Louise Talma, from Arcachon to New York, via Fontainebleau

Between France and the United States

“Born in Arcachon on October 31, 1906”. That’s what Louise Talma has always said, that’s probably what her mother told her. But ultimately nothing is less certain! She may have been born in France, maybe in the United States, according to the New York census of 1920, she would have been born in New York, as for her year of birth, according to different archives, we find both 1905 and 1906 or 1907… On his father, we have hardly any information, the name of Talma being a pseudonym taken by his singer mother at the beginning of the century… Difficult to find one’s way… But the most important is that little Louise is certainly very gifted; at 16, she entered the Institute of Musical Arts (now the Juilliard School) where she studied piano and composition. In 1926, at age 20, she spent her first summer in Fontainebleau, at the American Conservatory; it is there that she meets Nadia Boulanger, who will become for her a kind of mentor, and certainly a model…

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Read also :
Ellen Taafe Zwilich, first everywhere

Musical programming

Louise Talma (1906-1996)
Sonatas n ° 1 (1943) I. Largo- Allegro
Theresa Bogard, piano
New World Recors NWCR833

Louise Talma (1906-1996)
Land of France (1945) Sonnet (Joachim du Bellay)
Paul Sperry, tenor, Irma Vallecillo, piano
Albany Records TROY058

Louise Talma (1906-1996)
Holy Sonnets (1951-55, poems by John Donne) II. Annunciation
Gregg Smith Singers, direction Gregg Smith
Vox Box CD3X-3037

Louise Talma (1906-1996)
Pied Beauty (1949, Poem by Gerald Manley Hopkins)
Paul Sperry, tenor, Irma Vallecillo, piano
Albany Records TROY081

Louise Talma (1906-1996)
Four-Handed Fun (1939)
Iris Graffman-Wenglin, Ruth Lomon, piano
Navona NV6254

Louise Talma (1906-1996)
Terre de France (1943-45) “Mother, here are your sons” (Charles Péguy) Paul Sperry, tenor, Irma Vallecillo, piano
Albany Records TROY058

Louise Talma (1906-1996)
Sonatas No. 1 (1943) III. Soon
Theresa Bogard, piano
New World Recors NWCR833

Louise Talma (1906-1996)
Six Studies (1954) II. Prestissimo
Theresa Bogard, piano
New World Recors NWCR833

Louise Talma (1906-1996)
The Ambient Air (1980-83) I. Echo Chamber
Ambache Together
Naxos 8.559236

Louise Talma (1906-1996)
Variations on 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, for tenor, oboe and piano (1979) Poem by Wallace Stevens
Paul Sperry, tenor, Ambache Ensemble
Naxos 8.559236

Louise Talma (1906-1996)
The Ambient Air (1980-83) II. Driving rain
Ambache Together
Naxos 8.559236

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