Background
He was born in Raleigh, North Carolina and studied at Mars Hill College near Asheville, North Carolina and Wake Forest University before joining the army in 1916.
He was born in Raleigh, North Carolina and studied at Mars Hill College near Asheville, North Carolina and Wake Forest University before joining the army in 1916.
In the service, he played with the 105th Engineers regimental band stationed in France during World War I. He studied composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and later graduated with a diploma in flute performance from the Institute of Musical Art (1924), having studied with Georges Barrère.
A highly respected flutist and composer of flute music, Stringfield was a founding officer of the New York Flute Club in 1920 along with William Kincaid (later principal flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra) and Georges Barrère of the New York Symphony Orchestra (predecessor of the New York Philharmonic). The Club has featured the world"s most prominent flutists in performance and other programs for over ninety years. Stringfield conducted orchestra concerts in Asheville beginning in the 1920s, organizing the predecessor to the Asheville Symphony Orchestra for an exhibition concert in 1927.
He founded the North Carolina Symphony in Chapel Hill in 1932 serving as conductor until 1938.
Guest conducting engagements included the National Symphony Orchestra (November 13, 1932), United States Navy Band in 1936, the Miami Symphony, New York Civic and Festival Orchestras, in addition to numerous other regional orchestras. He had a deep interest in folk music, publishing a book of arrangements of Appalachian folk songs with Bascom Lamar Lunsford in 1929 and founding the Institute of Folk Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1930.
Working closely with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paul Eliot Greene, he contributed music for The Lost Colony (as of 2009, the United States" second longest running historical outdoor drama) in 1937 and four other works.
Served with United States Army, Mexican Border and France, World War I. Pulitzer prize for orchestral suite “From the Southern Mountains” 1928. Member American Society Composers.