Julia Perry: Black Lives Matter in Classical Music
There is not much known about the personal life of composer, Julia Perry. Most public information on her surrounds her astounding compositional output, made especially impressive by the relatively short life that she led.
Born on March 25, 1924, Perry died a month after her 55th birthday following eight years of battling ailing health and partial paralysis. Still, even after a stroke afflicted the right side of her body, she was so dedicated to composition that she taught herself to write with her left hand in order to continue her work. Her musical legacy is undeniable, punctuated by a slew of notable distinctions that demand renewed examination and celebration of her contributions.
Julia Amanda Perry was born in Lexington, Kentucky. Her father, Abraham Perry, was a medical doctor and amateur pianist who’d even accompanied the great tenor, Roland Hayes, once as he toured the United States. Her mother, America Perry, was a schoolteacher who was instrumental in encouraging her five daughters’ musicianship. Each of the Perry sisters began with piano studies, but Julia supplemented her study with violin and voice. Perry and her elder sister, Lois, became the most committed. Lois, who was a cellist, attended the Cleveland Institute of Music, but died tragically in a car accident at age 20 when Perry was 16.
Perry lived in Lexington until age 10 where, incidentally, her childhood home sat across the street from another significant American musician who would also achieve world renown. His name was Les McCann, a well-regarded pianist and vocalist who was among the first to merge elements of jazz and soul music to create an altogether new sound. From Lexington, the family moved to Akron, Ohio, which Perry would return to often throughout her lifetime. In high school, she continued her music studies and played sports, and by 1942 had been accepted to the Cleveland Institute of Music. But, her parents asked that she not attend, likely still associating the school with her sister’s tragedy. Instead, Perry enrolled for a year at the University of Akron. Her enormous talent was soon recognized, however, and she was awarded a scholarship from the Knight Memorial Education Fund to transfer to Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, a preeminent American conservatory.
Perry remained at Westminster from 1943 to 1948, earning both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in composition. She also continued her vocal studies. In fact, she was such a gifted vocalist that she won the first prize in voice in the National Association of Negro Musicians annual competition in 1948. Notably, she also won first prize in composition. After graduating from Westminster, she moved to New York City for postgraduate studies in conducting and voice at The Juilliard School and supplemented her training with summers at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusetts. During her first summer at Berkshire/Tanglewood (1951), Perry focused exclusively on composition, studying with Luigi Dallapiccola — a compelling figure in his own right. The Italian serialist was known for an uncanny sense of lyricism despite his favored twelve-tone framework. He is also remembered for his defiant stance against the Nazi regime and Italian fascism during WWII, and willingness to incorporate political views in his work.
Many years later, Perry would follow in her mentor’s footsteps with a symbolic return to Black musical idioms in her compositions after decades centering neoclassical restraint.
Perry and Dallapiccola collaborated well together, and the work that she composed under his instruction, ‘Stabat Mater,’ launched her career. Written for alto voice and orchestra, Perry dedicated the work to her mother. Some believe that she wrote the piece with Marian Anderson in mind, but Anderson never sang it. Instead, Perry frequently sang early performances of the work herself. Unlike her previous compositions, which had been tonal and written for solo voice and/or chorus, ‘Stabat Mater’ indicates her first step toward dissonance. This was likely influenced by Dallapiccola, whose instruction was so promising that she’d moved to Florence, Italy to continue studying with him by November 1951.
‘Stabat Mater’ was performed in both Salzburg and Milan in early 1952. In July, she moved to Paris for a short stint with Nadia Boulanger, arguably the most influential composition instructor of the 20th century. However, she accelerated so quickly through Boulanger’s instruction, that Boulanger reportedly claimed that Perry “required no further instruction.” Perry’s ‘Violin Sonata’ won the Prix Fontainebleau soon thereafter.
Perry spent another summer at Berkshire/Tanglewood with Dallapiccola in 1952 and then returned to Florence. By this time, she had become fluent in Italian and started composing operas. Her one act opera, ‘The Cask of Amontillado,’ was premiered at Columbia University on November 20, 1954. The work was based on the short story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe, but she wrote the Italian language libretto herself. Later in life, she even translated a number of Italian folk tales into English and wrote an Italian language music dictionary.
In 1953, Perry was awarded the first of her two Guggenheim fellowships, which she used to remain in Italy. At the end of her fellowship, she began working with USIS, the governmental entity charged with forging America’s good relations with the rest of the world through “soft” diplomacy. USIS was especially fond of a cultural diplomacy that employed musicians like the great jazz man, Dizzy Gillespie, and Perry herself during the country’s contentious Cold War with the Soviet Union. Despite the busy schedule, Perry continued to compose and earned herself a second Guggenheim fellowship in 1956. Notably, Perry also stopped singing during this period, seeking to assert herself exclusively as a composer.
By 1960, Perry had returned to Akron to live in the apartment above her father’s medical office. From there, she composed voraciously. One of her most important works, also written in 1960, was ‘Homonuculus C.F.’ An experimental piece based on the “Chord of the Fifteenth” (C.F.), the composer described the work as a “musical test tube baby” that she named for the Faust character of the same name (written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe). In Faust, Homonuculus is a small, fully formed man, that was created through alchemy. Her piece is written for harp, celesta-piano and eight percussionists; and is among the first significant percussion-driven works in classical music.
Perry began teaching at Florida A&M University (then “Florida A&M College”) in 1967, but she did not remain long. She returned to Akron in 1969 and began to extend her creative output beyond music to prose, writing plays and essays. In 1965 her work, ‘Study for Orchestra,’ became the first composition written by a woman of color to be played by the New York Philharmonic. During the late 1960s, Perry also began to reintroduce Black vernacular sounds to her music, composing works like the “Integration” and “Soul” Symphonies. Unfortunately, neither were ever performed.
As many as 105 works have been attributed to Perry’s name, yet only 54 manuscripts exist to this day. Even favorably reviewed works like her award-winning ‘Violin Sonata’ have been lost.
Her later years were plagued by great difficulty, but the tenacity she showed throughout her trials is nothing short of remarkable. In 1970, she suffered the first of several strokes, which caused paralysis on the right side of her body. She never regained full mobility and struggled with mental acuity for the remainder of her life. But still, she composed with her left hand and urgently sought commissions.
Sadly, either due to her physical limitations, gender, race, or some combination of the three, Perry died relatively forgotten. She never again experienced the same level of success that she enjoyed her in youth and even in death, few of her works were ever performed again — a travesty considering the soaring heights of her initial stardom. In 1953, Musical America reported that “Not since the war has an American work received such enthusiastic reception.” Surely more can be done today in honor of her name.
Julia Amanda Perry died on April 24, 1979. She wrote across virtually every classical idiom and broke down barriers doing so.
