Alta Belle Harmer Meldrum
Although Alta Meldrum served as a high school and grade school administrator for 30 years, she was an active musician who also worked as a professional accompanist. Her interest in accompanying developed at Walla Walla College, where as a music student, she played piano countless hours, accompanying all the choirs and many performers and played for conducting classes.
Maldrum completed a piano teacher's diploma at the WWC conservatory music program in 1930. After marrying George Meldrum, a student who also had a strong affinity for music, she assisted in the department as an accompanist while she continued her music studies, which included lessons with a teacher at nearby Whitman Conservatory of Music. In 1935, she received the first B.A. degree in music awarded at WWC.
Meldrum subsequently accompanied Marion Anderson, world famous African-American soprano who helped break the color barrier, when she performed in Honolulu, Hawaii, for the U. S. Armed Forces on Christmas Eve in December 1941. For two years she was rehearsal accompanist for Yehudi Menuhin, famous violinist in the first half of the 20th century. She then accompanied a number of professional artists for two more years.
She and her husband were active in music throughout their working years in the southern California. They retired in 1973.
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