Description
Papers of Santa Barbara-based composer Mildred Couper an early proponent of quarter-tone music. The collection includes musical
scores, photographs, newspaper clippings, correspondence (including correspondence with her Husband Richard Couper and grandfather
Thomas Ball), personal writings, financial documents, concert programs, recordings and other documents.
Background
Mildred Couper was born in 1887 in Buenos Aires to British parents. She began her formal musical training at the age of 13
as a pianist at the Williams Conservatory in Buenos Aires. Couper graduated from the Karlsruhe Conservatory in Baden, Germany
in 1907. She also studied with piano with Moszkowski, Sgambati, and Alfred Cortot in Paris, Rome, and New York, respectively.
Couper studied art in Paris at the Grand Chaumiere and at another private art school run by Beronneau, where she met her husband,
artist Richard. The couple was married in 1910 and lived in Rome until 1915, when World War I brought them to New York. Mr.
Couper died there of influenza in 1917. Mrs. Couper taught piano at the Mannes School of Music. In 1927, Mrs. Couper moved,
with her children Clive and Rosalind, to Santa Barbara, California. She began teaching at the Cate School and the Santa Barbara
School for Girls, as well as maintaining her own private piano studio. Couper was also influential in founding the Music Academy
of the West, where she taught theory and harmony courses. In addition, she remained active as a solo and chamber pianist and
served as a critic for the Santa Barbara News-Press for 16 years. As a composer, Mildred Couper is best known for her experiments
with quarter-tone music. Her quarter-tone music was first heard in Xanadu, incidental music for the Santa Barbara performances
of Eugene O'Neill's play Marco Millions. Other quarter-tone works by Couper include Rumba, Dirge, and Anacapa. Couper's orchestral
arrangement of her Variations on "The Irish Washerwoman" was performed by the Werner Janssen Symphony. Ingolf Dahl also conducted
some of her works at the "Evenings on the Roof" concerts in Los Angeles. Couper's ouvre includes chamber works, piano duets,
solo piano pieces, vocal works, and several orchestral works. She died in Santa Barbara in 1974.
Restrictions
Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Research Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish
or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Research Collections. Permission for publication
is given on behalf of the Department of Special Research Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended
to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.