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American harpist
Zhay Clark
Zhay Clark, from a 1921 publication.
Born July 16, 1895St. Louis, Missouri
Died April 25, 1980Los Angeles, California
Nationality American Other names Zhay Clark Moor (after 1935) Occupation Harpist
Zhay Clark (July 16, 1895 – April 25, 1980) was an American harpist.
Early life
Zhay Clark was born in
St. Louis, Missouri , the daughter of Charles Napier Clark and Emma Piercey Clark. She studied music in Denver and St. Paul.
[1]
Career
Clark was harpist with the Denver Philharmonic Society as a young woman. In 1915, she performed at the
Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, demonstrating harps for the
Rudolph Wurlitzer Company .
[2] In 1917 and 1918, she toured North America with Swiss cellist
Elsa Ruegger . During the 1919-1920 season, she was harpist with the
Seattle Symphony Orchestra . She transcribed and arranged
Charles Wakefield Cadman 's
"From the Land of the Sky Blue Water" for solo harp.
[3]
[4] By 1928, she was billed as "America's foremost harpist."
[5] In 1931, she served on the faculty of the
Mount St. Mary's College summer school, teaching harp.
[6]
Later in her career, Clark worked in the film industry, and performed on radio.
[7] In 1929 she worked with actress
Corinne Griffith on her harp performance in
The Divine Lady , an early experimental sound film.
[8] In the 1940s, she played with
Frank Sinatra 's orchestra.
[9] She played harp on
Bernard Herrmann 's scores for
On Dangerous Ground (1951)
[10] and
Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953),
[11] and on the
Dimitri Tiomkin scores of the films
The Thing From Another World (1951) and
Take the High Ground! (1953).
[12]
Personal life
Zhay Clark married a fellow musician, woodwind player Weyert A. Moor,
[13] in 1935; the couple lived in
Glendale, California . Moor died in 1959.
[14] Clark died in Los Angeles in 1980, aged 84 years.
References
^
"Zhay Clark, A Noted Harpist" Pacific Coast Musical Review 41(October 29, 1921): 4.
^
"Harp Soloist Will Give Concert Sunday" . Berkeley Daily Gazette . December 11, 1915. p. 3. Retrieved December 22, 2019 – via NewspaperArchive.com.
^
Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third series . 1961. p. 563.
^ Cadman, Charles Wakefield (1933).
From the land of sky-blue water . Harold B. Lee Library. Boston : White-Smith Music.
^ Andrews, Ruth (1928-12-10).
"Zhay Clark, Noted Harpist, Will Appear in Christmas Concert with Cianfoni Band" . Santa Ana Register . p. 4. Retrieved 2019-12-22 – via Newspapers.com.
^ MSMC Registrar (1931).
Summer Session June 29-August 1, 1931 . Los Angeles Mount St. Mary’s College Libraries. Mount St. Mary's College.
^
"Concert" . The Los Angeles Times . 1931-06-28. p. 22. Retrieved 2019-12-22 – via Newspapers.com.
^ Hubbert, Julie (2011-03-02).
Celluloid Symphonies: Texts and Contexts in Film Music History . University of California Press. pp. 142–143.
ISBN
978-0-520-24101-5 .
^
Put Your Dreams Away: A Frank Sinatra Discography . Greenwood Publishing Group. 2000. pp. 91–92.
ISBN
978-0-313-31055-3 .
^
"Film Score Monthly CD: On Dangerous Ground" . Film Score Monthly . Retrieved 2019-12-22 .
^
"Film Score Monthly CD: Beneath the 12-Mile Reef" . Film Score Monthly . Retrieved 2019-12-22 .
^
"Film Score Monthly CD: Thing From Another World/Take the High Ground!, The" . Film Score Monthly . Retrieved 2019-12-22 .
^ Moor, Weyert A. (2005-11-16).
"Through the air" . Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project, Santa Barbara Library Department of Special Collections, University of California . Retrieved 2019-12-22 .
^
"Weyert Moor (obituary)" . Pasadena Independent . 1959-08-25. p. 15. Retrieved 2019-12-22 – via Newspapers.com.