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This page is for you - our audience. We always enjoy talking to you during our performances about the pieces and composers you're about to hear, but often we have more to say than we have time for. So we'd like to take this opportunity to give you some advance program notes for our next concert. Here you can read about the composers, the pieces and find links to more detailed information on our concert repertoire.
The Women Speak II
March 8, 2008Our featured composer - Gwyneth Walker
World Premiere of "Full Circle"
commissioned by Palisades Virtuosi
Dr. Gwyneth Walker (b. 1947) is a graduate of Brown University and the Hartt School of Music. She holds B.A., M.M. and D.M.A. Degrees in Music Composition. A former faculty member of the Oberlin College Conservatory, she resigned from academic employment in 1982 in order to pursue a career as a full-time composer. She now lives on a dairy farm in Braintree, Vermont. Gwyneth Walker is a proud resident of Vermont. She is the recipient of the Year 2000 "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Vermont Arts Council. Walker's catalog includes over 170 commissioned works for orchestra, band, chorus and chamber ensembles. The music of Gwyneth Walker is published by E.C. Schirmer of Boston (choral/vocal music) and MMB Music of St. Louis (orchestral/instrumental music). During the 2006-7 season, Gwyneth Walker traveled across the United States working with a variety of musicians as they premiered and recorded her works. As a result of these collaborations, several new CDs have been released: A Vision of Hills (piano trios and string works, performed by Trio Tulsa), An Hour to Dance (music for SATB chorus recorded by the choirs at Whitman College) and Now Let Us Sing! (with Bella Voce Women’s Chorus, Burlington, Vermont). In addition to the composing of new works, there has also been a special project of creating orchestral accompaniments for a number of choral and vocal works in the Walker catalog. Thus, the Songs for Women’s Voices, I Thank You God, I Will Be Earth and the song cycle, No Ordinary Woman!, have all been orchestrated. Another new work, A Testament to Peace, combines a number of peace-oriented choral works (Tell the Earth to Shake, The Tree of Peace, and There is a Way to Glory) into a set with chamber orchestra. Commissions for the coming year will include several works for brass quintet: a new Christmas suite, A Season of Wonder, for the Nebraska Brass, and Sweet Imagination for the Carolina Brass. Orchestral compositions will span a variety of genres: Muse of Amherst (based on poetry of Emily Dickinson) for the Holyoke, MA, Civic Symphony and narrator; The Rainbow Sign (the first in a set of American Songs for Orchestra) for the Santa Cruz, CA, Symphony; an orchestral and narrative adaptation of the Walker Acquaintance with Nature (based on the writings of H. D. Thoreau); an Idyll for Flute and Strings for the Mistral Ensemble of Andover, MA, and Voices in Song for the Walla Walla, WA, Symphony and Youth Chorus. New works for chorus, vocal soloists, instrumentalists and chamber opera will fill out the coming schedule. It is always the composer's desire to explore a variety of genres, especially those with dramatic potential.
You may find out more about Ms. Walker at her website .
Our commissioned work this evening is "FULL CIRCLE", a three movement work based on readings "Walt Whitman's "Song of the Open Road", "The Grace of the World" and "Let Tomorrow Come" from the Unitarian Universalist Hymnal.
Guest Artist - Mezzo-contralto Hanne Ladefoged-Dollase is a native of Randers, Denmark. She has performed extensively throughout North America, promoting Scandinavian Music Culture in song recitals and lectures, including A Celebration of Danish Music, From Tivoli to Troldhaugen, Danish Music – Past and Present and A Musical Portrait of Hans Christian Andersen. Her refreshing concert appearances and lush contralto capture the humor, history and deeply emotional nature of the Nordic Song. Virtually unknown in North America, her repertoire offers the listener a rare glimpse into Scandinavian passion and pathos – through Folk, Golden Age and contemporary Scandinavian songs. Before moving to the New York area, Ms.Ladefoged-Dollase lived in Seattle, WA, where she was a frequent guest on King F.M., 98.3 and performed with numerous groups, including Seattle Opera, Tacoma Opera, Orchestra Seattle, Northwest Chamber Orchestra, the Northwest Sinfonietta and the Early Music Guild of Seattle. She has performed in avant-garde and baroque opera, and also roles in the standard opera repertoire such as Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus, Hansel in Hansel and Gretel and Maddalena in Rigoletto. She has sung the altos solos in works by Bach, Beethoven, Berstein, Durufle, Dvorak, Handel, Haydn, Mozart and Vivaldi, as well as Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody, Elgar’s Sea Pictures, Mahler’s Ruckert Lieder, Respighi’s Laud to the Nativity, the Mother in Elverskud by Danish composer, Niels W.Gade, the old woman in Mendelssohn’s Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, and the world premiere of Passing Chimes for mezzo and chamber ensemble by Northwest composer, Roger Briggs. In the New York area Ms. Ladefoged-Dollase has performed with the St. Cecilia Chorus (at Carnegie Hall), the New York Scandia Symphony, the Adelphi Chamber Orchestra, the Oratorio Society of New Jersey, the Ars Musica Chorale, the Essex Chorale, the Orfeus Men’s Chorus, the Scandia String Quartet and in the Trinity Concert Series, among others. She made her East Coast operatic debut as Ines in Verdi’s Il Trovatore with the State Repertory Opera of New Jersey. Ms.Ladefoged-Dollase holds a Masters Degree in musicology and vocal pedagogy from the University of Copenhagen. Upon finishing her degree, she won several prestigious scholarships and grants to pursue post-graduate studies in vocal performance in the U.S.
New Jersey based artist Leslie Montana will display some of her works at this concert - please visit her website to see her full gallery -
www.lesliemontana.com
Adrienne Albert - A graduate of UCLA in music and the child of European trained professional violinists, Adrienne began studying the piano at age 4 and composition at 10. She had the good fortune to have had great teachers: for piano, Jacob Gimpel and Aube Tzerko in Los Angeles, Joanna Graudan at the Aspen Music School and early composition studies with Saul Kaplan and Leonard Stein. After enjoying a lengthy hiatus performing other people’s music, she returned to studying composition with Stephen “Lucky” Mosko at CalArts and orchestration with Albert Harris.
"Music has always been a central part of my life. Whether it has been performing, singing, or composing, it is the thread that weaves through each part of my being. I find joy in every form of music, and my life has been an eclectic patchwork of music ranging from avant- garde 20th century vocal and choral music to Baroque, ethnic, folk music, jazz, popular, and of course, classical music. We are each an amalgam of our pasts, influenced by our individual experiences, and I have been extremely fortunate in having an extraordinary past which informs my present and makes me look forward with great enthusiasm to the future."
You may visit her website for more information.
We open our program this evening with "Doppler Effect", an evocative minimalist work in which undulating meoldies weave over an ostinato piano part. We love the way it unfolds and builds throughout.
Faye-Ellen Silverman (b. 1947) began her music studies before the age of four at the Dalcroze School of Music. She first achieved national recognition by winning the Parents League Competition, judged by Leopold Stokowski, at the age of 13. She holds a BA from Barnard, cum laude and honors in music, and an AM from Harvard and a DMA from Columbia, both in music composition. She spent her junior year of college at Mannes College. Her teachers have included Otto Luening, William Sydeman, Leon Kirchner, Lukas Foss, Vladimir Ussachevsky, and Jack Beeson. Seesaw Music, a division of Subito Music, publishes about 75 of her compositions. Zigzags is available on Crystal Records, and Passing Fancies, Restless Winds, and Speaking Alone are on New World Recordings. An entire CD of her work will be available from Albany Records by late summer, 2008.
Silverman's awards include the selection of her Oboe-sthenics to represent the United States at the International Rostrum of Composers/UNESCO, resulting in international radio broadcasts (1982); winning the Indiana State [Orchestral] Composition Contest, resulting in a performance by the Indianapolis Symphony (1982); a Governor's Citation (1982); and having September 30, 1982 named Faye-Ellen Silverman Day in Baltimore by Mayor Donald Schaeffer. Additionally, she has been the recipient of the National League of American Pen Women’s biennial music award (2002), yearly Standard Awards from ASCAP (now known as ASCAPlus) since 1983, several Meet the Composer grants, and an American Music Center grant. She has been a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (2007), a resident scholar at the Villa Serbelloni of the Rockefeller Foundation (1987), a Composers' Conference Fellow (1985), a Yaddo Fellow (1984), and a MacDowell Fellow (1982). She is currently a Founding Board Member of the International Women's Brass Conference (for which she has served as composer-in-residence), and a founding member of Music Under Construction, a composers’ collective.
Please visit her website for more information.
"Mariana" for Mezzo-Soprano, Clarinet & Piano is based on a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson (after Shakespeare)
AMY MARCY CHENEY BEACH
In her own words..."The women composers of today have advanced in technique, resourcefulness, and force, and even the younger composers have achieved some effects which the great masters themselves would never have dared to attempt. The present composers are getting away more and more from the idea that they must cater to the popular taste, and in expressing their individual ideas, are giving us music of real worth and beauty."Amy Marcy Cheney [Beach] (1867-1944), a child prodigy and one finest pianists in Boston in her day. She debuted at sixteen, and in 1885 played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She was the first significant female composers in America and one of the leading composers of the "New England School".
She married at 18 and began to live the life her husband wished for her. He requested that she limit her performing career which allowed her to concentrate her energies on her composition. She was best known for her songs and piano works, but also mastered larger choral and symphonic works, one of the first wormen composers in this country to do so.
Much more about the composer information is available on line at Wikipedia and the Essentials of Music website.
"Romance" Opus 23 was written in 1893, for violin & piano which she performed with violinist Franz Kniesel in 1894. It is based on a theme of one of the songs she'd written earlier in her career. The simple melodic opening develops into a lovely and passionate work.
Julie Schmidt’s interest in composing music started when she was in grade school, when she would make up songs on the piano to perform for her friends’ birthdays, and play in class for show-and-tell. She suffered through piano lessons for years in the hopes of getting good enough to play the more intricate songs she heard in her head. That never happened, so she is thrilled to hear other, infinitely more competent musicians play them.
Notable compositions are her three poems by e. e. cummings, Flute Fantasy, and Piano Sonata, which won the International Mu Phi Epsilon outstanding composition award. Most recently she has written an anthem for the 100th Anniversary of The Cresskill Congregational Church.
Julie Schmidt has performed the role of Carlotta Giudicelli to critical acclaim in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, and in over forty cities across the nation. She was twice nominated for the Best Actress award by the League of American Theatres and Producers. She has also produced benefit concerts for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS in St. Paul, Cincinnati, New Orleans and Houston. Ms. Schmidt has performed with the Greater Miami Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and numerous companies in the New York area. The Kansas native received her Bachelors Degrees summa cum laude in Voice and Theory-Composition from Wichita State University, and her Masters in Voice from Florida State University, and in 1990 was a recipient of a Kansas Cultural Trust Grant. She is currently on the voice faculty at the Mannes Conservatory in Manhattan, and maintains a private voice studio in New Jersey. Ms. Schmidt is married to clarinetist Donald Mokrynski, and is mother to twins Kaete and Isabelle.
"Sirens" was written in 1994 as a birthday present to clarinetist Donald Mokrynski, her boyfriend at the time, now her husband. It combines folk-song and torch-song melodies with undulating and sometimes tempestuous piano accompaniment.
Donna Kelly Eastman (b. 1945) has had a varied musical career, which includes keyboard and vocal performance, choral and chamber ensemble direction, studio and classroom teaching, and writing and arranging music for many settings. She received her undergraduate education at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the University of Maryland. She has received composition awards from the Roodepoort International Eisteddfod of South Africa, the Florilege Vocal de Tours International Choral Competition, the Delius Competition, the International Alliance for Women in Music, the National League of American Pen Women Music Composition Competition, the Margaret Fairbank Jory Copying Assistance Program of the American Music Center, the Composer's Guild International Competition, and the National Federation of Music Clubs Glad Robinson Youse Competition; and commissions from Judith Lapple, Principal Flute -- US Air Force Band, Genevieve Fritter-Bieber, Concertmistress Emeritus -- National Ballet Orchestra, the Kirkwood Flute Ensemble, and Connor Smith, Soprano. Dr. Eastman's music is published by Editions a Coeur Joie, Lyons, France, and her work, Just Us, appears in the journal of the Society of Composers, Inc. She has held Visiting Composer positions at Illinois Wesleyan University and Sweet Briar College, and is a Fellow of the Charles Ives Center for American Music, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Ragdale Foundation. Dr. Eastman is listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Women, and Who's Who in the World, and is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honorary and Phi Kappa Phi National Academic Honor Society. She is past-President of the Southeastern Composers' League, a life member of the Society of Composers Inc, and a BMI affiliate. She is also a member of Sigma Alpha Iota National Fraternity for Women in Music, the American Composers Forum, SEAMUS--the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, and the International Alliance for Women in Music. Ms. Eastman is a charter member of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
We will be performing two songs from the song cycle "Just Us" for flute & mezzo-soprano. The title is meant to suggest the intimacy of a private conversation between two friends (the flute & the voice) on which the audience is invited to "eavesdrop". The texts are by New York poet, Sybil Kollar.
Joan Tower (b. 1938) is a contemporary American composer, pianist and conductor. New Yorker magazine calls her "one of the most successful woman composers of all time", her bold and energetic compositions have been performed in concert halls around the world.
A professor at Bard College since 1972, she is famous for her "Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman" written in the mid-80's for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. She was also pianist and founder of the Da Capo Chamber Players. Tower received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1976. She has won nearly every major prize available to composers, received a Guggenheim fellowship and was recently commissioned by orchestras in all 50 states to compose "Made In America" which subsequently was performed in all 50 states furing the 2005 - 2007 seasons.
She is currently the Asher B. Edelman Professor of Music at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson,[5] New York, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and serves on the Artistic Advisory panel of the BMI Foundation.Much more about her can be found at the G. Schirmer website and at Wikipedia.
"A Little Gift" is a brief 2-minute work for Flute & Clarinet is based on the song "My Funny Valentine" and was originally comissioned as a birthday present. The piece was later reworked and incorporated into a larger work for chamber ensemble and received it's premiere in NYC in February of this year.
Nancy Bloomer Deussen(whose maiden name was Nancy Van Norman) is a prominent San Francisco Bay Area composer and co-founder of the Bay Area chapter of The National Association of Composers,USA. She has been a dedicated champion of more accessible contemporary music, a viewpoint amply demonstrated in all of her works. A composer who is well-loved by audiences, her works encompass a wide spectrum of performers and include works for band, chorus, orchestra (full, string and chamber), many chamber music combinations, recorder consort, flute, clarinet and violin solo, piano solo, brass ensemble and solo voice and piano. Her works have received performances by many well-known orchestras She has also had numerous performances by chamber ensembles, brass ensembles, bands and soloists across the country.
Ms Bloomer Deussen is the recipient of a number of awards which include: The Bay Area Composer's Symposium Performance Award for her orchestral work "Reflections on the Hudson" in 1994, The Britten on-the -Bay First Prize for "Trio for Violin, Clarinet and Piano" in 1996 ,the Mu Phi Epsilon Original Composition Contest (for large works) for "Concerto for Clarinet and Small Orchestra" in 1999, the Second Marmor Chamber Music Composition Competition sponsored by Stanford University in 2002 for "Woodwind Quintet # 2" and selection in a competition by The Foundation for Universal Sacred Music in 2004 to compose an original choral work which was premiered in New York City in October, 2004. Her most recent awards were First and 2nd Prize in Orchestral Category and First Prize in Choral Music in the 2006 Composition Competition of the National League of American Pen Women.
You may visit her website for more information.
The Trio we will perform tonight is originally for Violin, Clarinet & Piano. The violin part was easily adapted for Flute and it has become one of our favorite new pieces! It is filled with lush harmonies, beautiful soaring melodies and fanciful rhythmic figures. We consider ourselves fortunate to have found it!
For program notes from previous concerts please click here
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