Piano (1937)
  • Suite for Viola and Piano: San Francisco Bay (1951)
  • Sonata no. 3 for violin and cello
  • Suite for small orchestra
  • First trio for violin, clarinet, and piano
  • Second trio for violin, clarinet, and piano
  • Trio for piano, violin, and cello
  • Miniature string trio
  • Andante for strings
  • Valse fantaisiste (Whimsical Waltz)
Choral compositions
Compositions for solo voice
Other compositions
  • The Twin Guardians of the Golden Gate (1939)

References

  1. ↑ There is conflicting information about Klumke's birth year. This date is taken from a memoir by one of her sisters. See Julien Bogousslavsky, "The Klumpke Family: Memories by Doctor Déjerine, Born Augusta Klumpke". European Neurology 53:3 (2005), p. 115.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Julia Klumpkey". New England Conservatory website.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Klumpkey, Julia. Lullaby for Viola and Piano. David M. Bynog, ed. AVS Publications no. 45, 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Mohr, Maryalice. "The Youngest of the Klumpkey Quintet: An Introduction to the Life of Julia Klumpkey". Music Library Association Northern California Chapter Newsletter, vol 16, no. 1 (Fall 2001).
  5. ↑ The Violinist, vols. 26-28, 1920, p. 180.
  6. ↑ Musical Courier, vol. 44, 1902, p. 94.
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