[Art Song] [Los Angeles] Newsom, Hugh R.

Concert Songs for Contralto, Compiled for RoseMarie Di Carlo [Autograph Manuscript Score]

Los Angeles: 1941. 11x9" [11] sheets plus title, containing 11 songs, all but 2 recto only. Ink manuscript on card staff paper. A few notes in pencil, presumably by Di Carlo. Each song signed in ink by Newsom with copyright date, a few sheets also bearing his embossed copyright stamp. Brad bound in black paper covers which are worn and stained. Contents a bit toned else clean and very good.

An interesting manuscript score, being a compilation of songs by Baltimore and later Los Angeles area organist and composer, Hugh R. Newsom (1891-1978). These 11 songs were copyrighted by Newsom between 1930-1933, compiled, and inscribed to a RoseMarie Di Carlo in Los Angeles, 1941. The score consists of melody lines only, in keys for contralto voice, being poems set to music with texts by Frances Cornford, Sara Teasdale, Laurence Hope [Violet Nicolson], Oscar Wilde, and others.

The BYU special collections website, where Newsom's papers are housed, states he produced more than four hundred compositions including larger works performed in Boston, Oberlin, and other large centers. He gave organ recitals and directed choral festivals and was highly critically acclaimed. We find him mentioned in Los Angeles area papers as the new director of music at Temple Baptist church as early as 1943.

We find RoseMarie Di Carlo's (1910-2002) obit in the Los Angeles Times:

"RoseMarie was a talented child, who played several instruments and had a lovely singing voice. As a teenager she won a talent contest sponsored by a Seattle radio station. Out of over 2,000 entrants she was awarded first place. As the winner she won a trip to ''Hollywood" and a screen test. Once she went off to Hollywood, she never moved back to her hometown of Seattle, Washington. RoseMarie was a member of the American Guild of Variety Artists, Screen Actors Guild, the American Guild of Musical Artists, and also appeared in many stage plays, and movies."

. Item #6980

Price: $150.00

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