Katherine Hooveraus modern

Katherine Hoover

Life

Hoover was born in Elkins, West Virginia, on December 2, 1937. Her mother was a painter/artist and editor, and her father was a biochemist. Her family lived in Washington, D.C., then moved to Philadelphia during World War II. She attended school in Philadelphia.

She remembered hearing Mozart’s music on a record player when she was three years old. She also recalled reading music as early as four years old, before she could read words. Her parents supported her artistic interests, rescuing a piano being disposed of by a neighbor and starting her at piano lessons at five years old. She began flute lessons at age eight. During this time, she discovered that she had perfect-pitch. During interviews, she has shared she received “mediocre music instruction” during her early years.

Hoover began her academic studies at the University of Rochester in 1955. After two years of general studies she was accepted to Eastman School of Music, where she studied with flutist Joseph Mariano, and began studying composition. She graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Music Theory and a Performer’s Certificate in Flute in 1959. Unfortunately, her composition classes left a bad impression. Hoover comments, “There were no women involved with composition at all. [I got] rather discouraged – being the only woman in my classes, not being paid attention to and so forth.”

Hoover attended the Yale Summer Sessions in 1960 and 1961, where she studied flute, theory, and composition. During this time, she also studied with flutist William Kincaid in Philadelphia. She later wrote that she owed ” much of her success to her mentor, William Kincaid, teaching her more about music than any other composer”.

The first publication of her work was Three Carols (1972) for choir and flute, published by Carl Fischer.

Hoover was honored as a finalist for the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award’s Outstanding New American Chamber Work award (1978). Her successes continued, becoming a finalist once again and being awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Composer’s Fellowship (1979).

Of her compositions she wrote “I have feelings of pride for the successes writing works for specific performers using other instruments…Stitch-te Naku for Cello and Orchestra, for cellist Sharon Robinson and Clarinet Concerto, for jazz clarinetist Eddie Daniels.”

Hoover co-founded Papagena Press in 1988 with her husband (Richard Goodwin, whom she married in 1985) to publish her works. The first piece to be published was Kokopeli (1990), a work for solo flute inspired by the Hopi tribe and the American Southwest. It won the National Flute Association’s Newly Published Music Competition (1991). This was Hoover’s second of six NFA Newly Published Music awards. She wrote that “Out of all of my achievements in music, I was overcome with the success of Kokopeli.”

Source Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Hoover