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Quenten Doolittle. Composer, violinist, violist, teacher, b Elmira, NY, 21 May 1925, naturalized Canadian 1969; B SC (Ithaca College) 1950, M MUS (Indiana) 1952, DMA (Eastman School of Music, Rochester) 1964. Quenten Doolittle studied violin privately in the early 1950s with Hugo Kortschak and Paul Stassevitch in the USA, and also studied viola 1967-8 with Peter Schidlov in London and composition 1974-5 with John Weinzweig in Toronto.
Doolittle taught 1955-8 at North Dakota State College. He moved to Canada in 1960 and taught 1960-88 at the University of Calgary (composition, music history, chamber music), retiring as professor emeritus. In the period 1950-74 he regularly played with orchestras, in particular as violist of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (1961-72, principal 1965-72), and in chamber groups, including the University of Calgary Trio (1962-4), University of Alberta String Quartet (1962-4) and University of Calgary Piano Quartet (mid-1960s). He conducted the University Chamber Players of Calgary (1961-74), the University of Calgary Symphony Orchestra (1969-74) and the youth orchestra Summer Chamber Players (1971-3), and gave prominent exposure to 20th-century music. He has been an organizer and executive member of Calgary arts organizations, and frequently acted as an adjudicator.
Quenten Doolittle's Compositions
Doolittle began to compose in 1965, comparatively late in his career, but he has more than 40 acknowledged compositions and some 30 theatrical collaborations to his credit. In response to his theatre works, his musical style encompasses a wide range of techniques, from extended tonality to serialism and improvisation. His incidental music for theatre is of special interest, and these works - including scores for Oedipus the King by Yeats, Sophocles for the Stratford Festival, Molière's Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Chekhov's The Three Sisters, Maeterlinck's The Bluebird and Wedekind's Lulu - often employ electronic music. His 'operatic entertainment' Charlie the Chicken (1975), based on Jonathan Levy's play and directed by Doolittle's wife, Joyce, was performed in Toronto in 1975 and again in Calgary in 1976. Charlie was revived twice in 1997, by Toronto's Opera Anonymous and by the McGill University Faculty of Music in Montreal. Doolittle's opera Boiler Room Suite (1988), with a libretto by Rex Deverell, was premiered at the Banff Centre for the Arts 21 Sep 1989 and was performed at Festival Rendezvous, a Canadian music festival in London, before touring to Birmingham and Norfolk in the same year. The Doolittles continued collaborating on many projects, including Ruby's Heart Throbs (1995), premiered in Winnipeg and performed in Calgary and at the Hornby Festival in British Columbia; Bible Babes (2004), a provocative work on Eve, Delilah, and Jezebel, premiered by Das Chicas at the Rozsa Centre in Calgary; and Calamity Jane (2006), which was taken on tour by Beverley Johnston and Diana McIntosh. Quenten Doolittle also continued working on concert music and operas. The orchestral version of Vivaldiana was premiered by Hans Graf and the Calgary Philharmonic in January 1996, and the opera The Leviathan Hook was workshopped in Toronto in August 1998. His work All and Sundre was premiered in concert on the occasion of his 75th birthday in November 2000. His Fantasy on Sumer is icumen in (1971) for string orchestra was published by Waterloo (1972). Doolittle's piano work You Need Not Fail was recorded by Colleen Athparia on the 2006 release, Danse Savage (CMCCD-11706). The University of Calgary designated a room in Craigie Hall as the Joyce and Quenten Doolittle Fine Arts Studio, and the university library houses the Quenten Doolittle Fonds. Doolittle is an associate of the Canadian Music Centre and a member of the Canadian League of Composers.
Writings
Quenten Doolittle, 'Towards a livelier live music,' Canada Music Book, 5, Autumn-Winter 1972 "Is opera a phantom?" SoundNotes, Fall/Winter 1994
Author
Helmut Kallmann, Evan Ware
Bibliography
Reid, John C. 'Quenten Doolittle is getting hot!' Prairie Sounds, Jan 1990 "Composer news," Prairie Sounds, Fall 1997
Links to Other Sites
Canadian Music Centre
Search the extensive CMC multimedia website for audio samples, biographies, music scores, and interviews about contemporary classical works by Canadian composers. Registration required for some features.
Bible Babes
A synopsis of “Bible Babes,” an entertaining musical theatre production based on biblical accounts of three “notorious Old Testament personalities.” Check the links at the bottom of the page for posters, reviews, and related information. From the University of Lethbridge.
Joyce and Quenten Doolittle
A brief profile of Joyce and Quenten Doolittle, two outstanding leaders of Calgary’s lively music and theatre scene. From the website for the Alberta Playwrights' Network.
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