SARAH MACDONALD - CANADA
BORN 22 NOVEMBER
Sarah MacDonald is a Canadian-born organist, conductor, and composer, living in the UK, and currently holds the positions of Fellow and Director of Music at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and Director of Ely Cathedral Girls' Choir. She has been at Selwyn since 1999, and is the first woman to hold such a post in an Oxbridge Chapel. In 2018 Sarah was given the honorary award of Associate of the Royal School of Church Music (ARSCM).
Sarah came to the United Kingdom from Canada in 1992 as Organ Scholar of Robinson College, Cambridge after studying piano, organ, and conducting at The Royal Conservatory of Music's Glenn Gould School in Toronto. At Cambridge she read for a degree in Music, and studied the organ with David Sanger. Her early musical studies as a pianist took place at the Victoria Conservatory of Music on the west coast of British Columbia.
Sarah has played numerous recitals and conducted choirs throughout the UK, North America, the Middle East, New Zealand, and much of mainland Europe. She has made over 35 recordings, variously in the guises of pianist, organist, conductor, and producer, and currently works most frequently with Regent Records. Sarah is a winner of the Royal College of Organists' (RCO) coveted Limpus Prize, and has taught organ and conducting for Eton Choral Courses, Oundle for Organists, the Jennifer Bate Organ Academy, and courses run by the RCO. For its first ten years, she was a regular director of the Girl Chorister Course at St Thomas' Church Fifth Avenue, in New York City, and she is currently in demand as a guest conductor of international RSCM residential courses. Sarah holds the Royal College of Organists' Fellowship Diploma (FRCO), is Examiner for the RCO and the Cambridge University Music Faculty, and also spent many years as a member of the Academic Board of the RCO and as a Trustee. She is an Honorary Patron of the Herbert Howells Society.
Sarah is active as a composer, and has had several of choral compositions published by Encore Publications, the Royal School of Church Music, August Press and St James Music Press. Sarah also writes a popular monthly column for the American Guild of Organists' magazine 'The American Organist', called "UK Report".
Source: Wikipedia and Minerva Festival
♫ LISTEN
Magnificat and Nunc dimittis by Sarah MacDonald
KAMALA SANKARAM - USA
BORN 22 NOVEMBER
BORN 22 NOVEMBER
Kamala Sankaram is an american composer and musicist.
Praised as “strikingly original” (NY Times), and a “new voice from whom we will surely be hearing more” (LA Times), she has received commissions from Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Beth Morrison Projects, the PROTOTYPE Festival, Opera Memphis, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, among others. Awards, grants and residencies include: Jonathan Larson Award, NEA ArtWorks, MAP Fund, Opera America, NY IT Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical, the Civilians, HERE, the MacDowell Colony, and the Watermill Center. As a resident artist at HERE Arts Center, Kamala created MIRANDA, which was the winner of the New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical.
Her opera, THUMBPRINT (written with librettist Susan Yankowitz), premiered in the 2014 PROTOTYPE Festival, and was featured on NPR, Agence France Presse, and media outlets around the world. THUMBPRINT has since received productions at LA Opera and Opera Ithaca. She is currently working with Opera on Tap and librettist Jerre Dye on THE PARKSVILLE MURDERS, the first opera written for virtual reality. Episode 1 is now available on SamsungVR. Her current season includes premieres at Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Ithaca, and music for Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC.
In addition to her own work, she was recently named co-Artistic Director of the New York based company Experiments in Opera. Dr. Sankaram holds a PhD from the New School, is currently a member of the composition faculty at SUNY Purchase, and is also serving as a mentor for Turn the Spotlight, a program dedicated to fostering equity in the arts.
Source: Kamala Sankaram Official Website and New Music Usa
♫ LISTEN
Coffee Shop by Kamala Sankaram
Post Comment
Post a Comment