JOCY DE OLIVEIRA - BRAZIL
BORN 11 APRIL
Jocy de Oliveira was born in Curitiba and grew up in São Paulo, Brazil. She studied in São Paulo with Joseph Kliass, in Paris with Marguerite Long, and in St. Louis with Robert Wykes. She received a Master of Arts from Washington University in St. Louis.
As a pianist dedicated to contemporary music, she was soloist under the baton of Stravinsky, had several pieces written for her and performed numerous premieres of works by Berio, Xenakis, Santoro, Cage, and Manuel Enriquez.
Her composition works have been performed frequently in such theatres and festivals as: Berliner Festspiele Marz Muzik, Haus der Kulturen der Welt and Hebbel Theater in Berlin, StaatsTheater Darmstadt, Festivals Dresdner Tage der Zeitgenössischen Musik – Dresden, Expo 2000 Hannover, Ludwigshafen Opera Festival, Bayrischer Rundfunk, Munich, Salzburg, Aspekte, The Hayden Planetarium, Carnegie Hall, Brooklyn Academy – New York, New Music America Festivals, Miami Planetarium Bellas Artes – Mexico, Teatro Avenida, Buenos Aires, Radio France – Paris, Gaudeamus and Gulbenkian Foundations, Chengdu – China, Biennials of Contemporary Music, Rio de Janeiro, Teatro Municipal of S. Paulo and Rio among numerous other theaters, festivals and radio stations in Brazil, USA, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Hungary and Chengdu , China.
Jocy de Oliveira has been involved as a composer/author in a variety of media since the early 1960s utilising acoustic and electronic instruments, music-theatre, installations, texts, graphics, video, and audiences in an approach to an organic development of performance/composition works.
She composed nine major multimedia operas, which have been acclaimed through several productions in different countries. Her operas were released on 6 DVDs distributed by NAXOS Video Library. Her most recent work is a cinematic opera Liquid Voices – A história de Mathilda Segalescu is a feature film in process of finalisation and distribution to International Film Festivals in 2019.
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NORMA BEECROFT - CANADA
BORN 11 APRIL
Norma Marian Beecroft was born in Oshawa, Ontario, on 11 April 1934. Her parents were both active in the artistic field, her father, Julian Balfour Beecroft, was a musician and inventor, and was a pioneer in the development of magnetic tape. Her mother, Eleanor Beecroft Stewart, was trained in music and dance, and enjoyed a successful career as an actress. The second of five offspring, Norma has enjoyed an active life in music, as a composer, producer, broadcaster and administrator. Some of her siblings have pursued occupations in the arts and/or technology, Jane (b. 1932) was a poet and painter, Eric (b.1935) was active in film, and Charles Andrew Stuart (b. 1942) is a noted documentarist in the field of natural sciences.
Norma Beecroft's early musical studies began with the piano, taking piano lessons from Aladar Ecsedy (1950-52), then between 1952-58 with Gordon Hallett and Weldon Kilburn. At the same time she studied composition with John Weinzweig. The recipient of a bursary from the Royal Conservatory of Music in 1957-58, she began flute studies with Keith Girard as well. She continued her composition studies on scholarship at the Berkshire Music Center, Tanglewood, with Aaron Copland and Lukas Foss, and in 1959 was accepted into the Corso di Perfezionamento at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome, under Goffredo Petrassi, where she graduated in 1961. The same year she was the recipient of an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs scholarship. During her three years in Europe she attended lectures given by Bruno Maderna at Darmstadt, Germany, and at the Dartington School of Music in England, and she continued her flute studies with Severino Gazzelloni. Upon her return to Canada, she attended the electronic music classes of Myron Schaeffer at the University of Toronto, and in 1964 spent the summer working with Mario Davidovsky at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, New York.
Norma Beecroft is a member of the Canadian League of Composers and an associate of the Canadian Music Centre. In 2002, she was awarded an Honorary Membership in the Canadian Electro-acoustic Community.
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Jeu II by Norma Beecroft
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