{{Short description|American pianist and composer (1889–1965)}} {{Infobox musical artist | name = Clarence Loomis | birth_date = December 13, 1889 | death_date = July 3, 1965 | occupation = Composer, pianist, and teacher | birth_place = Sioux Falls, South Dakota | genre = Opera | instrument = Piano }}
'''Clarence Loomis''' (December 13, 1889 {{spaced ndash}}July 3, 1965), an American composer, pianist, and teacher, was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|date=1960-07-10|title=Famed opera composer decides to build home in Rio del Mar|url=https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/show/82135#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0|url-status=live|access-date=2022-01-08|website=Santa Cruz Sentinel|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220108113425/https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/show/82135 |archive-date=2022-01-08 }}</ref>
== Biography == He studied piano and composition at the American Conservatory in Chicago and also privately in Vienna. Loomis taught at Butler University in Indianapolis, at Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and at the American Conservatory in Chicago. He composed 11 operas, numerous choral works, ballets, tone poems, oratorios and other works. His compositions include ''Alabado Sea'', an oratorio, ''Revival'', a radio opera, ''Oak Street Beach'', a ballet, and ''Macbeth'', a symphonic tone poem. Loomis spent the last five years of his life in Aptos, California, near Santa Cruz.<ref name=":0"/><ref name="Clarence Loomis 1965">"Clarence Loomis, Composer, Dies", ''Santa Cruz Sentinel'', July 4, 1965.</ref>
== Operas == Loomis's operas include ''A Night in Avignon'', based on the life of the Italian lyric poet Petrarch, ''Dun an Oir (Castle of Gold)'', based on Gaelic folklore, ''The Fall of the House of Usher'',<ref>{{Cite web|title=Composer Sort Query: g_composers / Composer: Clarence Loomis / Genre Facet: Oratorios / Librettist / Literary Source: Edgar Allan Poe - Opening Night! - Spotlight at Stanford Search Results|url=https://exhibits.stanford.edu/operadata/catalog?f%5BcomposerSort_query%5D%5B%5D=g_composers&f%5Bcomposer_ssim%5D%5B%5D=Clarence+Loomis&f%5Bgenre_facet%5D%5B%5D=Oratorios&f%5Blibrettist-literary-source_ssim%5D%5B%5D=Edgar+Allan+Poe&per_page=50&sort=author_sort+asc,+title_sort+asc|access-date=2022-01-08|website=exhibits.stanford.edu}}</ref> based on the tale by Edgar Allan Poe, ''David'', a biblical opera, and ''Yolanda of Cyprus''.
''Yolanda of Cyprus'' was premiered in 1929 by Vladimir Rosing's American Opera Company and performed in 14 cities in the United States and Canada. The opera was the winner of the David Bispham Medal awarded to American opera composers of note. The libretto for ''Yolanda of Cyprus'' was by writer Cale Young Rice, who also collaborated with Loomis on other projects.<ref>Ellsworth, Edward. ''American Opera and Its Composers'', pg. 299., Philadelphia: Theodore Presser Co. (1927)</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Griffel|first=Margaret Ross|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y8bQAwAAQBAJ&dq=Clarence+Loomis+opera&pg=PA553|title=Operas in English: A Dictionary|date=2012-12-21|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=978-0-8108-8325-3|pages=553|language=en}}</ref> Sets were designed by Robert Edmond Jones. The opera got mixed reviews. At its American premiere in Chicago, Herman Devries of the Evening American called the opera “a monument in American music,” proclaiming it “the one and only American opera of our generation."<ref>“Rice and Loomis’ Opera Called Best Serious American Work.” The Courier Journal [Louisville, KY], 12 Oct, 1929</ref> Others characterized the score as a pale imitation of Debussy and Wagner and the libretto passed over as " conventional."<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Flora|first1=Joseph M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EpX4H4JdZOgC&dq=Clarence+Loomis+opera&pg=PA383|title=Southern Writers: A New Biographical Dictionary|last2=Vogel|first2=Amber|date=1980-09-01|publisher=LSU Press|isbn=978-0-8071-0390-6|pages=383|language=en}}</ref>
== The Flapper and the Quarterback == During the 1920s, the dancer Ruth Page (ballerina) commissioned Loomis to write a distinctively new kind of American ballet for her international tour. ''The Flapper and the Quarterback'' toured Asia and Russia with Page's company, and was a featured part of the festivities surrounding the coronation of Japan's Emperor Hirohito in 1928. The choreography was influenced broadly by the popular dance styles of the Jazz Age.<ref>''American Opera and Its Composers'', pg. 299.</ref>
== Susanna Don't You Cry == Loomis was commissioned to write a musical based on the life of American songwriter Stephen Foster. ''Susanna Don't You Cry'' was produced in New York at the Martin Beck Theater in 1939.<ref name="Clarence Loomis 1965"/>
== Relation to Abraham Lincoln == Clarence Loomis was related by marriage through his father's first cousin to President Abraham Lincoln.<ref>''Washington Evening Star'', January 19, 1930. pg. 56.</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
Category:1889 births Category:1965 deaths Category:People from Sioux Falls, South Dakota Category:20th-century American pianists Category:Jazz musicians from South Dakota Category:American male jazz composers Category:20th-century American male composers Category:20th-century American jazz composers Category:20th-century American male pianists