"A Streetcar Named Desire" w/ Cottbus Ballet - Julia Perry

Next on the list of the composers for “A Streetcar Named Desire” is Julia Perry.

“Julia Amanda Perry (25 March 1924 – 24 April 1979) was an American classical composer and teacher who combined European classical and neo-classical training with her African-American heritage.

Born in Lexington, Kentucky, Perry moved with her family to Akron, Ohio as a child. She went on to study voice, piano, and composition at the Westminster Choir College from 1943–48. There, she received her B.M. and M.M. She continued on to her graduate studies at Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, where she was a student of Luigi Dallapiccola and then later studied at the Juilliard School of Music. Around this time, she was awarded her first Guggenheim Fellowship.

In 1952, Perry began studying under Nadia Boulanger in Paris, during which time she was awarded the Boulanger Grand Prix for her Viola Sonata. Soon after, she was awarded her second Guggenheim Fellowship, which she used to return to Italy and continue her studies with Dallapiccola.

Perry also studied conducting at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena during the summers of 1956 and 1957, and in 1957, was sponsored by the U.S. Information Service to conduct a series of concerts in Europe.

After a total of five and a half years in Europe, Julia Perry returned to America and continued her work in composition. On return, she also took up teaching at Tallahassee's Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1967 and was also a visiting artist at Atlanta College.” (Source Wikipedia)

For the ballet, I chose one of her most striking and powerful compositions, “ Short Piece for Orchestra”. I got to discover her actually two years ago when I did some research on female composers for Giselle. Her name came as one of the regrettably forgotten composers, sharing what Florence Price considered having “two handicaps – those of sex and race”