OUR COMPOSERS
Pauline Delmonte
Pauline Delmonte (1913 - 2011) composed for choral groups, solo voice, two-pianos, and handbells. She taught piano, and played in two-piano ensembles in programs of the Music Teachers Association of California, and Sigma Alpha Iota (professional music fraternity for women). She received both her bachelor's and master's degrees in music from Syracuse University. Other study included the Berkshire Music Center, and study with master teachers George Mulfinger, George Boyle and Richard Buhlig. While teaching at Moravian College in her home town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and later at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, she composed music for modern dance, theatrical productions, solo voice, and chorus.
After Pauline married Julian Delmonte (an aerospace engineer "and my favorite two-piano partner"), they moved to California and raised three sons. She continued to compose but it was her husband's request for a Christmas gift of her music that brought about her first sacred anthem, WITHIN A MANGER HARSH WITH HAY, set to a poem by their author-friend Melcena Burns Denny. Published by Choristers Guild in 1969, it was followed by other anthems from Choristers Guild, Word Inc., Shawnee-Flammer, Fred Bock Music Company, Gentry Publications, Hinshaw Music, Lawson-Gould, Abingdon Press and Cantus Quercus Press. NIGHT ON THE PAMPA, for two pianos, won first place in the yearly competition of the Teachers Category of Composers Today of the Music Teachers Association of California and was played by Pauline and her husband at that year's convention. In 1991, the anthem ALL WILL BE WELL (SATB a cappella), set to a text by co-member Wilbur Skeels, won the Choral Conductors Guild first anthem competition. STARS ARE FOR THOSE WHO LIFT THEIR EYES, published by Choristers Guild, text by Melcena Burns Denny, with piano and cello, is now on the CD "Christmas with the Spivey Hall Children's Choir."
Her hobbies included watercolor, writing (including articles published by Choristers Guild) and spending time with three grandchildren.