About Cloudbank Creations

Cloudbank Creations is a small, independent company committed to publishing non-fiction for select audiences, ranging from books on self-esteem and intuition development to unique works of research and scholarship.

Manuscripts

Submission of manuscripts is by invitation only. Cloudbank Creations is unable to acknowledge, evaluate, and/or return all unsolicited manuscripts.

About the Name Cloudbank Creations

The name Cloudbank is taken from the 130 acre hillside farm, about ten miles south of Skaneateles, New York, that Donald Jay Grout purchased in 1968. As a young boy, Donald had invented the name for what was then his grandfather's farm, a place that Donald loved to visit. He would often tell people that he boarded with his parents in Skaneateles during the school year but "lived" with his grandparents in the summer. The farm is one of those wonderful places, secluded in nature, where time seems to disappear.

About Donald Jay Grout (1902-1987) --- Prominent Musicologist

Donald Jay Grout was born on September 28, 1902, in Rock Rapids, Iowa. His parents both came from the Town of Spafford, Skaneateles, New York. In 1906, when Donald was four years old, his father moved the family back to Skaneateles to establish a dental practice in that village. Donald attended the Skaneateles Academy and Skaneateles High School, graduating in 1919.

His mother taught him to play the piano when he was four. From 1914 to 1919 he studied piano and organ with Joseph B. Tallmadge of Auburn, New York. At the age of twelve, in 1914, he became the organist of the Skaneateles Methodist Church. In 1919, he became the organist for the First Universalist Church in Syracuse where he played until 1923 when he graduated as Valedictorian of Syracuse University, with a major in philosophy. He also played the organ at the Strand Movie Theater in Syracuse from 1919-20 and 1922-23. He played the organ at various churches in the Boston area from 1923-33 and irregularly at Harvard University Memorial Church from 1936-1942. He was organist at the Firs Christian Church in Austin, Texas, from 1943-45. At Cornell University, he was the Director of the Sage Chapel Choir from 1945-52. He was Conductor of the Cornell University Chorus from 1957-59.

After graduation from Syracuse University in 1923, Donald went to Boston where he studied theology at Boston University for about six months. Then he began the study of piano with Raymond Havens and continued with Havens until 1928. During these years he taught piano and gave numerous recitals. In 1928 he began studying piano with Clara Larsen and George Proctor. In 1931, he gave a professional recital at Jordan Hall. In 1932, he played in the Naumburg Piano Competition and took second place.

Donald received his master's degree in music from Harvard University in 1932 and a Ph.D. in music from Harvard in 1939. He began his teaching career in 1935 as a visiting lecturer on the history of music at Mills College. He served the next three years as a tutor in the division of music at Harvard University and Radcliffe College. He served as an instructor of music at the two colleges from 1940 to 1942, and after that Dr. Grout served three years as an associate professor of music literature at the University of Texas at Austin.

He joined the faculty of Cornell University in 1945 as a professor of music and served as chairman of Cornell's department of music from 1947 to 1951 and from 1953 to 1958. He was a Given Foundation Professor of Musicology from 1962 until his retirement in 1970.

Donald was also a visiting professor at Carleton College, the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and the University of Louvain in Belgium. He was a Visiting Ernest Bloch Professor of Music at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1975 to 1976.

Best known as author of several books, including A Short History of Opera, A History of Western Music, and Alessandro Scarlatti, An Introduction to His Operas, he also wrote many essays and reviews.

Donald received both Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships during his career as a music scholar. He was elected to the British Academy in 1978, the Royal Academy of Belgium in 1970, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1961. In 1962, he received the Archibald Thompson Davison Medal for Musicology in London, and in1965 he received Syracuse University's George Arents Pioneer Medal. He was also named an honorary doctor of music by Eastman School of Music in 1981 and by Dickinson College in 1983.

Donald composed this collection of settings for Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes for his daughter Martha in 1948.

Donald Jay Grout died at Cloudbank, his home in Spafford, New York, on March 9, 1987.