CLARA EDWARDS - USA
BORN 17 APRIL
Clara Edwards was born Clara Gerlich in Decoria Township, Blue Earth County, Minnesota. She received her education from the Mankato State Normal School and the Cosmopolitan School of Music in Chicago. She married physician John Milton Edwards before finishing her degree, and the couple moved toVienna, where she continued musical studies and had a daughter. In Europe she prepared for a career as a singer, and gave concerts in both the United States and Europe before moving to New York City in 1914. Two years later her husband died, leaving her a single mother in New York city with no steady income.
Out of financial necessity, Edwards began her career as a composer and songwriter in the 1920s, joining the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) in 1925. She toured in Vaudeville at about the same time, and organized the Chautauqua Concert Company in 1934. She often collaborated with Jack Lawrence, but also wrote many of the lyrics to her own songs.
Edwards composed over 100 works and published over 60 songs. Several of her songs are sacred, and she wrote choral arrangements for some of them. She also composed music for solo piano, for children's marionette plays and animated films. Her songs have been recorded and issued on CD and used in film soundtracks and animations.
Her songs were "quickly taken up by publishers", and many famous singers performed them, including soprano Lily Pons and baritones John Charles Thomas and Ezio Pinza. They also became more successful when performed on the popular radio show The Bell Telephone Hour. They are "distinguished for their tasteful and truly lovely melodies" and considered some of the "best of the ballad style concert song[s]". They "successfully blended the styles of art song and the sentimental popular ballad".
Perhaps her most successful song was "With the Wind and the Rain in Your Hair", with text by Jack Lawrence. First published in 1930, it became a hit a decade later. Two of her other well-known songs are "By the Bend of the River" and "Into the Night"; the latter is frequently used by voice teachers as a training piece, and is included in several song anthologies.
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KEIKO HARADA - JAPAN
BORN 17 APRIL
Keiko Harada’s career as composer began with her improvisation on the piano as a child. Studied composition, piano, chamber music and conducting at the Toho Gakuen College of Music.Graduatedin 1993 with Kenkyu-ka Katei (post graduate) in composition. She studied composition with Manabu Kawai, Akira Miyoshi and after college in several international seminar with Brian Ferneyhough, pianowith Michio Mamiya and chamber music (Gyorgi Kurtag’s work) with Gyorgi Kurtag.
Harada’s works have won numerous awards in different form ; The 62nd Japan Awards(1st prize) for chamber work, Yasuda prize, E-Nakamichi Prize(’93), Yamaguchi-Prefectural Governor’s prize(’95),Akutagawa Orchestra Composition Prize (’01), Kenzo Nakajima Music Prize for solo work(’04), Otaka Prize for orchestra (’09) and others. Her international activities have been supported by grants fromThe Japan Foundation, The Nomura Cultural Foundation, The Japan-Canada Fund, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Darmstadt (IMD), Royamont(France), Bartok Seminar and others. In 2002 she worked in NewYork City on a grant of Asian Cultural Council (ACC).
She is currently Associate Professor of composition department at Tokyo College of Music. In addition, she is lecturing at Toho Gakuen College of Music and The National Fine Arts University,Tokyo.
Her works has been published by Zen-On and Tokyo Concerts Inc.(Japan) in addition to Edition Wunn (Germany). Portrait CDs at FONTEC(Japan)and Cypres (Belgium).
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Nach Bach by Keiko Harada 
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