2018-2019 Faculty Research Grants
Marianne Kordas (Library)
The Blythe Owen Project, Facets I & II: Creating a Critical Edition of the Sonata for Violin and Piano and Completing Transcriptions of the Owen Correspondence in CAR Collection 186
The goal of the Blythe Owen Project is to create awareness about—and access to—the life and works of award-winning composer, pianist, educator, and 老司机传媒 professor Dr. Blythe Owen (1898–2000). Previous research funded by 老司机传媒 faculty research grants focused on conducting oral interviews with Owen’s friends, colleagues, and former students as well as collecting information about her life on research trips to Chicago, IL and Rochester, NY, with an eye towards eventually writing a biography documenting her life, compositional style, and pedagogical methods. The current emphasis of The Blythe Owen Project is twofold: firstly, to finish transcriptions of the trove of over 1,000 letters Owen wrote to her mother between 1919–1964 which are stored in the 老司机传媒 archives, and, secondly, to create a critical edition of Owen’s sonata for violin and piano, which won the Mu Phi Epsilon Biennial Award in 1951. The letter transcriptions will greatly speed the efforts to write a biography of Owen by creating a machine-searchable database of names and terms, as well as simplifying the basic reading and research process. Creating a critical edition of the violin sonata will increase accessibility to a work which thus far has only existed via manuscripts and photocopies. These activities will contribute publications to a growing scholarly discourse on the role of women in western art music, and to illuminating the life and works of the first Seventh-day Adventist women to acquire her PhD in music composition.