The Louise Talma Society Luann Dragone, President The Louise Talma Society is dedicated to investigating the music of American composer Louise Talma (1906-1996).  You are invited to join the Louise Talma Society and participate in the exchange of information, through this website, through a bi-yearly newsletter and through other channels. There is no fee for membership in the Society.  The aim of the Society is to make Talma's music known to a wider public and to come to a fuller understanding of her contribution by the study of her work.  To join, send e-mail to the address below.

My current endeavor in life is writing a dissertation on the music of Louise Talma, an American composer who received many firsts in her field and taught music composition at Hunter College in New York for many years. The purpose of this home page is to share some of the information I have found in the course of assembling materials for my dissertation and to stimulate some type of "net"-discourse regarding Louise, her music and her life. If you have any comments or would like to e-mail me regarding this subject please feel free to do so. Since much of Talma's music is unpublished and is commercially unavailable in either score or recording, I have had to look to a multitude of sources to obtain the scores and recordings I now have. The majority of what I have amassed has come from The Library of Congress, Columbia University Music Library, Barnard Music Library, UCLA, The Juilliard School Library, the Hunter College Audio Archive and Talma's sound archivist, Mr. Richard Borgerson. I received a recording of the Violin & Piano Sonata from the New England Conservatory Faculty Recital Series; a recording and score of Let's Touch the Sky from Dr. David Gerig, choral director of Eastern New Mexico University; a recording of Piano Sonata #1 from Roman Rudnytsky at the Dana School of Music, Youngstown State University, Ohio and an out-of-print recording of Alleluia in the Form of Toccata from Nancy Fiero in Los Angeles. Mr. Robert Sherman from WQXR Radio has provided me with two interviews that he conducted with Talma in "The Listening Room" at WQXR on January 19, 1971 and February 23, 1977. Mr. Sahran Arzruni, who has recorded some of Talma's piano music, informed me of recordings and archive information. I interviewed Louise Talma on January 21, 1995.

Below is the Abstract for my dissertation:

This dissertation will study the music of Louise Talma and analyze and describe the unique similarity of sound that occurs throughout her works. Despite the apparent stylistic diversity of Talma's music, there is a certain set of musical concerns, related to her early training with Boulanger, that characterizes all of her music. To this end, I will examine in detail six of Talma's chamber and vocal compositions. These six works will serve as models to define and demonstrate the salient features of each period and will provide a basis for comparison with some of the other works of their respective periods. Three major periods in Talma's music are: 1) Neo-Classical (1939-53); 2) Serial (1954-1972); 3) Non-Serial Atonal (1973-96). Since many accurate biographical sources currently exist, I will not include biographical detail in this project. Instead I have created a "Chronological Biography" (Appendix C) which lists dates of compositions, awards, and teaching positions. The list does not include premieres, or recording and publishing dates of Talma's works. Through this study what will be revealed is that Talma is an important composer not only because of the influence of Nadia Boulanger and Igor Stravinsky on her music, but because her music is strikingly creative and innovative. Thus far, she has received little scholarly attention although she has contributed much valuable music to the 20th century.

For further information, or to join the Louise Talma Society, send e-mail to:
LuannDragone@ATT.NET