BARNES, Zilpha

Mrs. Zilpha Barnes Wood was an american vocal teacher, composer and conductor.Mrs. Wood was well known to radio audiences for her broadcasts of condensed versions of grand operas over WJZ and other stations. Her age was 63 when she died. Until her first stroke in April, Mrs. Wood directed the activities of the Grand Opera Society of New York, which she organized in 1915 to promote grand opera in English and bring singers not well known before the public. She was born in Killbuck, Ohio, on Dec. 5, 1866, the daughter of Enos S. Price and the former Sarah Meyers Barnes. After graduating from the Pittsburgh College of Music with an A. B. in music, she entered the Cincinnati College of Music to prepare for concert work on the piano, but suffered an injury to her wrist and turned to a study of composition and the voice. For a time she was a teacher at the Cincinnati college, but later opened her own school of music in the same city. In 1904 she transferred her school to New York.