Carlisle Sessions Floyd was an American composer primarily known for his operas.
16 Facts About Carlisle Floyd
2.
Carlisle Floyd's best known opera, Susannah, is based on a story from the Biblical Apocrypha, transferred to contemporary rural Tennessee, and written for a Southern dialect.
3.
Carlisle Floyd co-founded the Houston Opera Studio for the training of young singers.
4.
Carlisle Floyd's father was his namesake and a Methodist minister at the local church; on both sides his family was descended from among the first European immigrants to the Carolinas.
5.
Carlisle Floyd had a sister, Ermine, along with a sizable extended family.
6.
Carlisle Floyd attended Converse College of Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1944, studying piano with composer Ernst Bacon.
7.
Carlisle Floyd followed Bacon to Syracuse and received a Bachelor of Music in 1946.
8.
Carlisle Floyd stayed there for thirty years, eventually becoming Professor of Composition.
9.
Carlisle Floyd received a master's degree at Syracuse in 1949.
10.
Carlisle Floyd revised it in 1989 for performances at four major opera houses in the US, beginning at Houston Grand Opera.
11.
Carlisle Floyd's next opera was The Sojourner and Mollie Sinclair, which was a comedy around Scottish settlers of the Carolinas.
12.
Carlisle Floyd composed Willie Stark for Houston, where it was first heard in 1981 in a staging by Harold Prince.
13.
Carlisle Floyd had composed a Piano Sonata in the 1950s for Rudolf Firkusny, who played it at a Carnegie Hall recital, but it languished until Daniell Revenaugh recorded it in 2009 at the age of 74.
14.
Carlisle Floyd died on September 30,2021 in Tallahassee, at the age of 95.
15.
Carlisle Floyd had no children, but was survived by four nieces, the daughters of Ermine.
16.
Carlisle Floyd is primarily known for his operas, which make up the bulk of his compositional output.