LOUISE FARRENC - FRANCE
BORN 31 MAY
Louise Farrenc was a celebrated composer in her time, she was the student of Muzio Clementi and Anton Reicha. She had tremendous support of her family, which led to an extensive touring career, an appointment of Professor of Piano at the Paris Conservatory (where she taught for an outstanding 30 years), and many publications in her lifetime. Among her works are many pieces for piano, three symphonies, two overtures, and several celebrated pieces for chamber ensembles. Her compositions were known during her lifetime, and received the praise of many critics – including Robert Schumann.
At first, during the 1820s and 1830s, she composed exclusively for the piano. In the 1830s, she tried her hand at larger compositions for both chamber ensemble and orchestra. It was during the 1840s that much of her chamber music was written. While the great bulk of Farrenc’s compositions were for the piano alone, her chamber music is generally regarded as her best work. The claim can be made that Farrenc’s chamber music works are on a par with most of her well-known male contemporaries.
Throughout her life, chamber music remained of great interest. She wrote works for various combinations of winds and or strings and piano. These include two piano quintets Opp.30 & 31, a sextet for piano and winds Op. 40, which later appeared in an arrangement for piano quintet, two piano trios Opp.33 & 34, the nonet for winds and strings Op. 38, a trio for clarinet (or violin), cello and piano Op. 44, a trio for flute (or violin), cello and piano Op. 45, and several instrumental sonatas (a string quartet sometimes attributed to her is regarded by specialists as the work of another composer, not yet identified).
In addition to chamber music and works for solo piano, she wrote two overtures and three symphonies. She heard her third symphony Op. 36 performed at the Société des concerts du Conservatoire in 1849. The one area which is conspicuously missing from her output is opera, an important lacuna as opera was at the time the central musical form in France. Several sources, however, indicate that she was also ambitious in that field, but did not succeed in being given a libretto to set to music by the Théâtre de l'Opéra or the Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique, for reasons still to be discovered.
VIVIENNE OLIVE - UK
BORN 31 MAY
From 1968 to 1971 she studied for her B.A. degree in music at the University of York. She then went on to postgraduate studies in composition, studying with Bernard Rands (York 1971-72),
Franco Donatoni (Milan 1972-74), Roman Haubenstock-Ramati (Vienna 1974-75) and Klaus Huber (Freiburg 1975-78). She received her Ph. D. in composition from the University of York in 1975.
Vivienne Olive`s Oeuvre comprises more than 60 works that reach from compositions for recorder to operas. The impulse for her opera „Das hässliche Entlein“ was an International Composer´s Competition initiated by Hochschule für Musik Cologne in cooperation with the Cologne Opera in 2004. The fairytale opera with a libretto written by the director and author Doris Dörrie will be first performed in cooperation with Hochschule für Musik Nuremberg at „Theater Mummpitz“ in Nuremberg on 6th march 2010.
From 1976 to 1978 she also continued her studies in harpsichord with Stanislav Heller at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg which lead to a diploma in 1978. She has been awarded composition scholarships from the Department of Education and Science (1971-74) and the German Academic Exchange Service (1975-78).
She has been recipient of various prizes and distinctions: from the Gedok - Leni Neuenschwander Prize 1998- for "Gleichsam einem Garten", from the Bach Academy in Stuttgart for "Stabat Mater", from the town of Hamlyn (Hameln/ Germany) for "An English Suite", and the Stuttgart Composition Prize for "Tomba di Bruno". Many of her works have been commissions from soloists, chamber ensembles and radio stations, mainly in Germany, Great Britain and Australia. Various publications in the field of music theory (analyses, theory of harmony, editing). Member of the board of directors of the "Internationaler Arbeitskreis Frau und Musik" (Women in Music Germany) since 1995.
Since 1979 she has been lecturer for Music Theory and Composition at the Hochschule fuer Musik, Nuremberg-Augsburg (formerly Meistersingerkonservatorium), Germany. Between 1993 and 1995 she was on leave of absence in Australia at the University of Ballarat and the James Cook University, Townsville, where she headed the University's Music Academy and also staged the music festival, "Contempofest 94".
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