I recently spent an afternoon digging through the Nicholas Slonimsky Collection at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC to see if I could find evidence of correspondence between Ernie Stires and his beloved mentor.  I was pleased to locate a folder which contained several items.  Included with one of Ernie’s letters to Slonimsky was [...]

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Tags: Ernie Stires, Library of Congress, Middlebury College, Nicholas Slonimsky, Stephanie Rogers

Ernie Stires came from a prestigious lineage of musicians. Ernie’s cousin was legendary American composer Samuel Barber,  widely known for his piece Adagio For Strings (or Agnus Dei, for voices arranged by the composer). Louise Homer, Ernie’s grandmother, was a world-class contraltist who sang at the Metropolitan Opera in New York for 30 years. Her [...]

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