ANNA AMALIA VON PREUSSEN - GERMANY
BORN 03 NOVEMBER
Source: Wikipedia and Sophie Drinker Institute
Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia (9 November 1723 – 30 March 1787) was Princess-Abbess of Quedlinburg. She was one of ten surviving children of King Frederick William I of Prussia and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover.
Anna Amalia became the Abbess of Quedlinburg in 1755, which made her a wealthy woman. She chose to spend most of her time in Berlin, where she devoted herself to music, and became known as a musical patron and composer. As a composer she achieved a modest amount of fame and is most known for her smaller chamber works, which included trios, marches, cantatas, songs and fugues.
In 1758, Anna Amalia began a serious study of musical theory and composition, engaging as her tutor Johann Philipp Kirnberger, a student of Johann Sebastian Bach. She composed chamber music, such as flute sonatas. More favorably disposed toward religious music than her brother, she set the text of Ramler's Passion cantata Der Tod Jesu ("The Death of Jesus") to music. This was her favorite among her compositions. Only a few of her works have survived. She may have destroyed many of her compositions, as she described herself as being very "timorous and self-critical." However, more compositions by her may soon surface as a result of the discovery in 2000 of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin music archives in Kiev, a library that had been lost since World War II.
Anna Amalia was also a collector of music, preserving over 600 volumes of works by notables such as Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Georg Philipp Telemann, Karl Heinrich Graun and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, among others. Her works of curation alone represent a significant contribution to Western culture. Her library was split between East Germany and West Germany after World War II. The two collections were re-united after the German reunification in 1990. This treasury, of about 2,000 volumes, is today housed at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (not to be confused with the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, the former library of Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel).
♫ LISTEN
Sonata for Traveso by Anna Amalia von Preussen
SHRUTHI RAJASEKAR - USA
BORN 03 NOVEMBER
BORN 03 NOVEMBER
Shruthi Rajasekar (b. 1996) is an Indian-American composer and vocalist. Trained in both the Carnatic (South Indian classical) and Western classical idioms, she uses her unique background to create music that explores intersections in cultural identity.
In 2009, at the age of twelve, Shruthi won the youth division of the Eric Stokes Song Contest with her original composition entitled A Memory. Shruthi shares her song contest experience with us reflects on its impact on her music career.
Shruthi has won several honors for her compositions, including a 2018 Composers Guild of New Jersey award and a global award from the Donne in Musica Adkins Chiti Foundation (Roma, Italia) & the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Performed across North America, Europe, and Asia, her music has reached more than 300,000 listeners on Choral Stream, Classical Minnesota Public Radio, and Regional Spotlight.
Shruthi writes in various mediums, including voice, chamber ensemble, orchestra, film, theater, and opera; much of her work is inspired by her diverse musical training. Shruthi graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University, receiving the Edward T. Cone Prize. At Princeton, she studied composition with Donnacha Dennehy, Barbara White, Andrew Lovett, Dan Trueman, and Juri Seo.
A native of Minnesota, USA, Shruthi is currently in the United Kingdom as a Marshall Scholar pursuing graduate study in ethnomusicology (M.Mus, SOAS University of London) and composition (M.Mus, Royal Northern College of Music).
♫ LISTEN
Meditations and Prayers by Shruthi Rajasekar
Meditations and Prayers by Shruthi Rajasekar
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