ANNOUNCER: Tonight on Showcase with Barbara Kellar historic preservationists, Thea Tjepkema discusses Muses: The Women of Music Hall.

Stay tuned, Showcase starts now.

(music) KELLAR: Welcome to Showcase.

TJEPKEMA: Thank you.

KELLAR: We love having you.

You were here once before to help us learn something new about Music Hall.

You're a historian, but you have a new venture, which is, tell us the title.

TJEPKEMA: Muses: The Women of Music.

KELLAR: Oh, my gosh.

How interesting is that?

I know that historically there are a lot of important women who built the Hall and kept it going.

So you're going to tell us all about them.

TJEPKEMA: Oh, there's so many.

I don't think I can tell you about all of them.

KELLAR: Well, pick some of your favorites.

TJEPKEMA: Ok, well, I started doing research on this topic because I'm on the board of the Friends of Music Hall and I'm a historic preservationist.

And I also serve on the Tours and Education Committee.

And I wanted to tell the stories that we never tell of the people that we don't hear about that helped build Music Hall, philanthropist and women artist who have performed on the stage, the main stage, and women who also performed in the ballroom, the Greystone Ballroom, and some inventresses who were women inventors who displayed machinery in the great industrial expositions.

I found some inventresses, but just digging into finding those stories about women that we just don't know.

KELLAR: Yeah, well start with the beginning.

Tell us who you think was the most important in the beginning.

TJEPKEMA: I was inspired by a painting on the ceiling in Springer Auditorium.

It's called The Allegory of the Arts.

And many concerts I've sat there and stared at it and noticed it's mostly all women in the painting.

And kind of started to figure out the symbolism in the painting and discovered it's the nine muses of the arts.

And that was kind of my inspiration or kind of, you could say, like my outline for this talk.

So I took the nine muses and decided I was going to find a woman that best represented each muse in that painting.

And so, you know, the muses of the arts are: music, dance, science, history, tragedy and comedy, the dramatic arts.

And Mnemosyne is the mother of the Muses and she's the muse of memory.

And I decided, the Friends of Music Hall, we are not just about preserving the building, we're about preserving the stories of Music Hall, just like Mnemosyne, the mother of memory.

So we are telling the stories of Music Hall.

So, for instance, the the muse of music, that was a hard one because, oh, my goodness.

KELLAR: There are so many.

TJEPKEMA: So many, so many famous, amazing women that have performed on the stage of Music Hall.

I mean, from the very opening of Music Hall with the very first performance out walked on the stage, you know, the May festival's soloist, the phenomenal May Festival singers that have graced the stage.

But besides May Festival, you know, the opera, the ballet, all of our great arts in this city have all been represented by women.

KELLAR: Yeah.

Oh, is there a woman who you would say started the whole -- TJEPKEMA: The great benefactor of Music Hall that we talk about so much on our regular tour, our Friends of Music Hall guides.

I also started to take our regular tour in my mind and said, "What are these 10 stops on our tour where we mostly talk about men?"

KELLAR: Oh!

TJEPKEMA: And I thought, "Well, who would be the woman I would talk about at this stop on our tour?"

And we start at the statue of Ruben Springer.

And Ruben Springer was that benefactor of Music Hall that, you know, gave $125,000 to have the building constructed.

And I looked at his wife.

And his wife, Jane Kilgour was -- Her father, immigrated to Cincinnati from England and was one of the pioneers of Cincinnati, came here just 10 years after Cincinnati was founded.

And he and his brother started a dry goods business and steamboat delivery of groceries.

And it was Reuben Springer, born on a farm in Kentucky, that came to Cincinnati to work on one of those steamboats and worked his way up in the company, started doing the account books and eventually became a partner.

And then married Jane Kilgour.

And Jane Kilgour loved art, especially the visual arts.

And she, you know, took her husband on grand tours of Europe and introduced him to all the masterworks, all the great paintings.

And she was one of the founding members of LAFA, the ladies fine arts academy.

And it was an organization of Cincinnati women that wanted to start an art school for women to learn to create art to make money as employment, so to help women become independent.

And they also wanted to start an art museum so that the public could be elevated and educated in the arts.

And that organization, LAFA, unfortunately had to disband right before the Civil War.

And Jane Kilgour died young and she and Rubin never had children.

And they attended all of these arts events around the city.

And so if it wasn't for Jane Kilgour, you know, introducing her husband to the arts, who knows, Music Hall may have never been constructed.

KELLAR: Might have been a parking lot.

TJEPKEMA: Exactly.

KELLAR: And Jane Kilgour, the Kilgour family, was prominent because Kilgore School -- TJEPKEMA: Oh, yes.

KELLAR: -- was named for that family.

TJEPKEMA: And the Springer School.

KELLAR: And Springer School.

Yes, absolutely.

And there was phenomenal art in the schools at that time.

TJEPKEMA: Yeah.

And another woman that I talk about in my talk is Elizabeth Williams Perry.

And she started another fun acronym, WAMA, the Women's Art Museum Association.

And it was based on LAFA, the women before her.

So it was based on Jane Kilgour's group.

And WAMA started in Music Hall.

And those women collected art and had loan exhibitions in Music Hall.

And people could come and it was our first art museum in the city.

KELLAR: Wow.

TJEPKEMA: It was in the South Hall of Music Hall.

And they actually raised money and gathered art to start the Cincinnati Art Museum in Eden Park.

KELLAR: Oh, my gosh.

I don't know -- Very few people would know that.

TJEPKEMA: Very, very few people know that.

KELLAR: Yeah.

Who would come after this?

TJEPKEMA: You know, that's the muse of art.

The muse of music I love to talk about Sissieretta Jones.

Before Sissieretta Jones was a famous soprano named Adelina Patti and Adelina Patti was the 19th century star singer.

She came after Jenny Lind.

You probably know Jenny Lind.

KELLAR: Yeah, that's right.

TJEPKEMA: So Adelina Patti came to sing in Music Hall.

The first time she came was to sing with the May Festival, and she got paid $4,500.

KELLAR: Wow.

TJEPKEMA: And the paper said something like, "Oh, she got $10 a word."

KELLAR: Oh, a note.

TJEPKEMA: Yeah, a note, for singing the Messiah.

And then she returned four times for the opera festival that was hosted by the Cincinnati Music Conservatory, Cincinnati Music Conservatory.

KELLAR: Okay.

TJEPKEMA: And she came, the first time she came, you know, sold out house.

And then the second time she came, she arrived with laryngitis.

KELLAR: Oh, great for a singer.

TJEPKEMA: Yeah, bad.

But by the -- on the fifth day of the festival, she recovered from her laryngitis and Music Hall was filled with 7000 people for that concert.

KELLAR: Standing room.

TJEPKEMA: Yeah, that would be both corridors packed with standing people trying to listen to her inside the auditorium through the transom windows.

KELLAR: Oh, my God.

TJEPKEMA: So that probably goes down is like the record crowd.

KELLAR: Yeah.

Well, after that, we had fire rules.

TJEPKEMA: Yeah.

And after Adelina Patti came to Music Hall, Sissieretta Jones.

And Sissieretta Jones was nicknamed in the press as the Black Patti.

She was an African-American soprano raised in Providence, Rhode Island, sang at the Philadelphia Academy of Music for her debut to a crowd of 8000.

KELLAR: Wow.

TJEPKEMA: Yeah, and then she, immediately after her Carnegie Hall debut, came to sing at Music Hall.

And that's how important Music Hall was on a traveling singer's tour.

You know, your next stop after Carnegie Hall was Cincinnati Music Hall.

And she sang to a crowd of 2,500 and was one of the-- Was, I would say, definitely the highest paid black artist of the 19th century.

And in the paper, it said that it was the best element of black and white citizens in Music Hall in the audience.

KELLAR: Oh, wow, that's great.

TJEPKEMA: Yeah, so she preferred to be called Madam Jones.

KELLAR: Oh, okay.

And after her?

TJEPKEMA: Inventresses.

I was like, okay, I have lots of famous women, many famous women who sang on the main stage.

That's easy.

And then I thought, "Well, what about the North Hall?"

You know, the North Hall was a sports arena from 1928.

KELLAR: Yeah, wrestling.

TJEPKEMA: Yes, yes, I did find a female wrestler.

KELLAR: Oh, great.

We have to find two so they could wrestle each other and not a man.

TJEPKEMA: Actually, yes, more than one.

But I found, you know, every Tuesday night there was women's wrestling.

KELLAR: Oh, great.

TJEPKEMA: Right alongside of men's wrestling.

KELLAR: Okay.

TJEPKEMA: So many female wrestlers, but the one female wrestler that I loved and I highlighted was Mildred Burke.

And she actually founded the Women's World Wrestling Organization.

She was the founder and she wrestled in Music Hall ten times.

KELLAR: Wow.

TJEPKEMA: And she won all ten of her matches.

KELLAR: Oh, my goodness.

And it probably was for real then, and not just entertainment.

TJEPKEMA: Exactly.

KELLAR: It was a real wrestling match.

TJEPKEMA: It was a wee bit of drama, but not as much.

It was a little more sport.

KELLAR: Yeah, right.

I know you have many, many more we want to hear about, but how did you put this program together?

Is this just research that you've gotten from lots of different places or is there a definitive book?

How did you do that?

TJEPKEMA: It was just a lot of digging, a lot of newspaper articles.

And I do have kind of my favorite librarians and friends who I know are experts in certain topics.

You know, the three women librarian at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra helped me.

You know, I could get a great soloist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, like Maud Powell, who was considered a more extraordinary violinist than Chrysler in Ysaye.

I mean, she was phenomenal.

And she performed at Music Hall several times.

And Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler was the pianist who was a world renowned pianist who performed at the very first Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra concert.

Their very first soloist was a woman.

And of course, the founder of the CSO was Helen "Nellie" Herron Taft.

KELLAR: Yeah.

TJEPKEMA: And we, our CSO was founded by an all woman board, 15 women, we were the first all woman board to found an orchestra in the country.

KELLAR: Wow.

I don't know how many people know that one.

TJEPKEMA: No, not a lot of people know that.

KELLAR: Yeah, that is -- and would most of those names be familiar to Cincinnatians for other things?

Well, I think I think people know of Helen Taft as you know, the wife of William Howard Taft our 27th president.

KELLAR: Yeah.

TJEPKEMA: But a lot of people don't know that she had very humble beginnings.

She lived on Pike Street, right across from, you know, what is the Taft Museum today.

KELLAR: Right.

TJEPKEMA: Charles P. Taft and Anna Sinton Taft's mansion.

But she lived in a modest row house across the street and she loved music.

She studied the piano and she was in a woman's club that was before the CSO that was called the Ladies Musical Club.

KELLAR: Yeah.

TJEPKEMA: And it was women across the country that were forming these clubs to make society better and to advance life for women as well.

The Ladies Musical Club was a group of women that could either play instruments or wanted to hear good music.

And they would book halls all over the city and they would invite all these, especially women soloists, like Maud Powell and Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler.

This is where Helen and the Ladies Musical Club got to know all of these famous women soloists so that when finally they formed, they were the basis of the founding of the CSO board, those women from that club, they formed the club for this, you know, the board for the CSO.

KELLAR: Yeah, I know you have in your talk, you mentioned Maria Longworth.

TJEPKEMA: Of course.

KELLAR: Who was probably the most the best known.

TJEPKEMA: Yes.

Everybody knows Maria Longworth Nichols because, and then married Storer.

So Maria Longworth Nichols Storer founded Rookwood.

We all know that.

But she also adored music and she started the May Festival with her husband, George Ward Nichols.

And what I also do when I do my research is I try to find really good quotes that kind of represent why they were doing what they were doing.

And Theodore Thomas, the first music director of the May Festival, was invited by Maria Longworth Nichols to be with her husband to be the first music director.

And he said, a quote from him was that he would accept that position because Maria Longworth Nichols had great taste in music.

KELLAR: Wow.

That's great, yeah.

TJEPKEMA: So she also was fluent in German and she would translate the librettos from German to English.

And she said that she would try to put them in words Americans could understand.

KELLAR: Talk about a pioneer.

She really was an artist, an entrepreneur.

TJEPKEMA: Yes.

KELLAR: She was everything.

TJEPKEMA: Another woman that worked for Maria, she worked for her at Rookwood was Laura Anne Fry.

And Laura Anne Fry was the first teacher at Rookwood.

And Laura Anne Fry was a woodcarver and she designed nine of the wood carved organ panels for the organ in Music Hall and carved one.

And her parents immigrated from England and they were Swedenborgian.

And I learned something new.

Cincinnati still has a Swedenborgian church.

KELLAR: Really?

TJEPKEMA: And a huge Swedenborgian community.

And the reason they immigrated to Cincinnati was for the Swedenborgian community here.

And I didn't know this, but the Swedenborgians were way ahead of their time.

They believed in women's equality, that women could do the same thing that men could do.

And so her parents raised her in believing that she could carve wood just just like her father and grandfather.

She could hold that mallet and get it.

KELLAR: Yeah.

TJEPKEMA: So Laura Anne Frye was one of our of hundreds of women that carved the organ panels that are -- Actually the Friends of Music Hall restored 30 of the 120 organ panels.

And they're on display in Music Hall.

And I talk about a couple more of those women that carved panels in Music Hall.

KELLAR: Yeah, would those have been -- Would she have been about the same time as Ben Pittman.

TJEPKEMA: Yes, she -- Well, her father, Henry -- Her father, William Fry, and her grandfather, Henry Fry, they had their own art carving studio on 4th Street.

And it was a private school, but very welcoming to women because they knew women could carve.

But at the same time, Ben Pitmen was a teacher in art carving at the McMicken School of Design.

And it was both at those schools that had a lot of women in their classes that were commissioned to carve the panels for the Music Hall Organ.

KELLAR: Wow, we could we could listen to this forever because it's absolutely fascinating.

How can people, if people are interested in Friends of Musical, how can they join?

TJEPKEMA: We have a website, friendsofmusichall.org and I actually -- we have another talk that I just completed it's called Under One Roof: The African-American Experience in Music Hall.

And like women, finding stories that have never been told about the African-American influence in this community is very difficult.

Those stories are very hard to track down and bring to light.

And I'm just really thrilled that I found so many great people to talk about.

And if you just go on our website, you can probably, you just find there how you can book one of these talks.

KELLAR: Oh, anybody can could have you come and talk to their group and give this full talk?

TJEPKEMA: Yes.

KELLAR: Not just a little excerpts we've given today, but the full talk.

And then you have the African-American one coming up.

And will you give those first to the group and then if people want you to do it elsewhere, then they contact you?

TJEPKEMA: Yes, you can book on our website either talk and they're 45 minutes to an hour.

And I have great, great images.

I've found some really great images, you know, with the PowerPoint presentation.

KELLAR: Yeah, yeah, it sounds wonderful.

And I know you're going to get a lot of interest in your historical Well, that scholarship is amazing.

TJEPKEMA: Oh, thank you.

KELLAR: And we all can benefit from it because it's really, really interesting.

There's so much to talk about about Music Hall, and this is a big part of it.

TJEPKEMA: And also on our website, if you just go in the top menu bar and find the word blog, I've written some much longer detailed stories of some of these people.

So I've written a blog about Sissieretta Jones and Adelina Patti and Fountain Lewis, an African-American barber whose story is phenomenal.

So -- and Mamie Smith, Mamie Smith, the blues singer from Cincinnati who grew up just south of Duke Energy Convention Center.

KELLAR: Yeah.

TJEPKEMA: So check out the blogs on our website if you want some reading.

KELLAR: It sounds great.

There's a treasure full of wonderful information.

Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

TJEPKEMA: Thank you.

KELLAR: I think your talks are appropriate any time, any place, anywhere, because they're just so fascinating.

So thank you, thank you for all your scholarship and for sharing it.

TJEPKEMA: Oh, thank you.

Thanks for having me.

KELLAR: Bye-bye.

KJEPKEMA: Bye.

ANNOUNCER: Join us next week for another episode of Showcase with Barbara Keller right here on CET.

Captions: Maverick Captioning maverickcaptioning.com