Helen Searles Westbrook facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Helen Westbrook
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Helen Searles
October 15, 1889 |
| Died | 1967 (aged 77–78) |
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Helen Searles Westbrook (October 15, 1889 – 1967) was an American composer and organist.
Contents
Life
She began organ lessons at age eleven with her mother, who was also an organist. Westbrook then studied with Arthur Dunham, Frank van Dusen, Wilhelm Middleschutte and Adolf Weidig at the American Conservatory, where she received a gold medal, as well as a young American Artists award. She married James Westbrook.
Westbrook was a theatre organist in Chicago. She also played with the Chicago Opera Company under Bruno Walter, as an organ soloist with Chicago Symphony, and on a WGN radio program for CBS which used her composition "Dusk at Friendship Lake" as the program's theme song. She was the music director at Central Church in Chicago.
Westbrook was a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) and the Chicago Club of Women Organists. She helped manage the Club's "Florence B. Price Organ Composition Contest" in 1954.
Through Replica Records, Westbrook released at least one 33 rpm recording ("Helen's Holiday"), as well as three 45 rpm recordings with Cecil Roy and Betty Barrie: 1) Buddy's Butterfly 2) The Thistle/Buddy's Garden 3) Christmas Eve/Plasco Toys.
Compositions
Westbrook's compositions include:
Organ
- Andante Religioso
- Chanson Triste
- Concert Piece in D
- Dusk at Friendship Lake
- Here Comes Santa Claus
- Intermezzo
- Laughing Sprites
- Lento
- Melodie
- Menuett in Olden Style
- On the Ontonagon River
- Pastorale Scherzo
- Poem for Autumn
- Retrospection
- Waltz Circe
Vocal
- Alabaster
- Christ My Refuge (words by Mary Baker Eddy; music by Westbrook)
- Hindu Cradle Song
- If You Call Me
- Invincible (words by Sarojini Naidu; music by Westbrook)
- Magnificat (words by Helene Grossenbacher; music by Westbrook)
- March Beside Him, Lord
- Music I Heard With You (words by Conrad Aiken; music by Westbook)
- Six Indian Songs
- Solace (words by Josephine Hancock Logan; music by Westbrook)
- Wedding Prayer (words by Curt A. Mundstock; music by Westbook)
