Canzona

Ruth Damaris Jackson Bruch (1910-2008) Jackson and Wilma Mae Elliott. At age 12 she began playing the piano for the First Christian Church of Fairfax, Oklahoma. She was the organist for the Seventh Avenue Methodist Church in Kansas City, Missouri as well. Ruth played for several churches, including Phillips Texas Methodist Church; First Church of Christ Scientist, in Bartlesville; St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Bartlesville; and the Bartlesville Unitarian Church. She also played the piano for the silent movies at the Tallchief Theatre in Fairfax, Oklahoma in the 1920's.

She was a soloist with the Kansas City and Topeka symphonies while she toured the Midwest as a concert pianist. She was the studio pianist and program chairman of Radio Station WHB Kansas City during the 1940's.

She later attended the Kansas City Conservatory of Music and graduated in 1945 earning a degree in Composition. She was a member of ASCAP. Ruth was a lifetime member of the National Federation of Music Clubs; National Association of Conductors and Composers; and the National Guild of Piano Teachers.

She was named the Oklahoma Musician of the year in 1980, and named Oklahoma Ambassador of Goodwill in 1983. Many of Ruth 's compositions have been published, and have been performed by the Bartlesville Symphony, at the OK Mozart Festival, at Carnegie Hall in New York City, as well as many other concert stages.

I received these pieces from Carson Cooman a few days ago. They were published by Harold Flammer in 1956.

There is a unique quality about both of these works.

"Canzona" is by far the more expansive. There is a definite appeal to this, but you'll have to work at "putting it across." I found the effort to be well worth it, but these really seems like a piano work with a pedal part. The registrations are also demanding, although I tried not to go overboard with this, as I sometimes do.

Photos of Ruth Jackson Brush's grave, and of St. Luke's Church, Bartlesville, OK. are attached.