CALBREATH, Mary Evelene

Mary Evelene Calbreath (1895–1972) was an American composer, singer and music teacher based in Portland, Oregon. Born in McMinnville, Oregon, she studied piano and violin in Berlin before returning to the United States, where she later focused on vocal music. She worked for ten years as an assistant to the New York music teacher William Brady and subsequently established herself in Portland as a vocal teacher and member of the Oregon Music Teachers Association. As a composer, Calbreath wrote a number of songs, as well as instrumental works for violin and string quartet. Her surviving music includes the song My Love Rode By (1928), with words by Gertrude R. Ross, and a manuscript Sonata for Violin and Piano in B minor preserved in the Oregon Historical Society Research Library. She died in April 1972.