EDIE HILL - USA
BORN 14 APRIL
Described as “flat out beautiful” and “full of mystery,” (Stereophile Magazine), Edie Hill’s music is performed all over the world. Venues have included Lincoln Center, Musis Sacrum in Arnhem, Holland, LA County Museum of Art, Library of Congress, Minneapolis’ Walker Arts Center, St. Paul’s Schubert Club, The Cape May Festival (NJ), The Downtown Arts Festival (NYC), Liviu Cultural Center (Romania), Feszek Müvészklub (Budapest), concert halls in Bangkok (Thailand), Dublin (Ireland), Reykjavik (Iceland), Moscow (Russia) Brazil, France,Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Baltic States and The United Arab Emirates.
She has been commissioned to compose for solo voice to choir, solo instrumental to orchestral and mass band, miniature to full evening drama; and loves the challenge of exploring all combinations including electroacoustic and mixed media.
Mentorship is integral to her life as a composer. She’s served as Composer in Residence at St. Paul’s Schubert Club from 2005-2017 where she ran and grew the Mentorship Program for gifted high school composers . Hill has also been Composer Mentor for MN Varsity, a program for composers 14-18 years of age co-sponsored by The American Composers Forum and Classical Minnesota Public Radio. She has lectured at colleges, universities and various institutions in the States and abroad.
A three-time McKnight Artist Fellow and a two-time Bush Artist Fellow, Hill has received grants from the Jerome Foundation, ASCAP, New Music USA, Meet The Composer and Chamber Music America. After earning a B.A. from Bennington College in Vermont under the tutelage of Vivian Fine, Hill moved from her native New York to Minneapolis where she earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Minnesota with principal composition teacher, Lloyd Ultan. She has also studied extensively with Libby Larsen.
Composing is a life-long love. Writing music is always an opportunity to research, learn, muse, reach down deep, and allow inspiration to come from the stuff of life. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota where she free-lances and runs Hummingbird Press through which all of her works are available for perusal and sale.
♫ LISTEN
ISABEL ARETZ - ARGENTINA
BORN 14 APRIL
Isabel Aretz studied the piano under Rafael González (1923–31) and composition with Athos Palma (1928–33) at the Buenos Aires National Conservatory of Music, instrumentation with Villa-Lobos in Brazil (1937), anthropology (1938–40) and, with Carlos Vega, folklore and musicology (1938–44) at the Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Buenos Aires. She took the doctorate in musicology in 1967 at the Argentine Catholic University with a dissertation on Argentine folk music. She was an associate member of the Instituto Argentino de Musicología from 1938 to 1950.
After completing her initial studies, Aretz became a senior lecturer at the National Conservatory and began work as an ethnomusic researcher and composer. In 1937 her orchestral work Punto premiered at the Teatro Cervantes. In the next decade, she collected and recorded traditional music, traveling in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia and Peru. In 1947 she married Venezuelan musician and writer Luis Felipe Ramón y Rivera.
She was asked that same year to organize the music section of the Folklore Research Service established in Venezuela, and she continued her research on folk music there. In 1966 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to record native melodies in Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Central America.
Aretz-Thiele founded the American Institute of Ethnomusicology and Folklore (INIDEF) in Venezuela and chaired the institution from 1990 and 1995. She became a professor of ethnomusicology at the School of Arts, Central University of Venezuela, and at Indiana University in the United States. She was also a guest lecturer at other universities in Mexico and Colombia.
Aretz-Thiele published a number of journal articles and about twenty-five books on American folklore, plus an autobiography. After her husband died in 1992, she was appointed a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Argentina, and she returned to San Isidro to live and work until her death in June 2005.
♫ LISTEN
Tres Cantos Indios bt Isabel Aretz
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