A. Kori Hill
When Undine Smith Moore (1904–1989) was eight or nine, she got really frustrated. She was writing a canon, and she couldn’t get the lines to align correctly at the end. Thankfully, she didn’t give up: she made a career as a composer and teacher that spanned 50 years!
Undine was born in Jarrett, Virginia, and grew up in Petersburg, which is a little to the south of the capital, Richmond. Undine’s older sister started piano lessons first. But soon, Undine was playing too. She studied with a Fisk University graduate, Lillian Allen Darden, and ended up going to Fisk for her undergrad. She also received a scholarship to study at the Juilliard School!
When she graduated in 1926, her teachers wanted her to apply for Juilliard’s graduate program. But Undine had other ideas. She moved to North Carolina to start teaching, and in 1928 joined the faculty of Virginia State College (now Virginia State University), where she would teach for more than 40 years.
At Virginia State College, Undine composed, taught piano and organ, led choral groups, and worked as a departmental leader and administrator. She wrote a theory workbook – A Recorded Supplement to Studies in Traditional Harmony – that she used in her theory classes, co-founded Virginia State’s Black Music Center in 1968 with Altona Trent Johns, and wrote and arranged music for her work at the college and with church ministries and rural schools in the community.
She also reconsidered her teachers’ call to graduate school. From 1929 to 1931, she traveled to NYC to get her Master of Arts in music from Columbia University’s Teachers College. In the 1950s, she took composition workshops and restarted lessons with her former teacher, Howard Murphy. In 1938, she married Dr. James Arthur Moore, who also taught at Virginia State. They had one daughter, Mary Hardie. Undine and James often performed together as James was a talented tenor. Their daughter grew up to be a professional dancer and professor at Carleton College.
In 1971–72, Undine and Altona went to Senegal, Ghana, and the Ivory Coast. They performed and lectured on Black music while connecting with locals in urban and rural areas. It was a powerful experience for Undine to be surrounded by people who looked like her.
Undine was very passionate about the study of Black music. The Black Music Center hosted seminars and institutes on Black music of all kinds and offered a course for undergrad and graduate students. While the center closed when Undine retired in 1972, the course is still part of VSU’s music curriculum!
Undine wrote more than 100 compositions. The majority are choral music and range from settings that explore African American culture to poetry by the Ancient Greek poet Sappho. Undine knew that music was a powerful way to incite social change and make people think. In the next blog, we’ll take a look at three of her compositions, two of which she counted among her best: “Mother to Son” (1955), “Love Let the Wind Cry…How I Adore Thee” (1961), and Afro-American Suite (1969).
