Sowerby, Leo

American composer and church musician.

From the description of [Organ symphony. Album leaf] : autograph manuscript, 1951 Mar. 2. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270569572

From the description of Autograph letter signed, dated : Chicago, 13 March 1953, to Joseph Chouinard, 1953 Mar. 13. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270962032

Composed 1926-27. Chicago, 29 March 1929, Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Frederick Stock coductor.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

From the description of Symphony no. 2 in B minor / Leo Sowerby. [19--] (Franklin & Marshall College). WorldCat record id: 54883609

Commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra. Composed 1954. First performance Louisville, 8 January 1955, Louisville Orchestra, Robert Whitney conductor.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

From the description of All on a summer's day : for orchestra / by Leo Sowerby. [19--] (Franklin & Marshall College). WorldCat record id: 54807147

Uncertain of the number of this symphony as there is no number or date on this manuscript.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

From the description of Symphony / by Leo Sowerby. [19--] (Franklin & Marshall College). WorldCat record id: 187102404

Leo Sowerby was an American composer and church musician.

From the guide to the Leo Sowerby papers, 1911-1995, 1911-1967, (Music Library)

Composed 1921-22. First performance Rome, 8 April, 1923, Albert Coates conductor, the composer and Carlo Zecchi, soloists.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

From the description of Ballad King Estmere for two pianofortes and orchestra / Leo Sowerby. [19--] (Franklin & Marshall College). WorldCat record id: 54802210

Leo Sowerby (1895-1968), the son of John and Gertrude Sowerby, was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He moved to Chicago at the age of fourteen, studied piano with Calvin Lampert and Percy Grainger, composition with Arthur Olaf Anderson, and later received his Master of Music degree in 1918 at the American Conservatory, Chicago.

He began his performing career as piano soloist at the Norfolk (Conn.) Festival in 1917 and was later to perform with many other American and European orchestras. In 1917, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. After serving in several ranks including that of bandmaster, with duty in the United States, England, and France, he was discharged in 1919. In 1921 Sowerby was appointed the first American composer to the Rome Prize (Prix de Rome) established in music by the American Academy in Rome. He returned to America three years later.

Sowerby held the position of instructor in theory and composition at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago from 1925-1962 and organist and choirmaster at the(Episcopal) Cathedral of St. James (1927-1962). He later became director of the College of Church Musicians, Washington Cathedral, Washington, D.C. in 1962, a position he held until his death.

Sowerby won a Pulitzer Prize for "distinguished musical composition" in 1945 and became a fellow of the Royal School of Church Music in London in 1957. His memberships include the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, the American Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Cliff Dwellers club of Chicago.

Sowerby's harmonic style of musical composition was modern though he remained within the limits of traditional tonality, employing a strict, formal design. Over his career he produced more than 500 works in every genre but opera, including chamber works, choral pieces, organ pieces, piano pieces, and songs. His outstanding compositions include Comes Autumn Time (1916), Set of Four "Suite of Ironics" (1918), ballad for two solo pianofortes (King Estmere, 1923), Suite "From the Northland" (1927), Symphonic poem "Prairie" (1929), and "Canticle of the Sun," for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1945.

From the guide to the Leo Sowerby Papers, 1917-1963, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)

Epithet: composer

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001186.0x00020e