Who was Gena Branscombe
Born in Picton, Ontario in 1881, Branscombe attended the Chicago Musical College as a piano major with an emphasis in composition. European study was essential for her career and in 1909 Gena departed for a year of intensive study of piano with Rudolf Ganz and composition with Englebert Humperdinck.Gena married John Ferguson Tenney on October 5, 1910 in Ontario and they immediately moved to New York City to pursue their individual careers. Gena's professional life quickly flourished. Throughout her life she credited her husband for his support of her work and his constant help with home and their four daughters: Gena, born in 1911, Vivian Allison in 1913, Betty in 1916 and Beatrice in 1919.
During Gena’s years in New York City, her professional associations and involvements were numerous. A partial list includes the MacDowell Club of New York, the Association of Women Composers of New York, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Society of American Women Composers, the National Association for American Composers and Conductors, the National Federation of Music Clubs and the National League of American Pen Women. Colleagues and friends included conductor Antonia Brico, composers Mrs. H.H.A. Beach, Harriet Ware, Mary Howe, Marion Bauer, Mary Turner Salter and Mabel Daniels.
In 1934 Gena founded her women’s chorus, Branscombe Choral. She served as its conductor/composer/organizer and fund-raiser for over 20 years, performing extensively in New York City. Radio broadcasts of the concerts extended her audiences far beyond the concert hall.
In 1960, at the request of the Library of Congress, Gena submitted the manuscript and orchestral parts for her oratorio, Pilgrims of Destiny. Other scores were exhibited at the New York City Public Library on 42nd Street in 1963, in an exhibition of works of noted contemporary American women composers. She died in New York City on July 26, 1977.
Ahead of her time, Gena Branscombe’s life was filled with family and music. Influenced early by the late German romantic style, she helped develop a 20th-century American/Victorian musical voice, with a body of work encompassing 150 art songs, piano and chamber music, as well as choral works, all of which were readily available during her life. A renowned composer and conductor, after her death her richly-melodic music seemed lost to history, despite its outstanding beauty. We reintroduce her now to the 21st century.
