Irene Britton Smith papers

Overview

Abstract

Scope and Contents

Biographical Note

Administrative Information

Detailed Description

Scores by Smith

Scrapbook, photographs and ephemera

Composition exercises and notebooks

Correspondence and personal papers

Scores and materials on other composers

Sound recordings

Collection of Books and Music Manuals

Published  Music by Other Composers

Contact us about this collection

Title: Irene Britton Smith papers, 1930-1990

ID: 1000/SMITH_1039

Primary Creator: Smith, Irene Britton

Extent: 22.0 Boxes

Date Acquired: 00/00/1998

Most of the collection consists of Smith’s compositions, dated late 1940s to 1950s, with most undated. She wrote music for orchestra, solo violin, and piano, as well as choral works, spiritual arrangements, and art songs. Some of her works appear to be intended for children and were perhaps written for her students. Her papers contain a folder of poems and texts she apparently considered for musical settings, as well as correspondence from Countee Cullen concerning her request to set his poem “Leaves.”

Her correspondents include Chicago composer Florence B. Price and Stella Roberts, her composition teacher at the American Conservatory of Music. Most of the correspondence she kept is in her scrapbook, along with programs from concerts in which her works were performed and other items about her activities as a teacher and musician.

In addition to her scrapbook she kept a file of clippings and programs on composer and conductor Margaret Harris (1943–2000), also a Chicago native. The file on Harris and other loose items laid into the back of the scrapbook, plus items received separately are filed in separate files.

An interesting component of the collection are the various composition exercises and reworkings of compositions by other composers that Smith retained after her studies. These, along with her class notes, which she also kept, would be useful for a study of her development as a composer, as would a typed draft of an undated letter to her teacher at the American Conservatory, Stella Roberts, in which Smith states her ideas about music.

The collection also contains her textbooks and books on theory and composition, which have been inventoried, and her collection of music by other composers, some of which date from the 1920s and 1930s. Music by black composers and association copies are listed in the full finding aid. Appended to the collection are nine boxes of published music which have been filed alphabetically by composer but are not inventoried.

Repository: Center for Black Music Research

Access Restrictions: None

Use Restrictions: None

Acquisition Source: Butler, Eva S. on behalf of Irene Britton Smith