31 MARCH 2019

KONSTANTIA GOURZI - GREECE  

BORN 31 MARCH

Konstantia Gourzi spans bridges between cultures and epochs across time and space. She does this as a composer, where she finds her voice in unifying elements that seem to have nothing in common. She also does it as a conductor and teacher, where in consonance with others she constructs a new world of equal opportunities, between male and female, the strange and the familiar.

A Greek now living in Germany, Konstantia Gourzi was born in Athens in 1962. She knows that finding artistic authenticity today is a particular challenge. Even more so since technical progress offers composers almost unlimited access to the musical creations of all times and places. The more one is affected by different stimuli and the more one has to process them, the greater the challenge in finding a clear, yet individual artistic voice. However, the greater also the spectrum for inspiration.

As a composer, Konstantia Gourzi explores musical and sonic phenomena in her inexhaustible and constantly expanding range. Above all, she is interested in the intuitive, irrational parts of the human psyche. Her music is never purely intellectual or conceptual; her experiments are, at the core, based on a profoundly sensed experience. That means that intuition and sensual experience always play a vital role in her creative processes. In her music, she seeks to go beyond the limits of the rational, the definable, allowing the music to take its own shape from the forces within itself – where the distinction between fixed contours and improvisatory freedom is often transcended.

♫ LISTEN

Nine Fragments of an Eternity by Konstantia Gourzi

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PARISA SABET  - IRAN 

BORN 31 MARCH

Iranian-Canadian composer, Parisa Sabet, creates a sonic world that is rich, layered, lyrical, and accessible to listeners. She draws from both the drama and the commonplace in her personal experiences to integrate unique elements of Eastern and Western musical languages, incorporating varied timbral and instrumental effects. Her repertory ranges from solo pieces to orchestral works, as well as sound design and original film scores. Since 2015, she divides her time between full-time freelance composer at night, and full-time mother by day—a new lifestyle that informs the gift of breakthrough in her compositions.

Professionally, her compositions have won various competitions and have been performed in different venues in North America. Sabet’s solo alto flute piece, Nay Nava, won the 2011 Timothy Munro (eighth blackbird’s flutist) Solo Flute Competition in conjunction with the CCPA composition program. In addition, Nawruz for wind ensemble was selected for the 2011 Chicago College of Performing Art’s Wind Ensemble Composition Contest and has been broadcast several times on Chicago's Classical and Folk Music Radio (98.7 WFMT). Her choral composition, Universal Brotherhood, was selected by MacMillan Singers to be performed at their Contemporary Showcase Concert in 2014. Her recent song cycle, Dance in Your Blood, based on three Rumi poems won the Top Prize place at the Violet Archer Composer’s Prize 2014 and is published in the Plangere Canadian Composers Series.

She has scored several documentaries centered on stories of Iranians who have been persecuted, exiled and migrated due to their beliefs including From Baku to Belmont and Layegheh directed by Rashin Fahandej. The most recent, Dust-Flower-Flame, about the Iranian poet Tahirih Qurratul-Ayn, a female poet in 19th century Iran, has been screened all around the world, including at Stanford University, University of Maryland, The Regent Street Cinema, UCLA, SVA Theatre New York, Toronto, Yale University, Concordia University, Le Nouvel Odéon, Laemmle Music Hall.

♫ LISTEN

Geyrani for Violin solo by Parisa Sabet 

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30 MARCH 2019

GEORGIANA CAVENDISH - UK 
DIED 30 MARCH BORN 28 MARCH

Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire was an English socialite, political organizer, style icon, author, and activist. Of noble birth from the Spencer family, married into the Cavendish family, she was the first wife of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, and the mother of the 6th Duke of Devonshire.

As the Duchess of Devonshire, she garnered much attention and fame in society during her lifetime..With a pre-eminent position in the peerage of England, the duchess was famous for her charisma, political influence, beauty, unusual marital arrangement, love affairs, socializing, and gambling.

Georgiana is usually associated with her extravagant behaviour, but there is a different side to her which is often overlooked. She was both a writer, a scientist and a composer.

In 1779  she published a satire, The Sylph, and she also wrote a number of poems, including The Passage of the Mountain of St Gothard and verses to accompany the bust of Charles James Fox at Woburn.

 
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I have a silent sorrow here by Georgina Cavendish

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ELS AARNE - UKRAINE 

BORN 30 MARCH

Els Aarne graduated from Tallinn State Conservatory in three speciality: music pedagogy in Gustav Ernesaks’s class (1939), piano in Theodor Lemba’s class (1942) and composition under Heino Eller (1946).She worked as a piano teacher and pedagogue of music thoery subjects in Tallinn Teachers’ Seminar (1939–1945), Tallinn State Conservatory (1944–1974) and in Tallinn Music School for shorter time.

Among Aarne’s works there are two symphonies, several instrumental concertos (including three cello concertos), about ten solo song cycles on the texts by Estonian poets, instrumental chamber music, amply of choral songs and songs for children and music for wind orchestra. As a solo instrument, Aarne has chosen also little-used double bass (Double Bass Concerto (1968), Double Bass Sonata (1976)) and French horn (Concertino (1958), Meditation (1970) and Dialogue (1972), additionally Opening Piece (1963) for nine horns). In her works with clear form there can be found the usage of Estonian folk tunes or the modes specific to them, but also newer means of expression such as free dodecaphony. The subjects of her vocal works are diverse: work, homeland, nature, humour, human relations. With her music she illustrates subtly the mood reflecting from the text, even from a single word.

Aarne’s chamber music, mainly with the lyrical shade, has been performed by many Estonian musicians like Elsa Maasik, Georg Ots, Margarita Voites, Peep Lassmann, Mait and Peeter Paemurru, Mare Teearu, Uve Uustalu and Kalle Kauksi, Els Aarne being the ensemble partner herself at times. Choral songs have been performed by State Academic Male Choir, Female Choir of Tallinn Education Workers and others, symphonic music by Estonian Radio Symphony Orchestra (conductors Paul Karp, Roman Matsov, Neeme Järvi, Peeter Lilje, Jüri Alperten, Olev Oja). “Cat’s song” (1955) and “Song about a grasshopper” (1960) for children’s choir and Sea of Piece (1960) for wind orchestra have been in the program of general song celebrations.

Els Aarne’s musical activity was fairly vast. Her solfeggio schoolbooks (incl. I 1960, II 1962) have given the contribution to solfeggio teaching. Music theoretic problems was handled in the research “Modality in Estonian Folk Tunes” (1973, manuscript). Aarne performed as a concert pianist and ensemble player, was active as a music critic by weekly cultural paper “Sirp ja Vasar”, made radio broadcasts of Estonian interpreters and composers. Her short movie Azalea was awarded at the all-union competition for amatuer films, she has been rewarded at the photo contests as well.

Aarne’s works have been published by Muzyka, Sovetskii kompozitor, Estonian State Department of USSR Music Fund, Eesti Raamat, Eesti Riiklik Kirjastus and others.

♫ LISTEN

Ballad for piano and orchestra by Els Aarne

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29 MARCH 2019

ROSANNA SCALFI MARCELLO - ITALY  

Rosanna Scalfi was a gondola singer of Venetian arie di battello, and was taken as a singing student by Italian nobleman, magistrate, writer, and composer Benedetto Marcello about 1723. The two were secretly wed in a religious ceremony on 20 May 1728, when she was twenty-four years old.However, this marriage to a commoner was unlawful and they never completed the civil requirements. After Marcello died of tuberculosis in 1739, the marriage was declared null by the state, and Rosanna was unable to inherit his estate. Left destitute, she filed suit in 1742 against Benedetto's brother Alessandro Marcello, seeking financial support, but her claims were rejected. She appeared as Arbace in Giuseppe Antonio Paganelli’s Artaserse at St. Salvatore during the Ascension season that same year.

She composed twelve cantatas for alto and basso continuo, writing most if not all of the texts, as well.The manuscript volume, Twelve Cantatas for Alto Voice and Basso Continuo (ca. 1730), has been published in modern edition by Deborah Hayes and John Glenn Paton (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan Editions, 2012). The editors' preface includes a biography of the composer, notes on the cantata lyrics and music, and guidelines for performance. The edition also contains continuo realizations, poetic rendering of the lyrics in Italian, and English translation.

 
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Cantata In questo giorno by Rosanna Scalfi Marcello 

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SARA WENNERBERG-REUTER - SWEDEN    

DIED 29 MARCH

Sara Margaret Eugenia Eufrosyne Wennerberg-Reuter was born 11 February 1875 in Otterstad, Västergötland, and died 29 March 1959 in Stockholm. She studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Stockholm 1893−95, at the conservatory in Leipzig 1896−98, and at the Music Conservatory in Berlin 1901−02. 1906−46 she was the organist at Sofia Church in Stockholm (with a permanent position from 1918). In 1921 Sara Wennerberg-Reuter was elected to the Society of Swedish Composers and in 1931 she was awarded the royal medal Litteris et artibus.

Sara Wennerberg-Reuter’s major works show influences of, not least, her teacher Max Bruch. Like him, she witnessed the style they both represented become obsolete with the passage of time. Despite her conservativeness, she seems to have taken this with equanimity: ‘I write old-fashioned music!’ In an article from 1916, without naming any names, she clearly distances herself from contemporary late romaticism and expressionism, retaining the ideals from her youth throughout her whole life.

Sara Wennerberg-Reuter was at her finest when she composed solo songs, choral music and men’s quartets, although sometimes her choice of lyrics appears to be somewhat problematic. She often wrote music to lyrics written by her personal acquaintances − one cannot escape the reality that their poetry was not always of high caliber.

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Motett, "Stilla komme och välkomna vare dagens slut och lön by Sara Wennerberg-Reuter

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28 MARCH 2019

KATHARINE PARKER - AUSTRALIA

BORN 28 MARCH

Katharine Parker was an Australian composer, perhaps best known for her piano piece "Down Longford Way". She was also an accomplished pianist and accompanist.

Kitty Parker was born 'Catherine Parker' at 'Parknook'Lake River, near Longford, Tasmania. Her mother was Florence Agnes Parker [née Leary]; her father was Ernest James Rainey Parker. Florence was a superb pianist and gave many concerts. She made sure her daughters were musically trained. Kitty was the most successfully renowned. From 1904 to 1906 she studied for a diploma in Music in Melbourne. At the inaugural Australian Exhibition of Women's Work she won the Piano Solo Gold Medal. She travelled to London to study with Percy Grainger, who had very high praise for her work and kept in touch with her for many years.

Through Grainger, she met the English tenor Hubert Mortimer Eisdell, whom she married on 16 June 1910 at St Mark's Church, Hamilton Terrace, London. They had one son Michael (1912-1986). In 1911 she made her London concert début as a soloist. 

Her work consists mainly of songs for voice and piano and solo piano works. At least one of the latter (Nocturne in F-sharp minor) was published under the name "Kitty Parker".

 
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Arc-en-ciel by Katharine Parker 

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KARIN  HÖGHIELM - SWEDEN    

BORN 28 MARCH

Karin Höghielm was born and raised on Gotland and is a Swedish composer and singer. Studies in composition, different vocal techniques, classical piano, cello and flute. 

She have written several works for choir, soloinstruments, organ and chamber ensembles and her works has been performed in Sweden, Europe and USA by leading ensembles.

As a singer she is strongly influenced by classical singing and folk music, using wordless singing to latin, old nordic, sumerian and coptic and of course english and gotlandish (old swedish accent from Gotland).

Karin is also playing wineglass, bells, bone-flute, lyre, percussion and dulcimer.

She has recorded several CD:s in not so classical environment for chamber ensemble. She has also written music for art works, theatre, film, opera and dance. Her music is mostly tonal with strong melodies, often inspired by nature, different cultures and Early music and she is often using self-recorded sounds from nature, knitting machines in Norköping, Falu mine bell, Halla Church bell and scrap irons in her compositions.

♫ LISTEN

Så som det susar i säven by Karin Höghielm

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27 MARCH 2019

SONIA BO - ITALY  

BORN 27 MARCH

Italian composer of mostly chamber, choral and vocal works that have been performed in Asia, Europe and North America.

Ms. Bo received her diploma in piano in 1981 and in choral music and conducting in 1983. She studied composition with Azio Corghi and Renato Dionisi at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, where she received her diploma in 1985. She completed her postgraduate studies in composition with Franco Donatoni at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome in 1988.

Among her honours are Primo Premio in the competition Guido d'Arezzo in Arezzo (1985, for Frammenti da Jacopone), Primo Premio in the competition of the European Cultural Foundation (1985, for Da una lettura di Husserl), Primo Premio in the competition Giuseppe Savagnone in Rome (1986, for Quartetto), Primo Premio in the competition Alpe Adria Giovani in Trieste (1988, for Due Bagatelle), and the Premio Musicale Città di Trieste (1995, for Synopsis).

She has taught composition at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi since 1997. She previously taught in Ferrara, Pesaro, Piacenza, and Verona.

She is married to the composer Giuseppe Colardo. Her primary publisher is Casa Ricordi, but Edizioni Edi.Pan, Edizioni musicali Curci, Edizioni Sconfinarte, and Rugginenti Editore are the publishers of some works.

♫ LISTEN

Dentro un'antica neve by Sonia Bo

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FLORENTINE MULSANT - SENEGAL   

BORN 27 MARCH

Florentine Mulsant studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris the traditional disciplines (harmony, counterpoint, fugue, analysis and orchestration) and at the Schola Cantorum, where she won the 1st Prize in composition in 1987 with Allain Gaussin. she followed the instructions of Franco Donatoni at Academia Chigiana in Siena (Italy) and perfected with Alain Bancquart. 

Having many times tried out the keyboard of the family piano, to which she felt an irrepressible attraction, Florentine Mulsant entered the Paris Conservatory where she studied for twelve years. From here, with Alain Bancquart as teacher, to the Schola Cantorum with Allain Gaussin, via some masterclasses abroad, notably in Sienna with Franco Donatoni, she built up a solid experience of composing. This enabled her not only to go beyond improvisation but also to acquire precious tools that did not, however, make her lose sight of the basics, i.e. the development of a personal musical style in which expression plays a fundamental role. For Florentine Mulsant, the affective presence of the creative artiste in his compositions together with music of strong character are part of those essential components that drive her approach to composition. Solo works (Sonata for cello, op. 27), chamber music (String Quartet, op. 26), the symphonic repertory (Symphony for strings, op. 32): Mulsant’s catalogue comprises some forty works, in which expressive necessity is accompanied by strict demands with regard to the quality of the form and the musical ideas. 

From 1991 to 1998, she was teaching harmony and counterpoint at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne. In 2011, she won the Nadia and Lili Boulanger Prize from the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

♫ LISTEN

Dédale by Florentine Mulsant

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26 MARCH 2019

ÉDITH CANAT - FRANCE 

BORN 26 MARCH

Edith Canat de Chizy was born in Lyon and now based in Paris. She was the first female composer to be elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

Edith studied art, archeology and philosophy at the Sorbonne University in parallel with music at the Paris Conservatoire with Maurice Ohana - an important influence - and Ivo Malec. She continued her studies at the Paris Conservatoire, where she obtained first prizes in harmony, fugue, counterpoint, analysis, orchestration and composition. She also studied electroacoustics and worked with Guy Reibel at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales. Her instrument is the violin, and she has written extensively for string instruments.

After completing her studies, Canat de Chizy worked as a music educator, becoming the director of the Erik Satie conservatory in the 7th arrondissement of Paris until 2006 when she joined the staff of the Regional Conservatory of Paris (CRR de Paris) where she teaches composition. She was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of Paris in 2005.

Many of her works are state commissions, written for ensembles including the virtuoso vocal ensemble Musicatreize directed by Roland Hayrabedian, IRCAM, French Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the national orchestras based in Paris and Lyon. Her music is published by Editions Henry Lemoine. She is co-author with François Porcile of a book on Maurice Ohana published by Fayard in 2005.

♫ LISTEN

Dance de l'Aube by Edith Canat

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MADELEINE DRING - UK

DIED 26 MARCH

A highly talented British composer, singer, stage actress and artist, Madeleine Dring studied at the Royal College of Music where her teachers included Ralph Vaughan Williams, Herbert Howells, and Gordon Jacob.

Dring avoided large-scale works. Most of her output was in shorter forms; she wrote a good deal of solo piano, songs with piano, and some chamber music, including pieces for piano, piano duo, flute, oboe, harmonica, recorder, and clarinet many of which are pedagogical works. She completed a one-act opera, Cupboard Love (published in 2017) with her friend D.F. Aitken, and a dance drama entitled The Fair Queen of Wu, which was broadcast on BBC Television in 1951. She was commissioned to write music for "The Real Princess," a ballet and for several stage plays in London given from 1946 to 1971. She often collaborated with Felicity Gray, choreographer, and D.F. Aitken, librettist.

Simon William Lord, Dring's grandson, used some of her compositions for tracks on his solo 'Lord Skywave' album.

♫ LISTEN

Song of a Nightclub Proprietess by Madaleine Dring

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25 MARCH 2019

TEBOGO MONNAKGOTLA - SWEDEN 

BORN 25 MARCH

Tebogo Monnakgotla was born and raised in Uppsala. At the age of ten, Tebogo started to play the cello in the town music school. 1994 she started to study composing and cello-playing at Piteå college of music, in 1999 continuing her studies at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, were she finished her postgraduate diploma studies in 2006.

Tebogo Monnakgotla has composed mostly for orchestra and chamber-ensemble but has lately been focusing on opera, with a recent piece - Jean-Joseph - for the Royal Opera in Stockholm and other stage works in progress with, amongst others, Swedish poet Athena Farrokzhad. Monnakgotla is currently writing a piece for baritone Luthando Qave and The Swedish Chamber Orchestra, which will be premiered at Örebro Concert hall the 3rd of March 2018.

Tebogo is especially fond of using poetry in her music and this has led to a longer co-operation with poet Li Li. She also worked with poetry by, Oliveira Silveira, late Malagasies poet Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo and others.

♫ LISTEN

Endings by Tebogo Monnakgotla

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JULIA AMANDA PERRY - USA
BORN 25 MARCH

Julia Amanda Perry was a prolific composer of neoclassical music during her relatively brief life. Born on March 25, 1924 in Lexington Kentucky, she spent most of her early years in Akron, Ohio. Her father, Dr. Abe Perry, was a doctor and amateur pianist, who once accompanied the tenor Roland Hayes on tour. Her mother, America Perry, encouraged her children’s musical endeavors; both Julia and her sisters studied violin from a young age, Julia switched to the piano after two years of violin.

Upon graduating from Akron High School, Perry attended Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey from 1943 to 1948, where she graduated with a bachelors and masters in music. Her master’s thesis, Chicago, inspired by the poetry of Carl Sandberg, was a secular cantata for baritone, narrator, mixed voices, and orchestra. She continued her musical training at the Julliard School of Music and she also spent summers at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusetts. Her first major composition, the Stabat Mater, appeared in 1951. Three years later in 1954 her opera, The Cask of Amontillado, was first staged at Columbia University. She also wrote Homage to Vivaldi for performance by symphony orchestras.

By the late 1960s her works had received wide acclaim and were performed by the New York Philharmonic and other major orchestras. The classical record label, Composers Recordings, released several of her compositions in 1969; she also won awards and accolades from the National Association of Negro Musicians, the Boulanger Grand Prix, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters, among others.

♫ LISTEN

Study for Orchestra by Julia Amanda Perry 

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24 MARCH 2019

ALISON ISADORA - NEW ZEALAND 
BORN 24 MARCH

Born and bred in Aotearoa/New Zealand Alison Isadora studied political philosophy and music at the Victoria University of Wellington (NZ), before moving to the Netherlands in 1986 primarily to study violin (with Vera Beths) and thereafter composition (Gilius van Bergeijk and Theo Loevendie) at The Hague Conservatorium (1994, with distinction) and post-graduate performance theater at DasArts in Amsterdam.

She has been a performing composer or a composing performer within numerous Dutch groups including Hex, Gending, Nieuw Ensemble, the Maarten Altena Ensemble and the multi-medi duo SYNC. Her works have been performed by diverse ensembles in the Pacific, Europe and North America including Ensemble Klang, David Kweksilber Big Band, Matangi Strijkkwartet, Nederlands Blazers Ensemble, Array Ensemble (Canada) and STROMA Ensemble (NZ). As well as composing for music ensembles, Isadora also creates music-theatre performances, audio walks and installations.

 

♫ LISTEN

The One Man (Shall Not) by Alison Isadora

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MARIA MALIBRAN - SPAIN 

BORN 24 MARCH

Maria Felicia Malibran was a Spanish singer who commonly sang both contralto and soprano parts, and was one of the best-known opera singers of the 19th century. Malibran was known for her stormy personality and dramatic intensity, becoming a legendary figure after her death at age 28. Contemporary accounts of her voice describe its range, power and flexibility as extraordinary. She was a muse to composersand Romantic goddess to her adoring public.

Maria Malibran was born in Paris, educated by her father Manuel Garcia (an opera singer and composer himself), and quickly rose to superstardom in Europe and North America. She died at the peak of her career, due to a shocking riding accident, at the early age of 29 in Manchester.

What many people don't know is the fact that she was also a fine composer and left produced many works in her short career. 

♫ LISTEN

Rataplan by Maria Malibran

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