The Bispham Memorial Medal Award was an award for operas written in English which was named for baritone David Bispham, who was a great proponent of performing opera in English in the United States. It was traditionally awarded to American composers, frequently for an opera on an American subject. It originated from the Opera in Our Language Foundation, Inc., founded by composer Eleanor Everest Freer, and Edith Rockefeller McCormick, in 1921. After David Bispham's death in October 1921, Eleanor Everest Freer also founded the David Bispham Memorial Fund, Inc., in March 1922. Eleanor Everest Freer was chairman, and Edith Rockefeller McCormick was treasurer, of both organizations. On April 7, 1924, the two organizations merged to become the American Opera Society of Chicago. The first medal was awarded by the American Opera Society of Chicago in 1924 to Ernest Trow Carter, for his opera The White Bird, which saw its first full performance at the Studebaker Theater, in Chicago, on March 6, 1924.[1] (The Opera in Our Language Foundation, Inc. sponsored the performance.) The last Medal for an opera was awarded around 1953 to Vittorio Giannini for The Taming of the Shrew. The award was funded in part by David Bispham's will, and also in part by Eleanor Everest Freer, who, in addition, was one of its recipients (for The Legend of the Piper). Other recipients include (alphabetically by author):
George Antheil (for Helen Retires)
Ernst Bacon (for A Tree on the Plains)
Alberto Bimboni (for Winona)
J. Lewis Browne (for The Corsican Girl (La Corsicana))
Simon Bucharoff (for Sakahara)
Frank Patterson (for The Echo)
Charles Wakefield Cadman (for Shanewis)
Charles Frederick Carlson (for Phelias)
Ernest Trow Carter (for The White Bird)
Rossetter Cole (for The Maypole Lovers)
Edward Collins (for Daughters of the South)
Frederick Shepherd Converse (for The Pipe of Desire)
Walter Damrosch (for Cyrano de Bergerac)
Francesco Bartolomeo de Leone (for Alglala)
Henry Purmort Eames (for Priscilla and John Alden)
Peter J. Engels (for Minnehaha)
Ralph Errole (for Prince Elmar)
Pietro Floridia (for Paoletta)
Hamilton Forrest (for Yzdra)
Aldo Franchetti (for Namiko-San)
Eleanor Everest Freer (for Legend of the Piper)
George Gershwin (for Porgy and Bess)
Vittorio Giannini (for The Taming of the Shrew)
Louis Gruenberg (for The Emperor Jones)
Henry Hadley (for Azora, the Daughter of Montezuma)
Richard Hageman (for Tragedy in Arezzo (Caponsacchi))
Howard Hanson (for Merry Mount)
W. Franke Harling (for A Light from St. Agnes)
S. W. Harwill (for Bella Donna)
Victor Herbert (for Natoma and Madeleine)
John Adam Hugo (for The Temple Dancer)
Frederick Jacobi (for The Prodigal Son)
Wesley LaViolette (for Shylock)
William Lester (for Manabozo)
Clarence Loomis (for Yolanda of Cyprus)
Otto Luening (for Evangeline)
Ralph Lyford (for Castle Agrazant)
Quinto Maganini (for The Argonauts)
William J. McCoy (for Egypt)
Gian Carlo Menotti (for The Medium and The Telephone)
Douglas Moore (for The Devil and Daniel Webster)
Mary Carr Moore (for "Narcissa," or The Cost of Empire)
Marx E. Oberndorfer (for Roseanne)
Julius Osiier (for The Bride of Baghdad)
Frank Patterson (for The Echo)
P. Marinus Paulsen (for The Cimbrians)
Bernard Rogers (for The Marriage of Aude)
Beryl Rubinstein (for The Sleeping Princess)
Karl Schmidt (for The Lady of the Lake)
John Laurence Seymour (for In the Pasha's Garden)
Charles Sanford Skilton (for Kalopin)
Theodore Stearns (for The Snow Bird)
Humphrey John Stewart (for The Hound of Heaven)
Albert Stoessel (for Garrick)
Deems Taylor (for The King's Henchman)
Virgil Thomson (for Four Saints in Three Acts)
Jane Van Etten (for Guido Ferranti)
Isaac Van Grove (for The Music Robber)
Kurt Weill (for Down in the Valley)
Clarence Cameron White (for Ouanga!)
T. Carl Whitmer (for a selection of religious operas)
Jean Martinon (distinguished composer and conductor)
Sir Michael Tippet (distinguished composer and conductor)
Alan Stout (distinguished American composer)
Lyric Theatre (Lord Byron’s Love Letter stage sets)
Lyric Theatre (Lyric scholarship fund)
^MSS 40 The Ernest Trow Carter Papers in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library of Yale University
and 20 Related for: Bispham Memorial Medal Award information
The BisphamMemorialMedalAward was an award for operas written in English which was named for baritone David Bispham, who was a great proponent of performing...
English also led, after his death, to the creation of the BisphamMemorialMedalAward, to be awarded to operas in English by American composers. He was a...
April 1926 at the Cincinnati Music Hall. Castle Agrazant won a BisphamMemorialMedalAward in 1926. The opera is set in Northern France in the aftermath...
One of Seymour's operas, In the Pasha's Garden, received the BisphamMemorialMedalAward. The opera was based on a story from H. G. Dwight. It was first...
presented at the 'old' Metropolitan Opera House. Winner of the BisphamMemorialMedalAward. Laudate Domine, Op. 22, motet for male chorus, organ, and brasses...
Los Angeles in 1926. DeLeone, Bimboni and Skilton were awarded the BisphamMemorialMedalAward for their operas. Arthur Farwell was perhaps the most important...
piano concerto. He wrote the opera Castle Agrazant, which won a BisphamMemorialMedalAward in 1926. "Ralph Lyford Asst Conductor Boston Opera Mrs " " (Ella...
Ohio on November 14 and 15, 1924, the opera won a BisphamMemorialMedalAward and numerous other awards. The composer also received from King Victor Emmanuel...
various combinations; The Modern Pianist's Text Book ASCAP, 1925 BisphamMemorialMedalAward ("A Lovers Knot" and "Sakahra") "Bucharoff, Simon". Grove Music...
opera was conducted by Agide Jacchia. The piece received the BisphamMemorialMedalAward. It was said that Van Etten had not studied orchestration, harmony...
was directed by Vladimir Rosing. The opera later received the BisphamMemorialMedalAward. Rice committed suicide by gunshot during the night of January...
performance in Minneapolis two years later, the composer was awarded the BisphamMemorialMedalAward for his work in promoting American opera. Bimboni wrote...
Music Project. In 1930, Narcissa belatedly won a BisphamMemorialMedalAward; in 1936 Moore was awarded an honorary doctorate in music from Chapman. She...
Winnebago and Chippewa. For his work on Kalopin, Skilton was awarded the BisphamMemorialMedalAward by the American Opera Association of Chicago, Illinois...
School of Music from 1933 until 1938. In 1930 he received the David BisphamMedalAward for his opera Falstaff (or possibly Shylock.) In the 1950s LaViolette...
in 1921, and the David BisphamMemorial Fund in 1922 to promote concerts of American composers' works and award a BisphamMedal. The two organizations...
of Chicago; president of the American Library Association David Scull Bispham 1876, baritone; Metropolitan Opera and Covent Garden soloist; author of...
Fighters' Charity and to Crook Athletics Club, County Durham. Kathryn Helen Bispham, Clinical Governance Coordinator, Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership...
King William II of Württemberg, 73, German ruler deposed in 1918 David Bispham, 65, American operatic baritone Colonel Alfred Wagstaff, 78, president...