30 APRIL 2019

SUSAN KANDER - USA

BORN 30 APRIL 

The music of Susan Kander has been heard throughout the United States and in cities around the world, including London, Paris, Mexico City, Lima, Birmingham, Vancouver, Cape Town, St. Petersburg and Guangzhou. Kander has received numerous commissions from notable ensembles and organizations, including the National Symphony Orchestra, Southampton Chamber Music Festival, the Copland Fund, the Kansas City Chorale, the Columbia Foundation, and a variety of instrumentalists and ensembles.

In the opera world, she has received commissions from Opera Minnesota, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and Columbus Opera. Her chamber opera The News from Poems was given a concert reading in April 2016 at the National Opera Center featuring Keith Phares, Katherine Pracht, and John Taylor Ward. In 2012, Minnesota Opera and Lyric Opera of Kansas City co-commissioned an adaptation of the seminal dystopian novel The Giver by Lois Lowry; the 85-minute chamber opera received its third production in January 2015 at Tulsa Opera. Knight Arts, St. Paul, called it a “remarkable new work…." A chamber orchestration for She Never Lost a Passenger, about Harriet Tubman and black abolitionist William Still (1996) was commissioned by Erie Opera Company in 2015, and premiered by Lyric Opera of Kansas City in 2016.

Kander received her B.A. in Music at Harvard in 1979 and was a playwright until “coming home to music” in the mid-1990’s. In 2015, after composing busily for twenty-years, she decided to blow things up by finally attending graduate school in composition. She studied with Du Yun and Huang Ruo at Purchase Conservatory, re-arranging the furniture in her mind and earning her M.M. in Composition in 2017. Those two years produced a bouquet of new works for both orchestra and chamber ensemble. Her works can be found on Soundcloud and Youtube. She is a Fellow of the MacDowell Colony. Her music has been recorded on the MSR, Navona and Loose Cans labels.

♫ LISTEN

My Lucky by Susan Kander 

► SUSAN KANDER'S WEBSITE 

ELLEN TAAFFE ZWILICH - USA  
BORN 30 APRIL 

At a time when the musical offerings of the world are more varied than ever before, few composers have emerged with the unique personality of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Her music is widely known because it is performed, recorded, broadcast, and – above all – listened to and liked by all sorts of audiences the world over. Like the great masters of bygone times, Zwilich produces music "with fingerprints," music that is immediately recognized as her own. In her compositions, Ms. Zwilich combines craft and inspiration, reflecting an optimistic and humanistic spirit that gives her a unique musical voice.

Ellen Zwilich is the recipient of numerous prizes and honors, including the 1983 Pulitzer Prize in Music (the first woman ever to receive this coveted award), the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Chamber Music Prize, the Arturo Toscanini Music Critics Award, the Ernst von Dohnányi Citation, an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, 4 Grammy nominations, the Alfred I. Dupont Award, Miami Performing Arts Center Award, the Medaglia d'oro in the G.B. Viotti Competition, and the NPR and WNYC Gotham Award for her contributions to the musical life of New York City. Among other distinctions, Ms. Zwilich has been elected to the American Classical Music Hall of Fame, the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1995, she was named to the first Composer’s Chair in the history of Carnegie Hall, and she was designated Musical America’s Composer of the Year for 1999. Ms. Zwilich, who holds a doctorate from The Juilliard School, has received honorary doctorates from Oberlin College, Manhattanville College, Marymount Manhattan College, Mannes College/The New School, Converse College, and Michigan State University. She currently holds the Francis Eppes Distinguished Professorship at Florida State University.

A prolific composer in virtually all media, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s works have been performed by most of the leading American orchestras and by major ensembles abroad. Many of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s works have been issued on recordings, and Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians [8th edition] states: "There are not many composers in the modern world who possess the lucky combination of writing music of substance and at the same time exercising an immediate appeal to mixed audiences. Zwilich offers this happy combination of purely technical excellence and a distinct power of communication."

♫ LISTEN

Lament by Ellen Zwilich

 ► ELLEN TAAFFE ZWILICH'S WEBSITE 

29 APRIL 2019

MARGARIDA ORFILA - SPAIN

DIED 29 APRIL

Margarida Orfila Tudurí was a Spanish composer, pianist and music teacher. 

As a child, his family moved to Barcelona. He studied in Barcelona the Municipal Music School of Barcelona with Antoni Nicolau, Joan Lamote de Grignon and Lluís Millet (theory) and Eusebi Daniel and Carles Pellicer (piano). She won the prize for the last year's solemn trials in 1904 and in 1909 she became the first woman to finish the studies of counterpoint and flight of the School with the qualification of "Outstanding." 

She completed his training with Enric Granados, and worked as a pianist until 1913, when she married a fellow professor, Frederic Alfonso and Ferrer. In 1907 she was admitted to the School as an auxiliary lecturer in theory and theory, and she was a teacher for more than fifty years. Her sister Carme, an excellent violinist, also taught her.

As a composer, she left an important collection of pieces for piano, violin, orchestra and voice, which premiered the Catalan and Gracienc orphans. In 1934 the Patxot foundation granted her, ex aequo with Xavier Montsalvatge, the prestigious "Concepció Rabell" prize.

With her husband, Frederic Alfonso, professor and director of the Municipal Music School of Barcelona, ​​Margarida had five children: Frederic, lawyer and poet; Margarida, pianist, composer and music teacher; Joan, violinist and composer; Francisco, cellist; and Carme, a singer.

♫ LISTEN

Scherzo by Margarida Orfila

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CLAUDIA SESSA - ITALY

Claudia Sessa (c. 1570 – c. 1617/19) was an Italian composer. She was born into the (de) Sessa family, a patrician clan of the Milanese aristocracy. A nun at the convent of S. Maria Annunciata, she composed two sacred works published in 1613. The dates of her birth and death are uncertain.

Claudia Sessa spent her life as a nun in the Santa Maria Annunciata convent in Milan, Italy, but little else is known about her life. Despite restrictions imposed by the Council of Trent barring certain types of music making in convents, Sessa modestly and continuously sang and composed in Santa Maria Annunciata to a full audience. She accompanied others on various instruments with wondrous harmonies. She was “...spirited in her voice, alert and quick in her trills, full of affects." A skilled musician and actress who was quite adept at performing compositions written by others, Sessa remained modest about her talents. She could not even be swayed by an invitation from Queen Margaret to perform at the Spanish court because she preferred the monastery as her only performance venue. Sessa is best known for her two sacred songs, written in the monodic style.

♫ LISTEN

Occhi io vissi di voi by Claudia Sessa

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28 APRIL 2019

NICOLA LeFANU - UK 

BORN 28 APRIL

Nicola LeFanu was born in England in 1947, the daughter of Irish parents: her father William LeFanu was from an Irish literary family, and her mother was the composer Elizabeth Maconchy. LeFanu studied at Oxford, RCM and, as a Harkness Fellow, at Harvard. She has Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Durham, Aberdeen, and Open University, is an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda’s College Oxford, and is FRCM and FTCL.

She has composed around one hundred works which have been played and broadcast all over the world; her music is published by Novello and by Peters Edition. She has been commissioned by the BBC, by festivals in UK and beyond, and by leading orchestras, ensembles and soloists. Many works are available on CD, including music for strings (Naxos), Horn Concerto (NMC) and Saxophone Concerto (NEOS).

She has a particular affinity for vocal music and has composed eight operas: Dawnpath (New Opera Company, London, 1977), The Story of Mary O’Neill, a radio opera, libretto Sally McInerney, (BBC, 1987), The Green Children, a children’s opera, libretto Kevin Crossley-Holland, (Kings Lynn Festival, 1990), Blood Wedding, libretto Deborah Levy (WPT, London 1992), The Wildman, libretto Crossley-Holland, (Aldeburgh Festival, 1995), Light Passing, libretto John Edmonds, (BBC/NCEM, York, 2004), Dream Hunter, libretto John Fuller (Lontano, Wales 2011, London 2012) and Tokaido Road, a Journey after Hiroshige, libretto Nancy Gaffield, (Okeanos, Cheltenham Festival, July 2014).

She is active in many aspects of the musical profession, as a composer, teacher, director and as a member of various public boards and new music organisations. From 1994 - 2008 she was Professor of Music at the University of York, where many gifted composers came to study with her. Previously she taught composition at Kings’ College London; in the 1970s, she directed Morley College Music Theatre.

Recent premieres include works for chamber ensemble, for solo instrumentalists, and Threnody for orchestra, premiered in Dublin, January 2015, RTE NSO.

In 2015 she was awarded the Elgar bursary, which carries a commission from the Royal Philharmonic Society for BBCSO.

♫ LISTEN

The Old Woman of Beare by Nicola LeFanu

► NICOLA LeFANU's website 

MARGARET VARDELL SANDRESKY - USA
BORN 28 APRIL

Margaret Vardell Sandresky (b. 1921) was born in Macon, Georgia and educated at the Salem College School of Music and the Eastman School of Music in organ and composition with Harold Gleason, Howard Hanson, and Bernard Rogers. After teaching at the Oberlin Conservatory, and the University of Texas in Austin, she joined the faculty of Salem College where she taught until her retirement in 1986. She also founded the organ department at the North Carolina School for the Arts in 1965. Sandresky has composed music that has been widely performed and commissioned. Her output contains numerous works for organ, but also chamber, choral, and orchestral music. In 2004, she was the receipt of the American Guild of Organists Distinguished Composer's Award.

Sandresky is distinguished among the contributors as the first woman in SMT’s history invited to make a presentation at its national Conference of Music Theory and the first woman to be published in Music Theory Spectrum. In her recordings for SMT, Sandresky recounts her first experience with the newly formed Society, the contributions of well-known music theorists at the time, and her own evolving interest in and development of music theory pedagogy.

As the fourth generation of professional women musicians in her family, Sandresky taught at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the University of Texas at Austin, the North Carolina School of the Arts, and at Salem Academy and College, where she taught Music Theory for 19 years, from 1967 to 1986. A prolific composer for organ, piano, solo voice, choral, and various ensembles, many of her commissions have been funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the North Carolina Arts Council, the Reynolda House Museum of American Art, the North Carolina Music Teachers Association, and the American Guild of Organists. Sandresky continues to perform and write well into her later years, including a new composition that was commissioned and performed by Carson Cooman, composer-in-residence at Harvard Memorial Church at Harvard University, around her 91st birthday in 2012.

♫ LISTEN

Six Variations on a Ground Bass by Margaret Vardell Sandresky 

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27 APRIL 2019

IRIS DE CAIROS-REGO - AUSTRALIA

Iris de Cairos-Rego was first and foremost a pianist and is described as having a formidable technique; being deft and expressive; playing with sparkling precision, and interpreting with charm, freshness and a delicacy of touch. Throughout her long life she developed the skills to become a prolific composer of piano and chamber music and an inspirational teacher.

Iris was one of the first teachers to be engaged at the newly formed Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 1915. In 1914 she joined the Salon Piano trio which gave regular concerts in Sydney. This trio had been formed originally with Mirrie Hill as the pianist and in 1914 Iris replaced Hill as the pianist. At that time the Salon Trio consisted of the players - Iris, Florence Brown (cellist) and Dorothy Curtis (violin). During 1914 Iris gave concerts with the singer, Antonia Dolores in New Zealand and Western Australia and in 1920 appeared as soloist in concertos by Schumann and Beethoven with the NSW State Orchestra and Henri Verbrugghen conducting. She also frequently appeared as associate artist with fellow musicians and teachers from the Conservatorium such as Cyril Monk (violin) and the Austral String Quartet. It has been said that Iris gave the first performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in Australia.

In 1935, Winifred West invited Iris to join the community at Frensham School in the Southern Highlands. Winifred West was born in 1881 in Frensham, Surrey in England - the school, named for her birth village, in Mittagong became a testament to this woman’s remarkable ideas. West collected around her some of the most prominent musicians and artists from the NSW community to teach at her school. Iris was originally invited for a year and ended up spending the rest of her life in the community. Though, most of her compositions for piano, many songs and commemorative works were written during her time of teaching the girls at Frensham and many were dedicated to fellow teachers or students.

♫ LISTEN

Toccata The Train by Iris de Cairos-Rego

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HILDA SEHESTED - DENMARK
BORN 27 APRIL

Hilda Sehested was born in Funen, Denmark, of parents Niels Frederik Bernhard Sehested (1813–82), an archeologist, and Charlotte Christine Linde (1819–94). She studied music with C.F.E. Hornemann in Copenhagen and later with Louise Aglaé Massart in Paris. She studied organ with Ludvig Birkedal-Barfod and composition with Orla Rosenhoff, and began composing at the age of 30.

Hilda Sehested's compositions include all genres except the great orchestral music - concerts and symphonies. Piano pieces and those - not least for female composers - typical songs fill the production well. The chamber music is also richly represented. with works for unconventional herds such as clarinet, English horn, trumpet or cornet and trumpet with piano or strings.

Hilda's main work is the opera Agnete and Havmanden for text by Sophus Michaëlis, which she submitted to The Royal Copenhagen. Theater 1913. The opera was accepted, but never performed despite protests from professionals, and it has never been played. The opera first got its premier performance in October 2014, at the initiative of the Hilda Sehested Committee and The Funen Opera, which gave a concerted performance of the work in Odense Concert Hall and in the concert hall Alsion in Sønderborg.

Sehested's mother died in 1894, and she moved to Copenhagen to live with her sister Thyra. She became engaged to archaeologist and museum director Henry Petersen there, but he died before the wedding. Shocked by his death, Sehested took a job as a nurse for a while and then as a church organist, and eventually returned to composing. She died in Copenhagen.

♫ LISTEN

Morceau Symphonique by Hilda Sehested

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26 APRIL 2019

LAURA ANDEL - ARGENTINA 
BORN 26 APRIL 

Laura Andel is a composer and sound artist born and raised in Argentina, currently based in Harlem, New York City. Her creative processes revolve around sound, music drawing, instrument building, installation, and performance.

One of Laura Andel’s main interests is exploring diverse combinations of instruments for her music, and collaborating with musicians from different musical and cultural backgrounds. Described as someone who “seeks to expand our sense of time, form and perception through sound” by Evening Music (WNYC, New York Public Radio), Andel combines written music with a variety of approaches to improvisation and conducting to create different symmetries between the written and non-written. She has composed and conducted music for small and large orchestras, Jazz Big Band, Symphony Orchestra, and for instruments such as Javanese Gongs, Argentinean Bandoneon, Brazilian Berimbau, Russian Theremin, Ecuadorian Dulzainas, and Mochican Seashell-shaped Ceramic Trumpet.

Her creative process also investigates the visual manifestations of music and sound by way of creating original music drawings and graphic scores that initiate an intimate dialogue between sound and its representation. She has created works in pencil, ink, watercolor, acrylic, and collage.

♫ LISTEN

Shadow Walk by Laura Andel 

► LAURA ANDEL'S WEBSITE 

NA CASTELLOZA - FRANCE   

Na Castelloza (fl. early 13th century) was a noblewoman and trobairitz from Auvergne.

According to her later vida, Castelloza was the wife of Turc de Mairona, probably the lord of Meyronne. Turc's ancestors had participated in a Crusade around 1210 or 1220, which was the origin of his name (meaning "Turk"). She was reputed to have been in love with Arman de Brion, a member of the house of Bréon and of greater social rank than her, about whom she wrote several songs. Her vida records her to have been "very gay", "very learned", and "very beautiful". Only three—perhaps four if recents scholarship is accepted—of her songs (all cansos) survive, all without music. This, however, makes her at least the second most prolific of trobairitz in terms of surviving works: only Beatriz de Dia certainly has more, with four cansos to her name. The subject of all her poems is courtly love. 

Compared with Beatriz de Dia, Castelloza is a more conservative poet. Her persona throughout her works is consistent and though she raises the tension between conditional and unconditional love she always remains committed to absolute fidelity.

One scholar, Peter Dronke, has seen Castelloza's songs as forming a lyric cycle.

♫ LISTEN

Ja de Cantar by Na Castelloza

25 APRIL 2019

LUISA ADOLPHA LE BEAU - GERMANY 
BORN 25 APRIL 

Luisa Adolpha Le Beau was a German composer of classical music. She studied with noted musicians Clara Schumann and Franz Lachner, but her primary instructor was Josef Gabriel Rheinberger. Like many other 19th century female composers, Le Beau began her career in music as a pianist, and later earned her living teaching, critiquing, and performing music.

Le Beau received piano lessons beginning at the age of five. Le Beau composed her first piece at the age of eight. She studied languages from 1863 through 1866 as a guest at the local girls' school.  At age sixteen, she completed her education with a degree from a private institution for girls, and from then on devoted herself to music. 

With a letter of recommendation from the pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow, the Le Beau family decided to relocate to Munich to facilitate Luise studying under composer Josef Gabriel Rheinberger in 1876. Due to the regulations put in place by the Royal Music School, Le Beau was tutored separately from the male students. Rheinberger and Le Beau developed a close relationship, and Rheinberger dedicated his “Toccata for piano” op. 104 to Le Beau. While at the Royal Music School, Le Beau's teacher for counterpoint, harmony, and form was Ernst Melchior Sachse, and Franz Lachner offered critiques of many of her works.

Due to the increasing frailty of the Le Beau elders and Luise's struggle to find musicians in Munich to work with, the family relocated to Wiesbaden in 1885. Le Beau had some of her pieces performed in Wiesbaden, where she also taught music theory and offered vocal lessons. In Wiesbaden, Le Beau began her pieces Hadumoth, Op.40 and Op. 37, Piano Concerto. Le Beau's pieces began to be performed outside of Europe, reaching both Sydney and Constantinople.

In 1890, the family was forced to move to Berlin. Le Beau began to study music history at the Royal Library. She later entrusted her music to the Royal Library for preservation. In Berlin, she came in contact with other musicians including Woldemar Bargiel, Joseph Joachim, and Philipp Spitta. During this time, Le Beau only tutored a few students so that she could focus on composing and duplicating the score for “Hadumoth.”  Georg Vierling, a member of Berlin's Royal Academy of Arts nominated Le Beau for a chair position at the Royal School of Music. Ultimately, Le Beau was not granted the position, as it was never assigned to women.

Full list of compositions

♫ LISTEN

Streichquintett c-Moll op. 54 (1900), I. Allegro by Louisa Adolpha le Beau

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ERZSÉBET SZŐNYI - HUNGARY
BORN 25 APRIL

Erzsébet Szőnyi, also Erzsébet Szilágyi,  is a Hungarian composer and music teacher. Her works encompass symphonic compositions, chamber music works, art songs, and oratorios. She has also written numerous stage works including eight operas.

Erzsébet Szőnyi studied composition and piano at l'Université de musique Franz-Liszt in Budapest with János Viski. She received a secondary school music teaching diploma. In Paris, she attended courses by Tony Aubin and Olivier Messiaen at the Conservatoire de Paris, obtained a prize for composition, and worked in private with Nadia Boulanger in 1947 and 1948. She was also a pupil of Zoltán Kodály, with whom she worked in close collaboration. Later, she taught at l'École Franz Liszt, providing classes in musical education and directing choirs. From 1964 onwards, Erzsébet was a member directing the International Society for Music Education (ISME). She was vice-president of ISME from 1970 to 1974.

♫ LISTEN

Trio Concertino by Erzsébet Szőnyi

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24 APRIL 2019

ROXANNA PANUFNIK - UK 
BORN 24 APRIL 

Roxanna Panufnik studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music and, since then, has written a wide range of pieces – opera, ballet, music theatre, choral works, orchestral and chamber compositions, and music for film and television – which are performed all over the world.

Roxanna has a great love of world music - this has culminated in her "Four World Seasons" for violinist Tasmin Little, the world premiere of which was picked by BBC Radio 3 to launch their Music Nations weekend, celebrating the London Olympics; her multi-faith Warner Classics CD "Love Abide" (www.loveabide.com) and "Dance of Life: Tallinn Mass" for Tallinn Philharmonic (www.tallinnmass.com), commissioned to celebrate Tallinn's reign as European Capital of Culture.

She is especially interested in building musical bridges between faiths and her first project in this field was the violin concerto "Abraham", commissioned for Daniel Hope, incorporating Christian, Islamic and Jewish chant to create a musical analogy for the fact that these three faiths believe in the same one God. This work was subsequently converted into an overture for the World Orchestra for Peace and premiered in Jerusalem and London under the baton of Valery Gergiev, in 2008 and at the 2014 BBC Proms.

♫ LISTEN

Abraham by Roxanna Panufnik

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VIOLET ARCHER _ CANADA   

BORN 24 APRIL

Dr. Violet Balestreri Archer, a seminal figure in Canadian composition, created a distinguished body of work during a career that spanned over six decades. With a life-long commitment to music that left no room for marriage, her music was heralded and performed around the world, and earned honours and awards for her both in Canada and abroad.

Her musical training began before she was ten years of age with piano lessons. She began to compose at the age of 16. Following graduation from McGill University in piano and composition, she obtained the Associate Diploma of the Royal Canadian College of Organists. During those years, she was active as a professional accompanist for singers and as a piano teacher, as well as deputy organist in many Montréal churches. She continued to compose and in the summer of 1942 she was accepted by the great composer, Bèla Bartûk, as a composition student and studied with him in New York.

Her teaching career was an extensive one and very active in the guiding of young composers. Many of her former composition students both in Canada and the United States are now professionals and recognized in their field.

She was an ardent promoter of Canadian music and other 20th-century music, being active on the boards of a large number of national and regional organizations. She was also active both as a national and regional adjudicator of young composers' contests in the United States and later in Canada.

♫ LISTEN

Three Duets für Zwei Violinen by Violet Archer

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