Eleanor Everest Freer

Eleanor Everest Freer (14 May 1864 – 13 Dec 1942) was an American composer and philanthropist.

Eleanor Freer
Born(1864-05-14)May 14, 1864
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
DiedDecember 13, 1942(1942-12-13) (aged 78)
Chicago, Illinois, United States
CitizenshipUSA
Occupation(s)Singer, teacher, composer

Life

Eleanor Everest was born in Philadelphia, the daughter of Cornelius Everest and Ellen Amelia (Clark) Everest, and studied singing in Paris with Mathilde Marchesi and composition with Benjamin Godard. She taught music in Philadelphia and New York City, and married Chicago doctor Archibald Freer in 1893. The couple had one daughter and moved to Chicago in 1899, where Eleanor Freer studied music theory with Bernard Ziehn.[1] In 1934, she received a D.Mus. from the Boguslawski College of Music.[2]

Freer was an active advocate for American opera, and opera sung in English. To this end, she helped to found the Opera in Our Language Foundation (OOLF) in 1921, and the David Bispham Memorial Fund in 1922 to promote concerts of American composers' works and award a Bispham Medal. The two organizations merged in 1924 to become the American Opera Society of Chicago.[3][4][5]

Freer's one-act opera The Legend of the Piper was performed numerous times by the American Opera Company from 1928 through 1929. She died in Chicago in 1942.[6]

Works

Freer composed eleven operas and more than 150 songs, many of which were published in collections. Selected works include:

  • A Book of Songs, op. 4 (9 songs)
  • Five Songs to Spring
  • Four Songs
  • Six Songs to Nature
  • Sonnets from the Portuguese (44 songs)
  • The Brownings Go to Italy
  • Massimiliano, or The Court Jester, Romantic Opera in One Act
  • The Legend of the Piper opera
  • Little Women opera

References
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eleanor Everest Freer.
  1. Cook, Marlene. "So We All Can Be Heard". Archived from the original on 26 July 2011. Retrieved 10 December 2010.
  2. I., Cohen, Aaron (1981). International encyclopedia of women composers. New York: Bowker. ISBN 0835212882. OCLC 7671325.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. "Our History — American Opera Society of Chicago". American Opera Society of Chicago. Retrieved 2022-11-01.
  4. Sadie, Julie Anne; Samuel, Rhian (1994). The Norton/Grove dictionary of women composers. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393034875. Retrieved 4 October 2010.
  5. "German-American Music Publishers". Archived from the original on 13 March 2014. Retrieved 10 December 2010.
  6. Cooke, James Francis, ed. (February 1943). "The World of Music". The Etude. Theodore Presser. 61 (2): 3.
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