Musician, Composer Active in D.C. Area

Genevieve Fritter Bieber, 93, a violinist, music director and composer in the Washington area for decades, died March 18 at her home in Alexandria. She had Alzheimer's disease.

Mrs. Bieber, known most of her professional life as Genevieve Fritter, was the music director and composer-in-residence for 20 years for the Montgomery Ballet. She was a member of many local orchestras and often substituted in the National Symphony Orchestra.

Her "Theme and Variations for String Orchestra" was performed at the Kennedy Center in the 1976 D.C. Bicentennial Concert. Three of her orchestral works were premiered by the National Gallery Orchestra under the direction of Richard Bales, and her composition "Poem for Flute and Chamber Orchestra" was premiered by one of her daughters at the National Gallery of Art in 1981.

Mrs. Bieber's works were enthusiastically reviewed in The Washington Post over the years. Critic Joan Reinthaler, writing in The Post in 1987, described Mrs. Bieber's piece "On the Light Side" as "fresh, sparkly and extremely well wrought . . . a cheerful set of jazz movements in styles reflective of New Orleans, New York and Chicago traditions. Fritter is a composer with a splendid ear for parody, and her cool sounds were realized beautifully."

Her "A Celebration of Flutes" was described by critic Joseph McLellan in 1991 as "a lively, charmingly lyric and beautifully orchestrated piece . . . certain to find a niche in the growing repertoire for flute choir."

Genevieve Davisson was born in Clarksburg, W.Va., and raised in Zanesville, Ohio. She graduated from Alabama's Judson College and did graduate work in violin at the Juilliard summer school, the Birmingham Conservatory and the Cincinnati Conservatory. She worked in Birmingham and Cincinnati until her family moved to Cleveland, where she played solo programs, gave private lessons and began to compose.

In 1953, she and her family moved to Silver Spring, and she began her affiliation with the Montgomery Ballet. She wrote six full-length ballets based on traditional children's stories that have been performed throughout the area. Between 1965 and 1970, she toured as concertmaster with the National Ballet Orchestra and played with the National Gallery Orchestra.

After the Kennedy Center opened in 1971, she was first violin for the next 12 years with the Opera House Orchestra. In summers, she played at the Carter Barron Amphitheatre, with the Watergate Orchestra and with the Filene Center Orchestra at Wolf Trap.

Mrs. Bieber also wrote works for voice, flute, violin and chamber ensembles and several orchestral works.

Her first husband, Charles Eldon Fritter, died in 1975. Her second husband, Charles F. "Ted" Bieber, died in 2008.

Survivors include two children from her first marriage, Jean Fritter Jawdat of Bethesda, who is the deputy director of the Cathedral Choral Society, and Priscilla Fritter Peterson of Kensington, former principal flutist with the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra; and four grandchildren.