Tui St. George Tucker

Lorraine "Tui" St. George Tucker (November 25, 1924 – April 21, 2004) was an American microtonal composer and recorder player and instrument developer.

Tui St. George Tucker at Camp Catawba

Early life

Tucker was born in Fullerton, Orange County, California, the daughter of an English father and a mother from New Zealand. She attended Eagle Rock High School in northeast Los Angeles, California, graduating in 1941. She then attended Occidental College in Los Angeles from 1941 to 1944. She is named for the tui, a bird native to New Zealand, where her mother was born.

Career

She moved to New York City in 1946, working as a composer, conductor, and recorder player, and spending most of her professional life in New York City. Her compositions often feature microtonality and are strongly influenced by early music. She developed special recorders with extra holes, as well as special fingerings for the recorder to allow for the playing of quarter tones. Her Indian Summer: Three Microtonal Antiphons on Psalm Texts for two baritones and chamber ensemble combines the use of quarter tones with a Latin text.

From 1947 to 1970 she spent her summers as the music director of Camp Catawba for Boys, located near the Blue Ridge Parkway on the Boone side of Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Pianist Grete Sultan also worked there during several summers.

Personal life

In 1985, Tui inherited the camp grounds from her lifelong partner, poet and scholar Vera Lachmann (1904–1985), who had founded the camp in 1944, and lived there year-round from then until her death on April 21, 2004.

Legacy

Her works have been performed by such performers as the Kohon Quartet, pianists Grete Sultan and Loretta Goldberg, and recorder player Pete Rose.

Discography
  • Indian Summer: Three Microtonal Antiphons on Psalm Texts. LP. Greenville, Maine: Opus One, [1984?].
  • String Quartet Number One. LP. Greenville, Maine: Opus One, [1986?].
  • Herzliebster Jesu. CD. Harriman, New York: Spectrum, 1988. (Title of disc: Buxtehude, Moondog & Co., performed by Paul Jordan, Schuke organ.)
  • Second Piano Sonata, "The Peyote." CD. Greenville, Maine: Opus One, [1991?]. (Title of disc: Soundbridge, performed by pianist Loretta Goldberg.)
  • The Music of Tui St. George Tucker (1998). Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Centaur.

Further reading
  • Bredow, Moritz von. 2012. Rebellische Pianistin. Das Leben der Grete Sultan zwischen Berlin und New York. Mainz: Schott Music. ISBN 978-3-7957-0800-9 (This book contains many aspects of the lives and the art of Tui St George Tucker, Vera Lachmann and Grete Sultan).
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