Diemer, Emma Lou.

Composed 1959. First performance Rochester, New York, 23 March 1959, Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra, Howard Hanson conductor. Dedicated to the composer's mother and father. Second movement (under the title Night Song) won second prize in the Contest for Tranquil Music, 1959.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

Commissioned under the sponsorship of the Young Composers Project for the senior high school orchestras of Arlington, Virginia. Composed 1961. First performance Arlington, 20 May 1961, Washington-Lee High School Symphony Orchestra, Dorothy Baumle conductor.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

Emma Lou Diemer is an acclaimed and prolific composer, an accomplished musician and a respected educator. She composes extensively for a variety of skill levels and in many genres, including the oft neglected organ, and frequently experiments with new techniques.

Biography / Administrative History

Emma Lou Diemer is an acclaimed and prolific composer, an accomplished musician and a respected educator. She composes extensively for a variety of skill levels and in many genres, including the oft neglected organ, and frequently experiments with new techniques. Born in 1927, Emma Lou was the youngest of four siblings in her profoundly musical family. She studied piano and organ throughout her school years and performed frequently in recitals and for religious services, a practice she kept up regularly at various churches until 2001.

She received her Bachelors of Music and Masters of Music in Composition from the Yale School of Music in 1950 and in 1952-1953 was a Fulbright Scholar in composition and piano at the Brussels Conservatoire in Belgium. Back in the United States, she attended the Berkshire Music Center, sometimes called Tanglewood, to study composition further during the summers of 1954 and 1955.

The Ford Foundation selected Diemer in 1959 as one of several young composers to receive positions as composers-in-residence at secondary schools. She continued in this position until 1961, in the meantime earning her Ph. D. of Composition from the Eastman School of Music. Her 'Three Madrigals' for mixed voices and piano is a popular piece from this period and an example of her ability to compose engaging works that are also instructive and appropriate for developing musicians.

She continued her involvement with young musicians in a position as composer-consultant under Contemporary Music Project of Music Educators National Conference in Arlington, VA and Baltimore, MD schools from 1964-65 and held a professorship at the University of Maryland 1965-70 before moving to Santa Barbara to work as a professor of theory and composition at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1971.

At UCSB, Diemer worked with other professors including Karl Geiringer and Peter Racine Fricker to develop the composition program for undergraduates and pioneered the electronic music program that continues today. She occasionally composed works for students and fellow professors, one of which, 'Toccata' for piano, is among her most popular published works. Diemer retired from the university and became a Professor Emeritus in 1991.

Since retiring, Diemer regularly takes commissions and produces large numbers of works for chorus, organ and religious settings, frequently incorporating poetic text from various sources. Among her numerous awards are her recognition by the American Guild of Organists as Composer of the Year in 1995 and her receipt of an honorary Doctor of Letters at Central Missouri State University in 1999.