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 

 ► FIND SCORES BY MARGARET VARDELL SANDRESKY