Gena Branscombe’s Sonata in A Minor

roger commented on on 12.20.10
Keith Lockhart, A postscript. WGBH’s listeners might want to know that Gena Branscombe had strong ties to the Boston area. As a young composer in the maledominated music profession, she was brought into the fold of classical composers, many of them women, published and nurtured by the Arthur P. Schmidt Company, based in Boston. Throughout Branscombes career until his death, Schmidt 18461921, whose office was on Boylston St., became perhaps her closest professional confidant, and their correspondence is preserved in the Library of Congress. Branscombe’s husband, John F. Tenney, an important supporter of her work, hailed from Methuen, Massachsetts, near Boston, and Branscombe ‘s final resting place is in Methuen’s Walnut Grove Cemetery. Her work and life has recently been brought forward by a number of writers and performers. A onewoman theatrical event, "Ah, Love I Shall Find Thee Songs of Gena Branscombe", created and performed by actor and singer Kathleen Shimeta and pianist Martin Hennessey, is currently on tour. Shimeta’s blog chronicles the project. http//kathleensonewomanjourney.blogspot.com/ Roger Branscombe Phenix

roger commented on on 12.19.10
Keith Lockhart, Its wonderful to hear my grandmothers music on the air. I will always remember her choral concerts which I was able to attend as a child at this time of the year. Gena Branscombe was Canadian, but when she moved to Chicago at the age of fifteen to study, the United States became her home. After graduating from the Chicago Music School, she continued to teach there until she was hired to create the Piano Department at Whitman College in Washington State. She and her new husband located permanently in New York in 1910 and she received her US citizenship the same year. She was a prolific composer of songs, symphonic and chamber music, and choral music, and was known and highly regarded by reviewers for her conducting. Gena Branscombe continued to work as a composer until the last year of her life, in her beloved city of New York. Roger Branscombe Phenix