Loading AI tools
American arts administrator From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Katherine Maria Frazier (January 28, 1882 – 1944), also seen as Katharine Frazier, was an American musician and arts administrator. In 1923 she opened a theatre in Cummington, Massachusetts, which in 1927 became part of Frazier's Cummington School of the Arts, offering summer residencies, camps, and a performance venue for visual artists, musicians, and writers.
Katherine Frazier | |
---|---|
Born | January 28, 1882 Slingerlands, New York |
Died | 1944 Cummington, Massachusetts |
Other names | Katharine Frazier |
Occupation(s) | Musician, educator, arts administrator |
Relatives | John I. Slingerland (great-uncle) |
Frazier was born in Slingerlands, New York, and raised in Amsterdam, New York, the daughter of Leonard A. Frazier and Catharine A. Slingerland Frazier. Her father was a physician.[1] Her mother's uncle was abolitionist Congressman John I. Slingerland. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1902.[2][3] She studied music in Paris in 1908 and 1909.[4]
Frazier was a concert harpist,[5][6][7] a member of the Carlos Salzedo Harp Ensemble,[8][9] and director of the Trio Eleu,[10] the Smith College Harp Ensemble[11] and the Phaneian Harp Ensemble.[12] She was also a pianist and organist.[1] She worked at Smith College,[13][14] as head of the harp and piano programs.[15] She was assistant to editor Carlos Salzedo at the Eolian Review,[16] and general secretary of the National Association of Harpists.[17]
In 1923 Frazier opened The Music Box, also known as Playhouse-in-the-Hills, in Cummington, Massachusetts,[3] which became part of Frazier's progressive Cummington School of the Arts.[13][18][19] She intended to provide a pastoral setting and minimal distractions[20] for summer residencies,[21] classes,[22] camps, and a performance venue for visual artists, musicians, and writers including Diane Arbus,[23][24] Amy Clampitt,[25] Chaim Gross,[26] Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, and Marianne Moore.[27]
Frazier and Harry Duncan were directors of the Cummington Press,[28] a small but influential press[29] that published works by William Carlos Williams,[30] Robert Lowell,[31] Wallace Stevens, and other poets.[32][33] In the early 1940s, she sold her concert harp to fund new equipment for the press.[34]
Frazier died from cancer in 1944, at the age of 62, in Cummington.[34][36] There was a memorial chamber music concert at the Playhouse-in-the-Hills after her death.[37]
The records of the Cummington School of the Arts from Frazier's years are in special collections at University of Massachusetts Amherst.[27] There are also papers related to Frazier in the Cummington Press records at Emory University.[36] The Cummington Community of the Arts program closed in 1993,[38] and Cummington Press moved to Iowa in 1956 before it closed in 1997;[34] but the Community House still stands and offers art exhibits and other cultural events.[39] There is a Frazier Lane in Cummington.[40]
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.