Zhay Clark

Zhay Clark (July 16, 1895 – April 25, 1980) was an American harpist.

Zhay Clark
A white woman in profile, seated with a harp.
Zhay Clark, from a 1921 publication.
BornJuly 16, 1895
St. Louis, Missouri
DiedApril 25, 1980
Los Angeles, California
NationalityAmerican
Other namesZhay Clark Moor (after 1935)
OccupationHarpist

Early life

Zhay Clark was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Charles Napier Clark and Emma Piercey Clark. She studied music in Denver and St. Paul.[1]

Career

Clark was harpist with the Denver Philharmonic Society as a young woman. In 1915, she performed at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, demonstrating harps for the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company.[2] In 1917 and 1918, she toured North America with Swiss cellist Elsa Ruegger. During the 1919-1920 season, she was harpist with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. She transcribed and arranged Charles Wakefield Cadman's "From the Land of the Sky Blue Water" for solo harp.[3][4] By 1928, she was billed as "America's foremost harpist."[5] In 1931, she served on the faculty of the Mount St. Mary's College summer school, teaching harp.[6]

Later in her career, Clark worked in the film industry, and performed on radio.[7] In 1929 she worked with actress Corinne Griffith on her harp performance in The Divine Lady, an early experimental sound film.[8] In the 1940s, she played with Frank Sinatra's orchestra.[9] She played harp on Bernard Herrmann's scores for On Dangerous Ground (1951)[10] and Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953),[11] and on the Dimitri Tiomkin scores of the films The Thing From Another World (1951) and Take the High Ground! (1953).[12]

Personal life

Zhay Clark married a fellow musician, woodwind player Weyert A. Moor,[13] in 1935; the couple lived in Glendale, California. Moor died in 1959.[14] Clark died in Los Angeles in 1980, aged 84 years.

References
  1. "Zhay Clark, A Noted Harpist" Pacific Coast Musical Review 41(October 29, 1921): 4.
  2. "Harp Soloist Will Give Concert Sunday". Berkeley Daily Gazette. December 11, 1915. p. 3. Retrieved December 22, 2019 – via NewspaperArchive.com.
  3. Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third series. 1961. p. 563.
  4. Cadman, Charles Wakefield (1933). From the land of sky-blue water. Harold B. Lee Library. Boston : White-Smith Music.
  5. Andrews, Ruth (1928-12-10). "Zhay Clark, Noted Harpist, Will Appear in Christmas Concert with Cianfoni Band". Santa Ana Register. p. 4. Retrieved 2019-12-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. MSMC Registrar (1931). Summer Session June 29-August 1, 1931. Los Angeles Mount St. Mary’s College Libraries. Mount St. Mary's College.
  7. "Concert". The Los Angeles Times. 1931-06-28. p. 22. Retrieved 2019-12-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. Hubbert, Julie (2011-03-02). Celluloid Symphonies: Texts and Contexts in Film Music History. University of California Press. pp. 142–143. ISBN 978-0-520-24101-5.
  9. Put Your Dreams Away: A Frank Sinatra Discography. Greenwood Publishing Group. 2000. pp. 91–92. ISBN 978-0-313-31055-3.
  10. "Film Score Monthly CD: On Dangerous Ground". Film Score Monthly. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
  11. "Film Score Monthly CD: Beneath the 12-Mile Reef". Film Score Monthly. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
  12. "Film Score Monthly CD: Thing From Another World/Take the High Ground!, The". Film Score Monthly. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
  13. Moor, Weyert A. (2005-11-16). "Through the air". Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project, Santa Barbara Library Department of Special Collections, University of California. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
  14. "Weyert Moor (obituary)". Pasadena Independent. 1959-08-25. p. 15. Retrieved 2019-12-22 – via Newspapers.com.
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