Dorothy Rudd Moore

Dorothy Rudd Moore is celebrated for her immense musicianship as a singer and multi-instrumentalist. A prolific composer, Moore wrote dozens of vocal works, including an opera titled Frederick Douglass, for which she also wrote the libretto.

Photo: Dorothy Rudd Moore; Photo by Bert Andrews, from ACA Archives, University of Maryland Special Collections in Performing Arts

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About

Dorothy Rudd Moore was born in New Castle, Delaware in 1940 to a musical family. Her mother was a singer and encouraged her to pursue studies in music from an early age. She studied piano at the Wilmington School of Music and played clarinet in her high school band, which was nearly all male at the time. She cites witnessing a Philadelphia Orchestra concert with Eugene Ormandy conducting as a formative musical experience while growing up. Her compositional impulses manifested early in her childhood, as she was constantly inventing songs and melodies when she played. “I didn’t even know that the word ‘composer’ existed… I just used to do the music,” she commented in 1978.

Rudd Moore attended Howard University for her undergraduate studies, majoring briefly in music education before switching to composition. She then attended the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau in 1963 to study with the famed Nadia Boulanger. She settled in New York City in 1965, studying privately with Chou When Chung.

Throughout her career, she had works commissioned by the nation’s top orchestras, including the National Symphony, Opera Ebony, and the Buffalo Philharmonic. Aside from her vocal repertoire, Dorothy Rudd Moore wrote for various instrumentations and in various genres, including symphonic works, solo piano pieces, and chamber music. Her thoughtful juxtapositions of atonal harmonic language and chromaticism against smooth, lyrical, tonal writing distinguish her compositional voice.

In 1968, she co-founded the Society of Black Composers in New York City, an organization whose mission statement reads: “to provide a permanent forum for the exposure of Black Composers, their works and their thoughts; to collect an disseminate information related to Black Composers ad their activities; and to enrich the cultural life of the community at large.” An avid educator, Dorothy Rudd Moore taught composition at New York University, Bronx Community College, and the Harlem School of the Arts.

Her opera, Frederick Douglass, is written in three acts. It premiered in 1985 at City College of New York’s Aaron Davis Hall. The New York Times praised the opera: “There is much in this opera to command one’s attention and, more, one’s respect.”

Helen Bryant

This profile was created in 2023 as part of the Song of America Fellowship Program, a project of the Classic Song Research Initiative between the Hampsong Foundation and the University of Michigan, School of Music, Theatre and Dance.

Further Reading:

-“Dorothy Rudd Moore.” African American Art Song Alliance. Accessed August 24, 2023. https://artsongalliance.org/composers/dorothy-rudd-moore.

-“Dream and Variations, by Dorothy Rudd Moore.” Dream and Variations, by Dorothy Rudd Moore | Hidden Voices: Piano Music by Black Women Composers | University of Colorado Boulder. Accessed August 24, 2023. https://www.colorado.edu/project/hidden-voices/2020/04/26/dream-and-variations-dorothy-rudd-moore.

-Page, Tim. “Opera World Premiere of Frederick Douglass.” The New York Times, June 30, 1985, sec. 1.

-Pentreath, Rosie. “Ever Heard of Dorothy Rudd Moore, The Trailblazing Melodist Who Established a Society for Black Composers?” Classic FM, May 20, 2021. https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/women-in-music/dorothy-rudd-moore-composer-teacher-society-black-composers/.

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Videos

Sheet Music

Dorothy Rudd Moore: From the Dark Tower

Voice Type: Mezzo-Soprano

Buy via American Composers Alliance

Flowers of Darkness

Composer(s): Dorothy Rudd Moore

Voice Type: tenor

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Composer(s): Dorothy Rudd Moore

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Lullaby

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Art Songs and Spirituals by African-American Women Composers (Vivian Taylor, ed.)

Composer(s): Margaret Bonds, Betty Jackson King, Dorothy Rudd Moore, Undine Smith Moore, Julia Perry, Zenobia Powell Perry, Florence Price

Song(s): Calvary (Spiritual) (1954) - Betty Jackson King
Come Down Angels (Spiritual) (1978) - Undine Smith Moore
Dry Bones (Spiritual) (1946) - Margaret Bonds
Free At Last (Spiritual) (1951) - Julia Perry
He's Got the Whole World In His Hand (Spiritual) (1963) - Margaret Bonds
I Am in Doubt (1975) - Undine Smith Moore
I'm a Poor Li'l Orphan in This Worl' (Spiritual) (1952) - Julia Perry
In the Springtime (1976) - Betty Jackson King
Is There Anybody Here That Loves My Jesus (Spiritual) (1981) - Undine Smith Moore
It's Me, O Lord (Spiritual) (1988) - Betty Jackson King
Lord, I Just Can't Keep from Cryin' (Spiritual) (1946) - Margaret Bonds
Love Let the Wind Cry… How I Adore Thee (1977) - Undine Smith Moore
My Dream (1935) - Florence B. Price
My Soul's Been Anchored in the Lord (Spiritual) (1937) - Florence B. Price
Night (1946) - Florence B. Price
Song to the Dark Virgin (1926) - Florence B. Price
The Negro Speaks of Rivers (1942) - Margaret Bonds
Three Dream Portraits (1959) - Margaret Bonds
Watch and Pray (Spiritual) (1972) - Undine Smith Moore

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Anthology of Art Songs by Black American Composers, Compiled by Willis C. Patterson

Composer(s): H. Leslie Adams, David Baker, Margaret Bonds, Charles Brown, Cecil Cohen, Noel de Costa, Mark Fax, Adolphus C. Hailstork, Eugene Hancock, Thomas Kerr, Jr., Charles Lloyd, Jr., Wendell Logan, Maurice McCall, Dorothy Rudd Moore, Undine Smith Moore, Robert Owens, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Florence Price, Hale Smith, William Grant Still, Howard Swanson, George Walker, Olly Wilson, John Work, Jr.

Song(s): For You There is No Song (H. Leslie Adams)
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Cassandra's Lullaby (Mark Fax)
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Riding to Town (Thomas Kerr, Jr.)
Compensation (Charles Lloyd, Jr.)
If There Be Sorrow (Wendell Logan)
Marrow of My Bone (Wendell Logan)
Chanson Triste (Maurice McCall)
Sweet Sorrow (Maurice McCall)
Weary Blues (Dorothy Rudd Moore)
Love Let the Wind Cry...How I Adore Thee (Undine Moore)
Faithful One (Robert Owens)
Genius Child (Robert Owens)
A Child's Grace (Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson)
Melancholy (Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson)
Night (Florence Price)
Song to the Dark Virgin (Florence Price)
Velvet Shoes (Hale Smith)
Grief (William Grant Still)
A Death Song (Howard Swanson)
I Will Lie Down in Autumn (Howard Swanson)
The Negro Speaks of Rivers (Howard Swanson)
Lament (George Walker)
A Red, Red Rose (George Walker)
Wry Fragments (Olly Wilson)
Dancing in the Sun (John Work, Jr.)
Soliloquy (John Work, Jr.)

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