Virginia Seay

Virginia Claire Seay Ploeser (8 August 1922 – 23 November 2015)[1] was an American composer and musicologist who studied and collaborated with composer Ernst Krenek. She published her works under the name Virginia Seay.

Seay was born in Palo Alto, California,[2] to Claire Soule and Welford Seay. She studied with Krenek at Vassar College, where she earned a degree in music composition in 1944, followed by a master's degree from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, also under Krenek's tutelage. She married James Ploeser in 1944, and they had three children, Monica, Stephen, and Christine.[1][3]

During Seay's time in Minnesota in the 1940s, one of her compositions was performed by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra.[3] In 1945, she won the third Young Composers Contest of the Federation of Music Clubs with her composition San Clemente, Low Tide, which was broadcast on national radio.[4][5] Krenek performed piano music she composed at a concert at Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina.[6]

At Hamline, Seay collaborated with Krenek to translate his opera Karl V. from German to English. Krenek used a motif composed by Seay in his Hurricane Variations for Piano, opus 100 in 1944.[6] The following year, in his composition Tricks and Trifles, Krenek composed 22 variations on a four-note motif from a string quartet composed by Seay.[7] Krenek and Seay collaborated (with Russell G. Harris and Martha Johnson) on the book Hamline Studies in Musicology.[8] It included a chapter by Seay, "A Contribution to the Problem of Mode in Medieval Music".[9]

Seay's family lived in New Zealand from 1949 to 1954, where her husband had a Fulbright Scholarship to teach abroad. From 1957 to 2013, Seay taught music and other subjects in Catholic schools in San Jose and San Francisco.[3]

Seay's compositions are numbered through at least opus 8 (see below). Her works include:

Book
  • Hamline Studies in Musicology (with Ernst Krenek, Russell G. Harris & Martha Johnson)[8][10]

Chamber
  • San Clemente, Low Tide (flute, oboe, clarinet, timpani and strings)[4]
  • Sonata, Opus 8 (for clarinet)[11]
  • String Quartet[7]

Orchestra
  • work performed by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra[3]

Piano
  • Nine Short Piano Pieces[12]

Vocal

References
  1. Ploeser, Virginia Seay (1 Dec 2015). "San Jose Mercury News/San Mateo County Times". Legacy.com. Retrieved 2022-10-25.
  2. Ewen, David (1949). American Composers Today: A Biographical and Critical Guide. H.W. Wilson Company.
  3. Webmaster, Bruce Eskander-SPHSAA. "Virginia Claire Seay (Ploeser) (Deceased), South Pasadena, CA California last lived in Redwood City, CA". www.sphsaa.org. Retrieved 2022-10-25.
  4. Colby, Frank Harvey (1945). The Pacific Coast Musician. Colby and Pryibil.
  5. Music Clubs Magazine. National Federation of Music Clubs. 1944.
  6. Stewart, John Lincoln (1991-01-01). Ernst Krenek: The Man and His Music. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-07014-1.
  7. Trotter, William R. (1995). Priest of Music: The Life of Dimitri Mitropoulos. Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 978-0-931340-81-9.
  8. Hughes, Charles (1946). "Review of Hamline Studies in Musicology". The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 4 (4): 254. doi:10.2307/426540. ISSN 0021-8529. JSTOR 426540.
  9. Arts, Hamline University School of Fine (1945). Hamline Studies in Musicology. Burgess Publishing Company.
  10. Krenek, Ernst (1945). Hamline Studies in Musicology. Hamline Univ. ISBN 978-0-598-97477-8.
  11. The Clarinet. Department of Music, Idaho State University. 1980.
  12. "Heather Fetrow". Heather Fetrow. Retrieved 2022-10-25.
  13. Stern, Susan (1978). Women composers : a handbook. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-1138-3. OCLC 3844725.
  14. Stewart-Green, Miriam (1980). Women composers : a checklist of works for the solo voice. Boston, Mass.: G.K. Hall. ISBN 0-8161-8498-4. OCLC 6815939.
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