EMMA LOU DIEMER

DIEMER--Emma Lou. Emma Lou Diemer. November 24, 1927 -- June 2, 2024. Dr (PhD) Emma Lou Diemer, age 96, died peacefully at her home on June 2, 2024. She was preceded in death by her parents, George Willis Diemer and Myrtle Casebolt Diemer, her sister Dorothy Diemer Hendry, and her twin brothers George W. Diemer II and John Irving Diemer. She is survived by a devoted family of nieces and nephews, a large contingent of extended family, friends, former students, longtime companion Marilyn MacKenzie Skiold, and the neighbor's cat Theo, who could often be found purring on a blanket beside Em. Emma Lou played the piano and composed as a young child and throughout her school years in Warrensburg, Missouri. She studied composition with Howard Hanson, Ernst Toch, Roger Sessions and Paul Hindemith, earning degrees at Yale School of Music (BMus, MMus) and Eastman School of Music (PhD, 1960). She studied in Brussels, Belgium on a Fulbright Scholarship. From 1959-61 she was composer-in-residence for the Arlington, Virginia schools under the Ford Foundation Young Composers Project, and then became a consultant for the MENC Contemporary Music Project. In 1965, Dr. Diemer began teaching music composition and theory at the University of Maryland. In 1970, the University of California in Santa Barbara offered her a full-time faculty position, and there she found her home and the climate she loved. She created an electronic music program at UCSB soon after, at a time there were few to be found. She taught composition and theory through 1990, becoming Professor Emerita there in 1991, and continued to compose and publish works for organ, choir, voice, various chamber ensembles, solo piano and orchestra. Her sense of humor often shone through, as with the Pandemic Piano Collection, published in 2021. Over 250 of her compositions have been published since 1956, more than 100 of them recorded. Her organ psalm settings and hymn preludes are considered standard repertoire, as are a number of her choral compositions, including the early and very popular Three Madrigals for chorus. Recognition for her music includes awards from Yale University (Certificate of Merit), Eastman School of Music (Edward Benjamin Award), the National Endowment for the Arts (electronic music project), Mu Phi Epsilon (Certificate of Merit), the Kennedy Center (Friedheim Award for piano concerto), the American Guild of Organists (Composer of the Year), the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers/ASCAP (annually since 1962 for performances and publications), the Santa Barbara Symphony (composer-in-residence, 1990-92), the University of Central Missouri (honorary doctorate), and many others. Dr. Diemer also performed and recorded on piano, organ, harpsichord, and electronic instruments. For years, she played weekly at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Barbara, with improvisational preludes and postludes. She performed in concert usually as organist, including concerts of her own music at Washington National Cathedral, St. Mary's Cathedral and Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, and elsewhere. During the NPR program "Pipe Dreams" devoted to her work, she was described as the "remarkably prolific, imaginative, energetic and altogether delightful American composer, Emma Lou Diemer." Her published music ranged from music that high school groups could perform to virtuosic, but Em also loved to improvise on the piano at a moment's notice. She delighted grandnieces and nephews and friends, by playing "Happy Birthday" variations just for them in various styles: salsa, tango, waltz, cha-cha, swing she could do them any style, and never the same twice. For composition students who were stuck, she amused them by readily playing many options. Her mind was always in music, even when speaking failed at times in her final year. During that time, family members, former students, and friends of all ages made pilgrimages to sit beside her, talk with her, play their instruments and sing for her. Thanks go to them and her loving caregivers, Delcher, Lola, Marisol, and Jovita. Emma Lou's diminutive ego and physique were belied by her enormous stature, as organist, pianist and composer throughout her long, healthy and fruitful life. After cremation, Em will be interred in the family plot in Warrensburg, MO. A Celebration of Life will be held in Santa Barbara at a later date. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to your favorite charitable organization, and please honor Emma Lou by voting!