Four Centuries of Great Music June 14, 2026 Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Carlisle Floyd

Today on Four Centuries of Great Music I am celebrating the anniversary of the 100th birthday of American composer Carlisle Floyd which was this past Thursday, June 11th.  

Floyd was born in Latta, South Carolina and was raised with no exposure to contemporary classical music.  However Floyd's mother enjoyed music and poetry, often hosting family hymn singing events. She also gave Floyd his first piano lessons.Though American involvement in World War II had begun in 1941, Floyd's asthma prevented his conscription.  In 1944, he began studying piano at Converse College of Spartanburg, South Carolina, with composer Ernst Bacon.  In 1945 Bacon left Converse to become director of the music school at Syracuse University, New York, a considerably more multicultural institution, and Floyd followed Bacon to Syracuse where he received a Bachelor of Music in 1946 and his master's degree at 1949.  In 1947, Floyd became part of the piano faculty at Florida State University in Tallahassee.  He stayed there for thirty years, eventually becoming Professor of Composition.

While at Florida State University, Floyd gradually became interested in composition. His first opera was Slow Dusk to his own libretto, and was produced at Syracuse in 1949. His next opera, The Fugitives, was seen at Tallahassee in 1951 but was later withdrawn.

Floyd's third opera was his greatest success: Susannah. It was premiered at Florida State at the Ruby Diamond Auditorium in February 1955, with Phyllis Curtin in the title role and Mack Harrell as the Reverend Olin Blitch. The following year, the opera was produced at the New York City Opera, winning him international recognition.  Erich Leinsdorf conducted, with Phyllis Curtin again in the title role and Norman Treigle as Blitch. The opera received the New York Music Critics' Circle Award.  It was selected to be America's official operatic entry at the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels.   

Floyd went on to compose 10 more operas but none achieved the success of Susannah.  

In 1976, he became M. D. Anderson professor at the University of Houston. There, he co-founded the Houston Opera Studio, together with David Gockley, as an institution of the University of Houston and Houston Grand Opera, with students including a composer familiar to Savannah audiences, Michael Ching.  After retirement from the university in Houston in 1996, Floyd moved back to Tallahassee where he died on on September 30, 2021, in Tallahassee, at the age of 95.

This first hour of todays Four Centuries of Great Music is dedicated to his most famous opera Susannah in a performance with Phyllis Curtin again in the title role and Norman Treigle as Blitch.

Carlisle Floyd: Susannah- Act 1 and Act 2
Phyllis Curtin as Susannah and Norman Treigle as Rev. Olin Blitch with The New Orleans Opera Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Knud Anderson
Susannah: An Opera in Two Acts by Carlisle Floyd
VAI Audio Recordings

Carlisle Floyd:  In Celebration - An Overture for Orchestra
Jorge Mester & The Louisville Orchestra
Quincy Porter And Carlisle Floyd Premiere Recordings
Soundmark Records

The Mystery (Five Songs of Motherhood for Soprano & Orchestra): I. He Has Kissed Me
The Louisville Orchestra, Robert Whitney & Phyllis Curtin
Carlisle Floyd: The Mystery (Five Songs of Motherhood for Soprano & Orchestra) - Robert Sanders: Little Symphony No. 1 in G Major
First Edition Records