Katherine Hoover

Hoover was born in Elkins, West Virginia, on December 2, 1937. Her mother was a painter/artist and editor, and her father was a biochemist. Her family lived in Washington, D.C., then moved to Philadelphia during World War II. She attended school in Philadelphia.[5]

She remembered hearing Mozart's music on a record player when she was three years old.[5] She also recalled reading music as early as four years old,[5] before she could read words.[6] Her parents supported her artistic interests, rescuing a piano being disposed of by a neighbor and starting her at piano lessons at five years old.[5] She began flute lessons at age eight. During this time, she discovered that she had perfect-pitch.[5] During interviews, she has shared she received "mediocre music instruction" during her early years.[7]

Hoover began her academic studies at the University of Rochester in 1955. After two years of general studies she was accepted to Eastman School of Music, where she studied with flutist Joseph Mariano,[8][9] and began studying composition. She graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Music Theory and a Performer's Certificate in Flute in 1959.[10] Unfortunately, her composition classes left a bad impression. Hoover comments, "There were no women involved with composition at all. [I got] rather discouraged – being the only woman in my classes, not being paid attention to and so forth."[7]

Hoover attended the Yale Summer Sessions in 1960 and 1961, where she studied flute, theory, and composition. During this time, she also studied with flutist William Kincaid in Philadelphia.[1] She later wrote that she owed " much of her success to her mentor, William Kincaid, teaching her more about music than any other composer".[8]

From 1962–1969, Hoover taught flute at the Juilliard Preparatory School as well as a few other small schools, including the Third Street Music School.[11] It was at the Third Street Music School that she received her first positive experience as a composer. She was asked to compose a piece for a school concert, a duet for violins, which was very well received.[7] She married John Schwab in 1964.[12] They divorced after eight years.

The first publication of her work was Three Carols (1972) for choir and flute, published by Carl Fischer.

Hoover was honored as a finalist for the Kennedy-Friedheim Contest's Outstanding New American Chamber Work award (1978). Her successes continued, becoming a finalist once again and being awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Composer's Fellowship (1979).

Of her cpmpositions she wrote "I have feelings of pride for the successes writing works for specific performers using other instruments...Stitch-te Naku for Cello and Orchestra, for cellist Sharon Robinson and [the] Clarinet Concerto, for jazz clarinetist Eddie Daniels.[5]

Hoover co-founded Papagena Press, with her husband (Richard Goodwin, m.1985 ) in 1988 to publish her works. The first piece to be published was Kokopeli (1990), a work for solo flute inspired by the Hopi tribe and the American Southwest. It won the National Flute Association's Newly Published Music Competition (1991). This was Hoover's second of six NFA Newly Published Music awards.[1] She wrote that "Out of all of my achievements in music, I was overcome with the success of Kokopeli."[15]

The composer John Corigliano wrote of her: "Katherine Hoover is an extraordinary composer. She has a wide and fascinating vocabulary which she uses with enormous skill. Her music is fresh and individual. It is dazzlingly crafted and will reach an audience as it provides interest to the professional musician. I do not know why her works are not yet being played by the major institutions of this country, but I am sure that she will attain the status she deserves in time. She is just too good not to be recognized, and I predict that her time will come soon."[16]

Hoover was involved with women's arts organizations and has worked to bring the works of women composers to the public's notice. She began work with the Women's Inter-Art Center in New York (1977). Here she organized Festivals I, II, and III of Women's Music which presented music by fifty-five historical and contemporary women composers.[15][17]

She was the composer in residence for the Fourth Festival of Women Composers at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (1996).

Hoover had always written poetry since her youth finding both a striking difference and similarity between music and words. “This Way About”(2015).[18] was her first book of poetry where she shares glimpses into her life.[19]

• Member Laureate, Sigma Alpha Iota[20]
• Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, Outstanding New American Chamber Work, finalist, 1978, 1979
• National Endowment for the Arts Composer's Fellowship, 1979[21]
• National Flute Association Newly Published Music Competition, 1987, 1991, 1993, 1994, 2006, 2020(co-winner)[1]
• New York State Music Teachers' Association, Composer of the Year, 1989[22]
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award in Composition, 1994[23]
• New York Flute Club Tribute Concert for Katherine Hoover, 2013[8]
• National Flute Association Lifetime Achievement Award, 2016[1]
• Global Music Awards, Silver Medalist, May 2018[24]

As a flutist, Hoover has performed other compossers works, as well as her own. The following is a selected list of her recorded performances.

• Official website
• Katherine Hoover at AllMusic
• Katherine Hoover at Discogs
• Katherine Hoover at Musicalics, The Classical Composers Database
• Thesis/dissertation, M.M. Manhattan School of Music 1972[1]
• Thesis/dissertation, Research project (D.M.A.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1994.[2]