Music Meets Drama

  A new photo of Gena Branscombe appeared in my e-mail thanks to her grandson, Roger.  What a lovely picture it is.   By the style of the dress, hat and handbag, I would guess the photo was taken in the 1940s.  Looking closely at her hands, she is holding a baton.  On the back of the picture it says, “Gena at our Spring luncheon.”   I presume the luncheon would have been the Branscombe Choral Spring luncheon.  No date or identifying information is given.    

  Self-promotion….self-promotion for artists….a very difficult function of our career journey with networking, making sure our names are associated with our talent and performances, conversing about ourselves and always creating a personal narrative that will sell, sell, sell.  From afar we admire artists who fly through this process without self-doubt. We try to imitate them or learn to do what they seem to do with ease.  Yet, we all come to acknowledge that self-promotion, though it is a necessary part of our business, is a challenge.   November 14, 1926, a letter from Gena Branscombe to Mr. Austin at Arthur P. Schmidt Company in Boston: “I’ve an appointment with Mr. Schipa   – this Wednesday – am showing him a manuscript song – and if you will send me on the following songs (as I’ve none here) I’ll take them in also.   “There’s a Woman like a Dewdrop”   “Hail Ye Tyme of Holiedayes” “Three Mystic Ships”   “At the Postern Gate” and “Happine...

  Though I have posted this quote several years ago, when I came upon it once again, I was moved by Miss Branscombe's personal message.   “My Artistic Creed”    “It is – to be ever constant in my endeavor to express thru music a firm faith in the joy, beauty, and harmony underlying life, the certainty of a loving and sustaining Higher Power which helps us in all our undertakings, & the value of a high courage.  Music is to me the most beautiful & instantaneous road to God.  I feel it to be one of the most potent forces for regeneration operating on the earth.”     Gena Branscombe -  Diary entry,  Sunday, July 13, 1916 #BringingBackBranscombe