Mildred Couper, 1887-1974

Biography

Mildred Couper was born in 1887 in Buenos Aires to British parents. She began her formal musical training at the age of 13 as a pianist at the Williams Conservatory in Buenos Aires. Couper graduated from the Karlsruhe Conservatory in Baden, Germany in 1907. She also studied with piano with Moszkowski, Sgambati, and Alfred Cortot in Paris, Rome, and New York, respectively. Couper studied art in Paris at the Grand Chaumiere and at another private art school run by Beronneau, where she met her husband, artist Richard. The couple was married in 1910 and lived in Rome until 1915, when World War I brought them to New York. Mr. Couper died there of influenza in 1917. Mrs. Couper taught piano at the Mannes School of Music.

In 1927, Mrs. Couper moved, with her children Clive and Rosalind, to Santa Barbara, California. She began teaching at the Cate School and the Santa Barbara School for Girls, as well as maintaining her own private piano studio. Couper was also influential in founding the Music Academy of the West, where she taught theory and harmony courses. In addition, she remained active as a solo and chamber pianist and served as a critic for the Santa Barbara News-Press for 16 years.

As a composer, Mildred Couper is best known for her experiments with quarter-tone music. Her quarter-tone music was first heard in Xanadu, incidental music for the Santa Barbara performances of Eugene O'Neill's play Marco Millions. Other quarter-tone works by Couper include Rumba, Dirge, and Anacapa. Couper's orchestral arrangement of her Variations on "The Irish Washerwoman" was performed by the Werner Janssen Symphony. Ingolf Dahl also conducted some of her works at the "Evenings on the Roof" concerts in Los Angeles. Couper's ouvre includes chamber works, piano duets, solo piano pieces, vocal works, and several orchestral works.

She died in Santa Barbara in 1974.

From the guide to the Mildred Couper Papers, 1897-1974, (University of California, Santa Barbara. Library. Dept. of Special Collections)