CALL FOR RECORDINGS/INFORMATION:
Edward Joseph Collins
American composer/pianist/conductor (1886-1951)
CONTACT:
Jon Becker
Coordinator, Edward Joseph Collins Project ( www.EdwardJ Collins.org)
Arts & Education Consultant POB 3292, Madison, WI 53704 USA
877.223.8068 toll free tel / 608.469.0316 cell / 608.242.8525 tel / fax
The Collins project aims to restore the composer's music legacy, with a
priority on digital engraving and recording of all the music.
Marin Alsop has conducted many of the Collins orchestral works in concert
worldwide and for recordings with the Royal Scottish Natl Orch. Seven CDs are
already available from Albany Records (AlbanyRecords.com) and two more are
planned, toward a complete recorded anthology.
The only extant music-related recording of the composer is some silent film
footage of him performing at a grand piano, likely his own composition "The
5:48", an evocation of a Chicago commuter train), probably from the 1940s.
The Collins project is seeking additional recordings, for research purposes
and for possible inclusion in the anthology or on a website ( www.EdwardJ
Collins.org).
Ernestine Schumann-Heink Connection
Collins's sister, pianist Katherine (Collins) Hoffmann, accompanied contralto
Ernestine Schumann-Heink during the early part of the 20th century, both in
the USA and abroad. Hoffmann recorded with Schumann-Heink, including tracks
still available on: Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Contralto: Opera Arias & Songs
(1900-1935) , Delos DE C5503/Stanford Archives Series (eleven songs/arias w/
K Hoffmann); Schumann-Heink: Prima Voce, Nimbus Records NI 7811 (two
songs/arias w/ K Hoffmann) K Hoffmann also gave some of E Collins's songs to
Schumann-Heink in the 1910s and 1920s, during which period E Collins also accompanied
Schumann-Heink on tours in the USA and abroad. Perhaps there also exist
recordings of Collins's music by Schumann-Heink, or with the contralto accompanied
by Collins.
The following other occasions may have been filmed, recorded, or broadcast:
US Army 88th Division (intelligence) doughboys (dancers, actors, singers,
chorus, and orchestra)
Champs Elysses Theatre, Paris, France
12-17 MAY 1919 Who Can Tell?
Music theater work (burlesque) for which Collins
composed music, while in military service during and after WWI
President Wilson and Gen. Pershing attended 17MAY1919
performance (possible sound or film recording?)
Who Can Tell? was performed in Madison WI 1921-22
Collins received a post-WWI bandmaster appointment by
John Phillips Sousa
Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances (w/ possible radio broadcasts,
although none are to be found in the CSO's Rosenthal archives)
Orchestra Hall, Chicago; Frederick Stock, conductor (unless otherwise noted)
28-29 MAR 1924 Mardi Gras
27-28 MAR 1925 Concerto for Piano, E-flat Major (No. 1) [Ed Jos
Collins, soloist]
04-05 MAR 1927 Tragic Overture
03-04 DEC 1931 Concert Piece for Piano and Orchestra (No. 2) [Ed Jos
Collins, soloist]
17-18 APR 1941 Lament and Jig (one variation from the multi-composer work
Variations on an American Folk-Song)
05-06 MAR 1942 Tragic Overture [Ed Jos Collins, conductor]
25-26 MAR 1943 Concerto for Piano, B Minor (No. 3) [Ed Jos Collins,
soloist]
band (name unknown) with soloist soprano Olive Arthur, concerts (w/radio
broadcasts, likely live)
Grant Park Band Shell, Chicago; conductor unknown
18 & 26 JUL 1939 Daughter of the South (opera, in one act)
selection(s) arranged for soprano with band, by someone
other than the composer, incl. 'Mary Lou's aria'
(Collins noted in his journal that the radio broadcast of
the 26 JUL 1939 broadcast
was heard by relatives in Fish Creek WI and Joliet IL)
"Monte Parnassus hour" radio show; Monte Hall, host
3 FEB 1940 Lecture on the "problems of the composer" by Collins,
broadcast live
(composer noted in his journal that the radio broadcast
was heard by relatives in Joliet)
WOR radio station, New York City
Alfred "Wally" Wallenstein, musical director (also director of NBC orchestra
series, broadcast following Toscanini series shows)
> 21 NOV 1940 Lil' David Play on Yo' Harp for orchestra
(composer wrote in his journal that he made an
arrangement of this piano solo work after Wally promised to perform it)
