Dorothy Rudd Moore (1940 - 2022)

Dorothy Rudd Moore graduated in 1963 from Howard University, where she studied composition with Mark Fax. She received the Lucy Moten Fellowship to study in France with Nadia Boulanger, and also studied composition with Chou Wen Chung in New York. In 1968 she was one of the founders of the Society of Black Composers. Moore received commissions from the National Symphony, Opera Ebony, and the Buffalo Philharmonic. Considered one of her generation's leading composers of color, her music has been performed and recorded world-wide, and includes chamber pieces, song cycles, orchestral music, and an opera. Among her best-known compositions are two works for voice, cello, and piano, From the Dark Tower (1970) and Weary Blues (1972), on texts by black American poets.