PAULINE VIARDOT - FRANCE
BORN 18 JULY
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BORN 18 JULY
Pauline Viardot was a leading nineteenth-century French mezzo-soprano, pedagogue, and composer of Spanish descent.
Born Michelle Ferdinande Pauline García, her name appears in various forms. When it is not simply "Pauline Viardot", it most commonly appears in association with her maiden name García or the unaccented form, Garcia. This name sometimes precedes Viardot and sometimes follows it. Sometimes the words are hyphenated; sometimes they are not. She achieved initial fame as "Pauline García"; the accent was dropped at some point, but exactly when is not clear. After her marriage, she referred to herself simply as "Mme Viardot".
She came from a musical family and took up music at a young age. She began performing as a teenager and had a long and illustrious career as a star performer.
Viardot began composing when she was young, but it was never her intention to become a composer. Her compositions were written mainly as private pieces for her students with the intention of developing their vocal abilities. She did the bulk of her composing after her retirement at Baden-Baden. However, her works were of professional quality and Franz Liszt declared that, with Pauline Viardot, the world had finally found a woman composer of genius.
Having as a young girl studied with Liszt and with the music theorist and composer Anton Reicha, she was both an outstanding pianist and a complete all-round professional musician. Between 1864 and 1874 she wrote three salon operas - Trop de femmes (1867), L'ogre (1868), and Le dernier sorcier (1869), all to libretti by Ivan Turgenev - and over fifty Lieder. Her remaining two salon operas - Le conte de fées (1879), and Cendrillon (1904; when she was 83) - were to her own libretti. The operas may be small in scale; however, they were written for advanced singers.
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Havanaise by Pauline Viardot
NKEIRU OKOYE - USA
BORN 18 JULY
Composer Nkeiru Okoye [in KEAR roo oh KOY yeh] creates works that are “emotionally charged and musically sublime” (Cleveland Plain Dealer). A native New Yorker of African American and Nigerian descent, her music is a patchwork quilt stitching together diverse musical styles.
Hailed as “Sublime” by the CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER, Nkeiru Okoye’s compositions are a musical quilt that draw inspiration from a dizzying range of influences—Gilbert & Sullivan, the Gershwins, Sondheim, Copland, gospel, jazz, and Schoenberg. Her theatrical works have been presented by American Opera Projects, Oberlin Opera Theater, Cleveland Opera Theater, the South Shore Opera Company of Chicago, and Hartford Opera Theater. Her symphonic works have been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Grand Rapids Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, and countless regional orchestras. She is the recipient of numerous awards including an NEA Art Works grant for her opera, HARRIET TUBMAN: When I Crossed that Line to Freedom; and a Female Composers Discovery Grant from Opera America, for her comedy, We’ve Got Our Eye On You.
Composer Nkeiru Okoye [in KEAR roo oh KOY yeh] creates works that are “emotionally charged and musically sublime” (Cleveland Plain Dealer). A native New Yorker of African American and Nigerian descent, her music is a patchwork quilt stitching together diverse musical styles.
Hailed as “Sublime” by the CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER, Nkeiru Okoye’s compositions are a musical quilt that draw inspiration from a dizzying range of influences—Gilbert & Sullivan, the Gershwins, Sondheim, Copland, gospel, jazz, and Schoenberg. Her theatrical works have been presented by American Opera Projects, Oberlin Opera Theater, Cleveland Opera Theater, the South Shore Opera Company of Chicago, and Hartford Opera Theater. Her symphonic works have been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Grand Rapids Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, and countless regional orchestras. She is the recipient of numerous awards including an NEA Art Works grant for her opera, HARRIET TUBMAN: When I Crossed that Line to Freedom; and a Female Composers Discovery Grant from Opera America, for her comedy, We’ve Got Our Eye On You.
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