Dana Suesse Totally Explained

Everything about Dana Suesse totally explained

Dana Suesse, (3 December, 1909 in Kansas City - 16 October, 1987 in New York) was a multi-talented musician, composer and lyricist. While still a child, Dana (full name Nadine Dana Suesse) toured the Midwest vaudeville circuits with an act centered on dancing and piano playing. During the recital, she'd ask the audience for a theme, and then proceed to take that theme weaving it into something of her own. In 1926, she and her mother moved to New York City. One of the things that Suesse did so well was to create larger scale pieces from which she'd extrapolate a phrase and then set that tune to words collaborating with a lyricist. "My Silent Love" (which came from a larger piece called "Jazz Nocturne"), and "You Oughta Be in Pictures" are among her biggest popular hits. She collaborated with lyricist Eddie Heyman on "You Oughta Be in Pictures" in addition to other hits, including "Ho-Hum." The 1930s press called composer/pianist Dana Suesse "the girl Gershwin." Fortune, a magazine normally devoted to male achievement, included Dana's photo alongside eight other veterans of the music business, with the headline, "Nine Assets of a Prosperous Organization" (January 1933). In New York, Suesse studied piano under Alexander Siloti, Franz Liszt's last surviving pupil. She studied composition under Rubin Goldmark, (one of George Gershwin's teachers), and spent three years studying with Nadia Boulanger after World War II. In 1931, bandleader Paul Whiteman (following Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue) commissioned her to write "Concerto in Three Rhythms." Beginning in 1930 Suesse formed a song writing partnership with impresario Billy Rose (usually in collaboration with other lyricists) that lasted into the 1940s. In 1936 Suesse lived in Fort Worth, Texas for three months to compose the score for Rose's Casa Manaña, the spectacular outdoor dinner theatre of the Fort Worth (Texas) Frontier Centennial. With Rose and Irving Kahal she composed "The Night Is Young And You're So Beautiful," which won fifth place on Your Hit Parade on the broadcast of February 6, 1937, and stayed on the program for six weeks. The Jan Garber, George Hall and Wayne King orchestras all recorded it in 1937, and in 1951 Ray Anthony's orchestra made it a hit again. On June 13, 1937 Amon G. Carter arranged for Billy Rose and Suesse to attend a dinner at the White House as guests of President and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. After dinner, music from Casa Manana was performed by one of the show's stars, Everett Marshall. Subsequently, many songs were written with Rose, including "Yours For A Song" (in collaboration with lyricist Ted Fetter), the theme of Billy Rose's Aquacade of the 1939 New York World's Fair. In the 1940s Suesse was Rose's staff composer for his legendary Diamond Horseshoe Revues. With lyricist E.Y. "Yip" Harburg Suesse wrote "Moon About Town" (for Jane Froman in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934) and "Missouri Misery," both published in 1934.
After her success in writing popular songs (other lyricists included Harold Adamson, Sam Coslow) Suesse moved to Paris for three years to privately study composition with the legendary Nadia Boulanger. Mlle. Boulanger accepted Dana as a student on the recommendation of the great orchestrator, and Suesse's tennis partner, Robert Russell Bennett. On December 11, 1974, Suesse and her husband produced a symphony concert at Carnegie Hall, devoted exclusively to her compositions. (In the 1990s, Robert Stern produced a CD of the concert using masters from Voice Of America.) On July 31, 1975, the prestigious Newport Music Festival (Rhode Island) presented four of her works in their concert series. A year after the Carnegie Hall concert, Suesse and her husband moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands. After her husband's death in 1981 she moved back to New York, the city where she'd spent her most creative years. She took two apartments in the Gramercy Park Hotel and continued to write plays and songs for the theatre. After her return to New York, a revival of interest in American music made her popular again for interviews and songwriters' concerts. Just before her death from a stroke (October 16, 1987) she was busily writing a new musical, putting the finishing touches on Mr. Sycamore, which had been optioned for off-Broadway, and was looking for a New York home for a straight play, Nemesis. On September 24, 2003, John McGlinn conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra (UK) in a performance of American music that included three compositions of Dana Suesse.

Dana Suesse was the wife of Courtney Burr (July 26, 1940 - June 29, 1954). Their marriage ended in a divorce. She later married a businessman, Charles Edwin Delinks (April 16, 1971 until his death July 14, 1981).

Among the original productions for which Dana Suesse composed are Sweet And Low (1930) (Billy Rose's first Broadway show), You Never Know (1938), Crazy With the Heat (1941), and incidental music for both The Seven Year Itch (1952) and The Golden Fleecing (1959).

Chronology

1909 Born Kansas City, Mo. December 3

1919 First solo concert, Kansas City, MO

1926 Moves to New York City [December]

1927 First copyrighted song: Razor Blade Blues [unpublished]

1928 Syncopated Love Song (copyrighted July 2) performed on station KWK by Merle Johnson’s Saxophone Quartet

1929 First publication: mood music for silent films; Nathaniel Shilkret records Syncopated Love Song (December 13)

1930 Rehearsal pianist, Billy Rose's first revue Sweet And Low. Syncopated Love Song published

1931 Staff composer at Famous Music; Jazz Nocturne becomes hit instrumental. Syncopated Love Song is made into song called Have You Forgotten. Ho-Hum and Whistling In the Dark popularized internationally

1932 Jazz Nocturne is made into song called My Silent Love, Paul Whiteman concert at *Carnegie Hall [Nov.4] Concerto in Three Rhythms is introduced

1933 Makes film appearance with Edward Heyman for Paramount, Astoria; Whiteman appearances: Madison Square Garden; Paramount film short. Writes hit song for Ziegfeld Follies with Yip Harburg: Moon About Town

1934 Vera Brodsky & Harold Triggs (duo-pianists) perform Suesse’s ballet music for Tamara Geva at Radio City Music Hall; Town Hall concert conducted by Bernard Herrmann; Brooklyn Academy with Whiteman; Boston Symphony Hall Arthur Fiedler; writes songs for Broadway play The Red Cat; Appears on George Gershwin's radio broadcast (October 28); Whiteman records Blue Moonlight for RCA-Victor; You Oughta Be In Pictures is published

1935 Composes Sweet Surrender (Universal) film score; Performs with General Motors Symphony [FrankBlack]; Philadelphia Symphony, conducted by Nathaniel Shilkret at Robin Hood Dell, PA.

1936 Billy Rose Casa Manana (Texas Centennial), hit song "The Night Is Young And You're So Beautiful"

1937 More Casa Manana; White House with President & Mrs. Roosevelt

1938 More radio appearances, writes song interpolated in Cole Porter show, You Never Know, Etc; Robbins publishes instrumentals

1939 Composes suite for harpist Casper Reardon Young Man With a Harp; Philadelphia Symphony performs harp suite with Reardon (July 19)

1940 Makes records for Schirmer records; Makes second visit to White House [March4] with harpist Casper Reardon

1942 Composes and orchestrates 2-piano concerto; composes for Diamond Horseshoe Revue; Cocktail Suite; Meredith Willson's recorded series includes American Nocturne

1943 Composes and orchestrates Three Cities suite; writes plays with Virginia Faulkner; Concerto in E Minor- Cincinnati Symphony, duo-pianists Ethel Bartlett & Rae Robertson (known familiarly as "the Bartlett Pair")

1944 More Diamond Horseshoe scores

1946 Sells screenplay, It Takes Two, to RKO; Paul Whiteman introduces Night Sky (October 27) on broadcast

1947 It Takes Two (comedy written with Virginia Faulkner) opens (February 3); Departs for France (October) to study composition with Nadia Boulanger

1948: studies and composes concert music

1950 Sails back to NY (October); Moves to 30 E. 60th St.

1952 composes incidental music for Seven Year Itch; The Girl Without A Name published

1953 Josephine (songs by Suesse) opens, Playhouse Theatre, Chicago

1955 Concerto Romantico performed at Cooper Union, broadcast on radio

1956 Concerto In Rhythm performed by Rochester Civic Orchestra (composer at piano), conducted by Frederick Fennell

1957 Buffalo Philharmonic concert- conducted by Josef Krips

1959 Come Play With Me opens, York Playhouse, NY. with Tamara Geva, Lilliane Montevecchi, Tom Poston (April 30); composes for play The Golden Fleecing

1965 Nina Stevens (Dana's mother) dies

1970 Moves to New London, CT

1971 Marries C. Edwin Delinks

1974 Carnegie Hall Concert, December

1975 Newport Music Festival concert; Sells Steinway to pianist Peter Mintun; Moves to Virgin Islands with husband

1979 Mintun honors Suesse at testimonial dinner, San Francisco. Reunited final time with Edward Heyman.

1981 Husband dies of cancer [July]; Moves to New York [October9]

1982 October 1 is proclaimed Dana Suesse Day, Kansas City (Mo.); Suesse accepts honors from Mayor in person. Last visit to Kansas; Interview on WOR radio [NY]

1986 Appears at Wall-To-Wall American Song tribute, Symphony Space, NY

1987 Suesse dies from stroke (October 16)

1996 Two CDs are produced, devoted to the music of Suesse: “Keyboard Wizards of the Gershwin Era” (Pearl, UK) and “The Night Is Young – The Concert Music of Dana Suesse” (Premier).

1998 Literary Executor Peter Mintun gives talk at Library of Congress for event "The Gershwins and Their World" [March].Further Information

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