Jessie Baetz
A middle-aged white woman with dark hair, wearing glasses
Jessie Baetz, from a 1936 immigration form
BornJessie Elizabeth Drummer
(1894-06-28)June 28, 1894
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
DiedNovember 28, 1980(1980-11-28) (aged 86)
New Paltz, New York
OccupationArtist, composer, and pianist
Spouse
Walter Baetz
​
​
(m. 1926; died 1978)​

Jessie Baetz (born Jessie Elizabeth Drummer;[1] June 28, 1894 – November 28, 1980)[2] was a Canadian-American artist, composer, and pianist.

Early life and education

Baetz was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada,[3] the daughter of John Drummer and Esther Ann Oughtred Drummer.[2][4] She studied[5] and taught at the Toronto Conservatory of Music.

Career

She immigrated to New York City, where 1930s census records list her occupation as painter. Her art was included in a Christmas exhibit at the Jumble Shop on West 8th Street.[6] She studied with modernist composer, Johanna Beyer,[7] and played in her concerts for the New York Composers' Forum. Baetz's music was influenced by Beyer and Henry Cowell's use of such techniques as tone clusters, polymeters, string piano, and playing the piano with forearms. Three of her works were performed at the Composers' Forum on December 15, 1937, where they were part of a program that also included music by Rudolph Forst and Harrison Kerr.[8][9]

Her visual art consisted of "painting sculptures or spatial creations", including colorful masks.[10] She exhibited her work at the Phoenicia Library in Phoenicia, New York in 1963,[11] 1966,[12] and 1970.[10]

Works

Baetz's only known compositions are the Two Compositions for Violin and Piano, Three Vocalizes for Soprano, and Six Dances for Percussion.[9] They were never published and the whereabouts of these or any of her other musical works are unknown.[13]

In 1936, she was one of the performers in recordings made for the New Music Quarterly of Bill Russell's Three Dance Movements: For Percussion Group and Wallingford Riegger's Evocation.[14]

Personal life

Jessie Drummer married fellow artist Walter Baetz in 1926.[10] They lived in Shandaken, New York. In 1961 they were both rescued after a carbon monoxide accident in their home.[15] Her husband died in 1978,[16] and she died in November 1980, at a nursing home in New Paltz, New York, at the age of 86.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Ontario Marriages, 1869-1927. FamilySearch. Retrieved April 6, 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 "Mrs. Jessie Baetz Had Been an Artist". Catskill Mountain News. December 4, 1980. Retrieved September 29, 2023 – via NYS Historic Newspapers.
  3. ↑ New York, Southern District, U.S District Court Naturalization Records, 1824-1946. FamilySearch. Retrieved April 6, 2021.
  4. ↑ "Esther Ann Drummer". The Toronto Star. 1942-10-27. p. 26. Retrieved 2023-09-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ Royal Conservatory of Music (May 1913). The Conservatory bi-monthly. Toronto, Conservatory of Music. p. 150 – via Internet Archive.
  6. ↑ "Art in Review: At the Jumble Shop", New York Times (Dec. 21, 1932): 17.
  7. ↑ De Graaf, Melissa J. (2008). ""Never Call Us Lady Composers": Gendered Receptions in the New York Composers' Forum, 1935-1940". American Music. 26 (3): 290–291. ISSN 0734-4392. JSTOR 40071709.
  8. ↑ de Graaf, Melissa J. (2013). The New York Composers' Forum concerts, 1935-1940. Rochester, NY : University of Rochester Press ; Woodbridge, Suffolk : Boydell & Brewer Limited. p. 101. ISBN 978-1-58046-426-0.
  9. 1 2 "Prize Quartet is Played". The New York Times. December 16, 1937. p. 34. Retrieved September 30, 2023.
  10. 1 2 3 "Art Show With Zing". The Kingston Daily Freeman. 1970-10-31. p. 35. Retrieved 2023-09-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ "An Art Exhibition". Margaretville Catskill Mountain News. October 31, 1963. p. 13. Retrieved September 29, 2023 – via NewspaperArchive.com.
  12. ↑ "Phoenicia Library has Art Exhibit". The Kingston Daily Freeman. 1966-06-22. p. 26. Retrieved 2023-09-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ de Graaf 2013, p. 101.
  14. ↑ "Three dance movements: for percussion group by William Russell. Evocation: (piano 4-hands) by Wallingford Riegger". NYPL Digital Collections. Retrieved 2023-09-29.
  15. ↑ "Neighbors Rescued Two from Monoxide". Margaretville Catskill Mountain News. May 26, 1961. p. 2. Retrieved September 29, 2023 – via NewspaperArchive.com.
  16. ↑ "Walter Baetz was Prominent Artist". Catskill Mountain News. November 16, 1978. p. 6. Retrieved September 29, 2023 – via NYS Historic Newspapers.
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