Center for Black Music Research
Personal papers and manuscr... Helen Walker-Hill papers Finding Aid, or Guide to the CollectionTitle: Helen Walker-Hill papers, 1887-2001
ID: 1000/WALKH_1020
Primary Creator: Walker-Hill, Helen (1936-2013)
Extent: 43.0 Boxes
Date Acquired: 00/00/1995
The Helen Walker-Hill Collection consists of musical scores, correspondence, newspaper articles, reference notes, photographs, biographical information and computer diskettes. The bulk of this collection resides in the more than 800 musical scores by black women composers in original, published, and photocopied formats. Included within this part of the collection are the compositions by Philippa Schuyler, from the age of 6 until her early death at age 35, and Julia Perry, both before and after her strokes.
Among the correspondence folders, photocopies of the voluminous correspondence between Margaret Bonds and Langston Hughes from 1935 until Hughes’ death in 1967 are prominent. Other noteworthy correspondents communicating with Walker-Hill include Undine Smith Moore, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Tania Léon, and Wayne Shirley. The copies of newspaper clippings include articles from the late 19th century issues of The Indianapolis Freeman and early 20th century papers such as The Chicago Defender, The Crisis, and The Interstate Tattler.
Helen Siemens Walker-Hill was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, on May 26, 1936 to George and Margaret (Toews) Siemens. Walker-Hill received her early musical training from her mother, Margaret Siemens, and continued piano studies with Emma Endres Kountz in Toledo, Ohio. In 1957 she received a Bachelor of Art degree in Spanish, German, and French languages and literature from the University of Toledo, Ohio. Walker-Hill is a certified secondary teacher in the state of Ohio. From 1957–1958 she was a Fulbright fellow, studied with Nadia Boulanger, and received a Diplome from École Normale de Musique in Paris in 1958. On July 23, 1960 she married George Walker; they had two sons, Gregory and Ian. In 1965 Walker-Hill received her Master of Arts degree in musicology from Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts. Walker-Hill divorced George Walker in February 1975. In 1981 she received her D.M.A. in piano performance at the University of Colorado and on November 27, 1981 she married Robert Hadley Hill; they divorced in June 1991.
From 1983–1990 she was an assistant adjunct professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 1992 she authored the book Piano Music by Black Women Composers published by Greenwood Press, and served as the compiler and editor for the music anthology Black Women Composers: A Century of Piano Music 1893–1990. (Bryn Mawr, Pa.: Hildegard Publishing Company, 1992). In an effort to continue her scholarly research on black women composers she applied for and received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1993. She served as the visiting assistant professor at the University of Wyoming at Laramie from 1993–1998 and during that time, published the monograph Music by Black Women Composers (Chicago: Center for Black Music Research, 1995). She served as project director and pianist for the CD recording Kaleidoscope: Music by African-American Women (Leonarda LE 339) in collaboration with her son, violinist Gregory Walker (1995). Prior to this recording Walker-Hill and her son Gregory Walker were the performing Walker Duo from 1983 to 1994.She also was the scholar-in-residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City in 1995–1996. In 1998 she was awarded a Rockefeller fellowship for research at the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College in Chicago.
She has had numerous articles published in American Music Teacher, American Music Research Center Journal, Women of Note Quarterly, and Black Music Research Journal. In the International Dictionary of Black Composers (1999), Walker-Hill provided the entries on Amanda Aldridge [aka Montague Ring], Valerie Capers, Rachel Eubanks, Dorothy Rudd Moore, Undine Smith Moore, Irene Britton Smith, and Errollyn Wallen. She has also published editions of music by Irene Briton Smith, Rachel Eubanks, Nora Holt and Dorothy Rudd Moore in her series Music by African-American Women. In 2002 her study of black women composers From Spirituals to Symphonies: African-American Women Composers and Their Music was published by Greenwood Press. In 2003 the collection Black Women Composers: Twentieth Century Music for Piano and Strings was published by Hildegard Publishing Company. Apart from the grants and fellowships already mentioned, Dr. Walker-Hill has received others from the Newberry Library, the Wyoming Council for the Arts and the Thanks Be to Grandmother Winifred Foundation. Since 1990 Dr. Walker-Hill has continued her research as an independent scholar and resides in Evergreen, Colorado.
Repository: Center for Black Music Research
Access Restrictions: None
Use Restrictions: Restricted material housed in specially marked folders
Physical Access Note: Includes musical scores, photographs, cassettes, and computer disks
Acquisition Source: Walker-Hill, Helen
Finding Aid Revision History: Minor finding aid edits by Adam Melville March 13, 2018.
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