Daniel, Minna (née Lederman)
Daniel, Minna (née Lederman)
Daniel, Minna (née Lederman) , legendary
American editor and writer on music; b. N.Y., March 3, 1896; d. N.Y., Oct. 29, 1995. She studied music and dance professionally before taking a degree at Barnard Coll. (1917) and beginning her career as a journalist. In 1923 she joined the newly formed League of Composers, and in 1924 helped launch its Review, which in 1925 became Modern Music, the first American journal to serve as a literary forum for contemporary composers. During her tenure as its sole editor (1924–6), she encouraged a generation of American composer-critics, publishing essays and reviews by such musical activists as Thomson, Cage, Carter, Blitzstein, and Bowles; she also publ. articles by Berg, Schoenberg, and Bartok. The journal attained an international reputation. In 1975 she established the Archives of Modern Music at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In 1983 she publ. the informative chronicle The Life and Death of a Small Magazine. She also ed. Stravinsky in the Theatre (N.Y., 1949; 3rd ed., 1975).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire