Jessie Baetz

{{Short description|American composer and artist (1894–1980)}} {{Multiple issues| {{more citations needed|date=September 2023}} {{No significant coverage|date=September 2023}} }} {{Infobox writer  | name = Jessie Baetz | honorific_suffix = | image = JessieBaetz1936.png | image_size = | image_upright = | alt = A middle-aged white woman with dark hair, wearing glasses | caption = Jessie Baetz, from a 1936 immigration form | native_name = | native_name_lang = | pseudonym = | birth_name = Jessie Elizabeth Drummer | birth_date = {{Birth date|1894|06|28}} | birth_place = Toronto, Ontario, Canada | death_date = {{Death date and age|1980|11|28|1894|06|28}} | death_place = New Paltz, New York | resting_place = | occupation = Artist, composer, and pianist | language = | nationality = | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = | period = | genre =  | subject =  | movement = | notable_works = | spouse = {{marriage|Walter Baetz|1926|1978|end=died}} | partner =  | children = | relatives = | awards = | signature = | signature_alt = | years_active = | module = | website =  | portaldisp =  }}

'''Jessie Baetz''' (born '''Jessie Elizabeth Drummer''';<ref name="OM">[https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKMR-Q2ST Ontario Marriages, 1869-1927]. FamilySearch. Retrieved April 6, 2021.</ref> June 28, 1894 – November 28, 1980)<ref name=":1" /> was a Canadian-American artist, composer, and pianist.

== Early life and education == Baetz was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada,<ref name="USDCNR">[https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QP8V-HBQ2 New York, Southern District, U.S District Court Naturalization Records, 1824-1946.] FamilySearch. Retrieved April 6, 2021.</ref> the daughter of John Drummer and Esther Ann Oughtred Drummer.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite news |date=1942-10-27 |title=Esther Ann Drummer |pages=26 |work=The Toronto Star |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-toronto-daily-star-esther-ann-drumme/132648715/ |access-date=2023-09-29 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> She studied<ref>{{Cite book |last=Royal Conservatory of Music |url=http://archive.org/details/no7conservatory11v12toro |title=The Conservatory bi-monthly |date=May 1913 |publisher=Toronto, Conservatory of Music |pages=150 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref> and taught at the Toronto Conservatory of Music.{{Citation needed |date=September 2023}}

== Career == She immigrated to New York City, where 1930s census records list her occupation as painter.{{Citation needed |date=September 2023}} Her art was included in a Christmas exhibit at the Jumble Shop on West 8th Street.<ref>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1932/12/21/105895051.html?pageNumber=17 "Art in Review: At the Jumble Shop"], ''New York Times'' (Dec. 21, 1932): 17.</ref> She studied with modernist composer, Johanna Beyer,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=De Graaf |first=Melissa J. |date=2008 |title="Never Call Us Lady Composers": Gendered Receptions in the New York Composers' Forum, 1935-1940 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40071709 |journal=American Music |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=290–291 |jstor=40071709 |issn=0734-4392}}</ref> and played in her concerts for the New York Composers' Forum. Baetz's music was influenced by Beyer and Henry Cowell's use of such techniques as tone clusters, polymeters, string piano, and playing the piano with forearms. Three of her works were performed at the Composers' Forum on December 15, 1937, where they were part of a program that also included music by Rudolph Forst and Harrison Kerr.<ref>{{cite book |last1=de Graaf |first1=Melissa J. |title=The New York Composers' Forum concerts, 1935-1940 |date=2013 |publisher=Rochester, NY : University of Rochester Press; Woodbridge, Suffolk : Boydell & Brewer Limited |isbn=978-1-58046-426-0 |page=101 |url=https://archive.org/details/newyorkcomposers0000graa/page/100/mode/2up?view=theater}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite news |date=December 16, 1937 |title=Prize Quartet is Played |pages=34 |work=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/12/16/96766351.html?pageNumber=34 |access-date=September 30, 2023}}</ref>

Her visual art consisted of "painting sculptures or spatial creations", including colorful masks.<ref name=":0" /> She exhibited her work at the Phoenicia Library in Phoenicia, New York in 1963,<ref>{{Cite news |date=October 31, 1963 |title=An Art Exhibition |pages=13 |work=Margaretville Catskill Mountain News |url=https://www.newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-oct-31-1963-4089770/ |access-date=September 29, 2023 |via=NewspaperArchive.com}}</ref> 1966,<ref>{{Cite news |date=1966-06-22 |title=Phoenicia Library has Art Exhibit |pages=26 |work=The Kingston Daily Freeman |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-kingston-daily-freeman-phoenicia-lib/132631593/ |access-date=2023-09-29 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> and 1970.<ref name=":0" />

==Works== Baetz's only known compositions are the ''Two Compositions for Violin and Piano'', ''Three Vocalizes for Soprano'', and ''Six Dances for Percussion''.<ref name=":2" /> They were never published and the whereabouts of these or any of her other musical works are unknown.{{sfn|de Graaf|2013|p=101}}

In 1936, she was one of the performers in recordings made for the ''New Music Quarterly'' of Bill Russell's ''Three Dance Movements: For Percussion Group'' and Wallingford Riegger's ''Evocation''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Three dance movements: for percussion group by William Russell. Evocation: (piano 4-hands) by Wallingford Riegger |url=https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/08ff3470-3b99-0134-d056-60f81dd2b63c |access-date=2023-09-29 |website=NYPL Digital Collections |language=en}}</ref>

== Personal life == Jessie Drummer married fellow artist Walter Baetz in 1926.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |date=1970-10-31 |title=Art Show With Zing |pages=35 |work=The Kingston Daily Freeman |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-kingston-daily-freeman-art-show-with/132629502/ |access-date=2023-09-29 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> They lived in Shandaken, New York. In 1961 they were both rescued after a carbon monoxide accident in their home.<ref>{{Cite news |date=May 26, 1961 |title=Neighbors Rescued Two from Monoxide |pages=2 |work=Margaretville Catskill Mountain News |url=https://www.newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-may-26-1961-4089862/ |access-date=September 29, 2023 |via=NewspaperArchive.com}}</ref> Her husband died in 1978,<ref>{{Cite news |date=November 16, 1978 |title=Walter Baetz was Prominent Artist |pages=6 |work=Catskill Mountain News |url=https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=cmn19781116-01.1.6&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN---------- |access-date=September 29, 2023 |via=NYS Historic Newspapers}}</ref> and she died in November 1980, at a nursing home in New Paltz, New York, at the age of 86.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |date=December 4, 1980 |title=Mrs. Jessie Baetz Had Been an Artist |work=Catskill Mountain News |url=https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=cmn19801204-01.1.6&srpos=1&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-%22Jessie+Baetz%22--------- |access-date=September 29, 2023 |via=NYS Historic Newspapers}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist|2}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baetz, Jessie}} Category:20th-century American classical composers Category:Modernist composers Category:American women classical composers Category:20th-century Canadian classical composers Category:The Royal Conservatory of Music alumni Category:Canadian emigrants to the United States Category:Artists from Toronto Category:Artists from New York City Category:Musicians from Toronto Category:Composers from New York City Category:20th-century American women musicians Category:20th-century Canadian women composers Category:1894 births Category:Canadian women classical composers Category:1980 deaths