SETTIMIA CACCINI - ITALY
BORN 06 OCTOBER
Settimia Caccini (6 October 1591 – ca. 1638, Italy) was a well-known Italian singer and composer during the 1600s being one of the first women to have a successful career in music. Caccini was highly regarded for her artistic and technical work with music. She came from a family of well-known composers and singers, with her father being Giulio Caccini and her sister Francesca Caccini. Settimia Caccini was less well-known as a composer because she never published her own collection of works. Instead, nine works are attributed to her in two manuscripts of secular songs. Settimia was known much more for her talent as a singer, and she performed for nobility with the Caccini family consort and as a soloist. Coming from a musical family, she was able to lead herself to her own fame and success.
Caccini is mostly known for starring and performing other composers' arias and in operas. She was a very well-known singer and highly regarded by her contemporaries. She was an active composer but none of her work was published by herself or while she was alive. She had quite a few pieces but most of them are lost to historians. She started composing music at a young age. In 1611 she composed her own piece for the Mascherate delle Ninfe della Senna carnival, which one was one of the many masked carnivals in Venice. For the most part her career was performing for high nobility and royalty. She sang for Henry IV, the king of France, with her sister when she was younger.
Eight of Caccini's compositions survived, all of which are accompanied Italian monody. These pieces of music have expressive melodies and are usually done by single singers with basso continuo accompaniment, perfect for her to sing for herself and was a very popular style of Italian monody. Some of her arias are now published as piano arias, as this book 4 Arias. Her most famous piece that was published was a 3-line aria called Gia sperai non spero hor piu. It was published in a 17th-century collection of historic music. A few of Caccini's other works for soprano and basso continuo include "Core di questo core," "Cantan gl'augelli," and "Due luce ridenti."
Source: Wikipedia & A Modern Reveal
♫ LISTEN
Ensemble Laus Concentus by Settimia Caccini
ELINOR ARMER - USA
BORN 06 OCTOBER
BORN 06 OCTOBER
Elinor Armer (born October 6, 1939) is an American pianist, music educator and composer. She was born in Oakland in 1939, raised in Davis, and educated in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has spent her life on the West Coast and closely identifies with Northern California. Early influences on her style include radio sound effects, 40s jazz, classical 78s, and piano/ear-training lessons starting at age 8. Armer earned a BA at Mills College, studying composition with Darius Milhaud and piano with Alexander Libermann, and an MA in composition from San Francisco State University, working with Roger Nixon.
In 1957, Elinor graduated from Davis High School. While she did not know it then, Elinor would eventually go on to be induced into the Davis Senior High School Hall of Fame. She went on to attend Mills College for her secondary education. While there, she tried out several different majors before deciding on majoring in music composition. Her Piano teacher, Alexander Libermann, had a great deal of influence on her pursuing the piano. Libermann was a very popular professor during his time, and gave a series of lectures on the piano - how to practice, play, and teach. Elinor graduated from Mills college in 1961. From there she continued on to study her masters at UC Berkeley, although she went on to complete her graduate degree in composition from California State, San Francisco.
Elinor Armer has traveled throughout the U.S. as well as abroad to perform. Her music styles range from orchestral to solo.The majority of Elinor's composition including Promptu and Etude Quasi Cadenza has been written for pianist Lois Brandwynee. Elinor Armer enjoys a world-renowned reputation for her work in music education. Elinor is aligned with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, in which she founded the Composition Department in 1985. Along with the Conservatory of Music, Elinor teaches piano, composition, music history, and theory to students out of her home studio located in Berkley, CA.
♫ LISTEN
Mirror Mirror by Elinor Armer
Mirror Mirror by Elinor Armer
Post Comment
Post a Comment