Ursula Dietrich-Hollinshead (piano) - Twilight Frolics (Dietrich-Hollinshead) (1928)

Ursula Genevieve Dietrich was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on 10 May 1886. At the age of 9, she started piano lessons, studying for 10 years and at the same time acting as a teacher to other neighbourhood children.

Aged 19, she obtained a position with a Denver music store demonstrating pianos and player pianos and managing the piano roll department. Sent to Chicago, she was introduced to the newly-introduced Apollo expression piano. Two years later, she was hired to make rolls for the piano's manufacturer, the Melville Clark Piano Company, and to go on concert tours. On these tours, her playing (of a wide variety of music ranging from Weber to her own compositions) would be alternated with that of the 'Artapollo,' she would play duets with a roll on the instrument and the instrument would accompany soloists.

When the Melville Clark contract expired at the end of the First World War, she did similar concert tours for both Ampico and Duo-Art. She also recorded piano rolls for QRS.

She married in 1918. Separating from her husband 10 years later, she took up a career of music teaching and real estate, finally retiring in the late 1940s although maintaining some teaching involvement.

There was, however, to be a reprise. In the 1970s, she was tracked down as one of the surviving artists who had made piano rolls in the early days, and this ultimately led to an appearance on the Johnny Carson Show at the age of 87. Two years later, she wrote a short autobiography. She died, 3 days after her 99th birthday, on 13 May 1985.

On 5 July 1928, Dietrich-Hollinshead made 2 sides for Edison, both featuring her own compositions. As far as I am aware, these are her only non-piano roll recordings. The music has no pretensions: it is simply pleasant light music of the era, with something of an improvisatory quality. Having said that, I felt that it would be worthwhile to upload one of the sides as a tribute to an interesting artist.