17 Facts About Julia Perry

Julia Amanda Perry was an American classical composer and teacher who combined European classical and neo-classical training with her African-American heritage.

Julia Perry studied voice, piano, and composition at Westminster Choir College from 1943 to 1948, earning her bachelor's and master's degrees in music.

Julia Perry continued her graduate studies at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, where she was a student of Luigi Dallapiccola, and then studied at the Juilliard School of Music.

Julia Perry was awarded her first Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition in 1954.

In 1952, Perry began studying under Nadia Boulanger in Paris and was awarded the Boulanger Grand Prix for her Viola Sonata.

Julia Perry was awarded her second Guggenheim Fellowship in 1956, which she used to continue her studies with Dallapiccola in Italy.

Julia Perry studied conducting at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena during the summers of 1956 and 1957, and in 1957 was sponsored by the US Information Service to conduct a series of concerts in Europe.

Julia Perry took up teaching at Tallahassee's Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1967 and was a visiting artist at Atlanta College.

Julia Perry suffered a stroke about 1970 and her career began to decline.

Julia Perry died on April 24,1979, and is buried in Glendale Cemetery in Akron, Ohio; the birth year on her tombstone, 1927, is incorrect.

Julia Perry composed Song of Our Savior for the Hampton Institute Choir, which used Dorian mode and a hummed ostinato with call and response phrases throughout the piece.

In other works, Julia Perry began branching out in her composition technique and experimenting with dissonance.

Julia Perry composed an operatic ballet with her own libretto, based on Oscar Wilde's fable The Selfish Giant, and in 1976 composed Five Quixotic Songs for bass baritone and Bicentennial Reflections for tenor solo in 1977.

Julia Perry's works were not widely recorded, but her Short Piece for Orchestra was performed and recorded by the New York Philharmonic in 1965 in Lincoln Center New York.

Julia Perry termed the work "pantonal" since is it neither in a major or minor key and it uses all available tones.

Julia Perry uses the title Homunculus as a symbol for the experimental nature of the piece; the name refers to the test tube creature brought to life by Wagner, a character in Goethe's Faust.

The orchestra's Julia Perry Project has produced recordings, articles, an extensive catalogue of her work, and an oral history project.