BORN 1 JANUARY 1922 - USA
Margaret Meachem studied composition with one of the 20th century’s most renowned pedagogues, Nadia Boulanger. Her commission in 2000 from the Manchester Music Festival was performed by four Metropolitan Opera singers, and the Kiev Chamber Choir recorded her work in 2006. Yet for much of her composing life Meachem had to submit works for competitions under a male pseudonym.
“Women were simply not considered,” she explained. In the 1960s, Meachem went to Washington, D.C., to hand-deliver a submission for a National Council on the Arts scholarship.
“I walked into the building, and the man said, ‘Oh, it’s very competitive,’ and he wouldn’t even take my work,” she remembers. “And that wasn’t uncommon.”
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Double Helix by Margaret Meachem
Double Helix by Margaret Meachem
BORN 1 JANUARY 1930 - UKRAINE
Zhanna Efimovna Kolodub, one of Ukraine’s leading composers, is Professor of Music at the Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky Conservatory of Kiev. She was born into a family of musicians in the city of Vinnitsa and studied violin and piano at Kiev’s Gleire School of Music, later graduating as a master (docent) from the Kiev State Conservatory. Although she wrote her first musical work at the age of five, she was 24 before she decided to pursue it seriously. Her composition teachers were Professor Liatoshinsky and the man who was to become her husband, Levko Kolodub.
Kolodub writes in many different genres, giving special attention to music for wind instruments, chamber music, and works for children. Her principal compositions are the ballets Snow Queen and Adventures of Vesnianka, Lyrical Scenes of Kievfor symphonic orchestra, Pictures of Nature for chamber orchestra, two sinfoniettas and a partita for string orchestra, several albums for piano, a wind quartet and other wind chamber works. Vocal compositions include international songs, choral and stage music, musicals and scores for movies.
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Suite 3 Pieces - Melody, March, Valse by Zhanna Kolodub
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