Mana-Zucca (real name, Gizella Augusta Zuckermann)

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Mana-Zucca (real name, Gizella Augusta Zuckermann)

Mana-Zucca (real name, Gizella Augusta Zuckermann), American composer, pianist, and singer; b. N.Y, Dec. 25, 1887; d. Miami Beach, March 8, 1981. She began playing piano as a child and took the name Mana-Zucca as a teenager. In 1902 she played in one of Frank Damrosch’s young people’s concerts at N.Y/s Carnegie Hall. After training from Alexander Lambert, she toured as a pianist in Europe from about 1907. She also made some appearances as a singer, attracting notice in Lehar’s Der Graf von Luxemburg in London in 1919. From 1921 she was active mainly in Fla., where she devoted herself fully to composition. She became best known as a composer of lyrically soaring songs, the most famous being I Love Life (1923).

Works

Hypatia, opera (c. 1920); The Queue ofKi- Lu, opera (c. 1920); The Wedding of the Butterflies, ballet; Piano Concerto (N.Y, Aug. 20, 1919); Violin Concerto (N.Y, Dec. 9, 1955); chamber music; choral pieces; over 170 songs; didactic pieces.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire