Music Meets Drama

  “To Miss Lucielle Browning – With all good wishes – of Gena Branscombe”   inscribed on a piece of Gena Branscombe’s sheet music.   Who was Lucielle Browning?   An internet search offered information about Miss Browning.    Lucielle was born Lucielle Raynor Brown on February 19, 1913, in Jacksonville, NC and died on August 8, 2011 in Florida.      A number of my blog posts have been about discovering Miss Branscombe’s compositions either on E-bay or Amazon.  On occasion the works found are ones that I own yet I will buy them because they are autographed or inscribed to someone.  On other occasions a piece not in my collection appears for sale and obviously I purchase it.  This blog posting will be about these very reasons for a recent purchase of Gena’s music.  With friend and poet, Arthur Stringer, the two New York based Canadians collaborated on a patriotic hymn written for the Royal Canadian Navy.  “Our Canada...

  This time of year brings on a flurry of shopping for gifts to be given to children, parents, friends and colleagues.   The expectation of finding the correct item is great and the expectation of what we hope we will receive is even greater.   What a rut we have created for an act that should be from a loving heart.   Researching the definition of a “gift” I found numerous meanings.   The most common would be giving or donating of a thing to someone or an organization voluntarily without payment in return.     Next comes the mention of a natural talent which I, of course, think of the gift of music.     In my years of working as a performer, it was my inherent musical gift that I then gave to an audience who would receive my personal message.   That also is a gift.     I have said that discovering the music and life of Gena Branscombe was and continues to be one of the most unexpected, surprising gifts to my musica...