Seeger, Charles

SEEGER, CHARLES (1886–1979). In a career that spanned the period from his graduation from Harvard in 1909 until his death seventy years later, Charles Louis Seeger, Jr. established himself as a composer and conductor, musicologist, advocate of the modernist musical aesthetic, and political activist. As the chairman of the music department at the University of California at Berkeley, Seeger offered one of the country’s first courses on American musicology. He also introduced the field of ethnomusicology to the New School for Social Research in 1932. It was Seeger’s interest in the serious study of folk music that contributed to his development as a composer on the Left in the 1930s, even though he found many American songs to be “complacent, melancholy, defeatist.” Writing in the Daily Worker as Carl Sands, Seeger advocated the performance of traditional songs that expressed “vigorous resistance” to oppression. As a member of the Composers Collective (1933–1936), Seeger wrote workers’ rounds that contributed to that spirit of resistance.

Seeger’s commitment to ethnomusicology led to his encouragement of fieldwork in North and Latin America. He served as a musical adviser to the New Deal’s Resettlement Administration (1935–1938) and was the deputy director of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Music Project (1938–1941). In both positions, he supervised the collection and cataloging of music used by Americans in many regions of the country. In addition, he headed the music division of the Pan-American Union (1941–1953). His writings on music stressed the importance of observing the acts of musical creation and performance in their historical and social context. He urged a consideration of music beyond the composer-centered Western tradition and contributed to the emergence of folk music as a legitimate area for academic study. The work of his children—Peggy, Mike, and Pete—in collecting and performing folk music has contributed to the popularization of music from a variety of ethnic and working-class sources.

Cowell, Henry. American Composers on American Music. New York: F. Ungar, 1962.

Dunaway, D. K. “Charles Seeger and Carl Sands: The Composers Collective Years.” Ethnomusicology 26, no. 2 (1980).

Pescatello, Ann M. Charles Seeger: A Life in American Music. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992.