20 MAY 2019

HELEN HOPEKIRK - SCOTLAND 

BORN 20 MAY

Helen Hopekirk was a Scottish pianist and composer who lived and worked in Boston.

Helen Hopekirk was born near Edinburgh, Scotland, a daughter of music shop owners Adam and Helen (née Croall) Hopekirk. She studied music with George Lichtenstein and Scottish composer Alexander Mackenzie, and made her debut as a soloist in 1874 with the Edinburgh Amateur Orchestral Society. After other successful performances and the death of her father, she relocated to study composition with Carl Reinecke in Leipzig. After successful debuts in Leipzig and London, she began regular concert tours of Europe.

In 1882 Hopekirk married Edinburgh merchant and music critic William A. Wilson (d. 1926), who began serving as her manager. She made her American debut in 1883 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and commenced concert tours in the United States. She planned to continue her studies with Franz Liszt, but after his death studied instead with Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna and Czech composer Karel Navrátil in Prague. She and her husband lived in Vienna until 1892, and then moved to Paris, where she began to teach piano.

Her husband was injured in a traffic accident, and in 1897 she accepted the invitation of Director George Chadwick to take a teaching position at the New England Conservatory. In 1901 she left the Conservatory and became a private teacher, also continuing her performance career. Hopekirk and her husband became American citizens in 1918. Her last performance was at Steinert Hall, Boston, in 1939.

♫ LISTEN 

Iona Memories I. Wondering by Helen Hoperkirk

➺ Find Scores by Helen Hoperkirk 

ROSA GURAIEB - MEXICO 

Rosa Guraieb Kuri was a Mexican pianist, music educator and composer of Lebanese ancestry. She composed many works performed in her native country of Mexico; most of her works have been composed for various chamber ensembles.

She began her musical studies at the age of four, and by eighteen had achieved sufficient musical mastery to become a piano teacher; a year later, she continued her studies of piano, theory, and harmony under Michel Cheskinoff at the National Conservatory in Beirut. Kuri Guraieb then did advanced work at the Conservatory of Mexico under Juan Pablo Moncayo and Salvador Ordones Ochoa. Afterwards, she went to the United States where she studied with Professor Simmonds at the Yale University School of Music, returning to Mexico to study advanced composition techniques with Carlos Chavez at the National Conservatory of Mexico. Guraieb Kuri composed chamber, vocal, and piano works which were performed at music forums and festivals throughout Mexico. Some of her works, including her Second String Quartet, Hommage a Gibran (1982), represent her personal perspective on her Lebanese heritage.

♫ LISTEN

Sonata for violin and piano by Rosa Guraieb