MARGARET SUTHERLAND - AUSTRALIA
BORN 20 NOVEMBER
Margaret Ada Sutherland was an Australian composer, among the best-known female musicians her country has produced.
Her first piano teacher was another aunt, Julia Sutherland (1861-1930), a pupil of Louis Pabst, a German émigré then considered to be Melbourne's leading piano teacher (himself a pupil of Anton Rubinstein, and Percy Grainger's first teacher). A student of Edward Goll in Australia and of Sir Arnold Bax in London during the 1920s, Sutherland wrote pieces in almost all forms, but particularly concentrated on the genre of chamber music. Her major works include a symphony, The Four Temperaments (orchestrated by Robert W. Hughes in 1964), concertos for various instruments (including violin), a symphonic poem entitled Haunted Hills (1953), and the chamber opera The Young Kabbarli (1964; libretto by Maie Casey). A severe stroke in 1969 ended her composing career.
Despite the emphasis on non-vocal works in her total output, one of Margaret Sutherland's most recognised pieces is "In the Dim Counties" (1936) for voice and piano accompaniment from Five Songs. Sutherland sets her music to the poetry of Shaw Neilson, considered a ‘"pastoral" lyric poet’ from Australia whose verse has ‘simplicity of form and restraint of utterance’. Sutherland captures this through sharp rhythms, light instrumentation and ‘even musical balance’. Five Songs has been recorded by numerous Australian female artists such as Helen Noonan.
The University of Melbourne conferred an honorary doctorate of music on Margaret Sutherland in 1969. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1970 Queen's Birthday Honours. She was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 1981 Queen's Birthday Honours.
Source: Wikipedia and Australian Music Centre
♫ LISTEN
3 Sonata by Margaret Sutherland
MEREDITH MONK - USA
BORN 20 NOVEMBER
BORN 20 NOVEMBER
Meredith Jane Monk is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. Since the 1960s, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording extensively for ECM Records. In 1991, Monk composed an opera called Atlas, commissioned and produced by the Houston Opera and the American Music Theater Festival.
Her music has been used in films by the Coen Brothers (The Big Lebowski, 1998) and Jean-Luc Godard (Nouvelle Vague, 1990 and Notre musique, 2004). Trip hop musician DJ Shadow sampled Monk's "Dolmen Music" on the song "Midnight in a Perfect World."
Meredith Monk is primarily known for her vocal innovations, including a wide range of extended techniques, which she first developed in her solo performances prior to forming her own ensemble. In December 1961, she appeared at the Actor's Playhouse in Greenwich Village (NYC) as a solo dancer in an Off Broadway children's musical theater adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, entitled Scrooge (music and lyrics by Norman Curtis; directed and choreographed by Patricia Taylor Curtis). In 1964, Monk graduated from Sarah Lawrence College after studying with Beverly Schmidt Blossom, and in 1968 she founded The House, a company dedicated to an interdisciplinary approach to performance.
In the 1980s, Monk wrote and directed two films, Ellis Island (1981), and Book of Days (1988). In the early 1990s, Monk composed an opera called Atlas, which premiered in Houston, Texas, in 1991. She has also written pieces for instrumental ensembles and symphony orchestras.
In an interview, Monk said that her favourite music includes Brazilian music, especially Caetano Veloso's recordings, the music by Mildred Bailey ("the great jazz singer from the ‘30s and ‘40s"), and Bartók's cycle for piano Mikrokosmos.
♫ LISTEN
Churchyard Entertainment by Meredith Monk
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