HELENA MUNKTELL - SWEDEN
BORN 24 NOVEMBER
Helena Mathilda Munktell (24 November 1852 – 10 September 1919) was a Swedish composer.
She was born at Grycksbo in Dalarna County, Sweden. She the youngest of nine children of Henrik Munktell (1804–1861) and Christina Augusta Eggertz (1818-1889). Her mother lived separately in Stockholm and after her father died, the family moved there. Her sister Emma Josepha Sparre (1851–1913) was a painter.
Munktell studied music at the Stockholm Conservatory with Conrad Nordqvist, Johan Lindegren, Ludwig Norman and Joseph Dente, and then in Vienna with Julius Epstein. She studied both piano and voice, and continued her education in composition in Paris with Benjamin Godard and Vincent d'Indy. Her debut as a composer took place in Sweden in 1885. In the late 1890s, Helena Munktell began to compose music for orchestra. In 1915 she became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and in 1918 she co-founded the Swedish Society of Composers.
She suffered from eye disease and died at the age of 67 in Stockholm. She was buried at Norra begravningsplatsen in Solna.
♫ LISTEN
Suite Delecarlienne by Helena Munktell
EMMA LOU DIEMER - USA
BORN 24 NOVEMBER
BORN 24 NOVEMBER
Emma Lou Diemer (Kansas City, Missouri) is an American composer.
Diemer's parents were George Willis Diemer (1885-1956), American educator, college president, one of a group of American educators who were sent by the U.S. Dept. of State to reorganize the educational system of Japan after World War II; and Myrtle Diemer née Casebolt (1889-1961),church worker and homemaker. Diemer's siblings were poet/teacher Dorothy Diemer Hendry (1918-2006); George Willis Diemer II (1920-1944), Marine fighter pilot, musician/teacher; John Irving Diemer (1920-1964), school principal/musician in Overland Park, KS.
Diemer has written many works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, keyboard, voice, chorus, and electronic media. Diemer is a keyboard performer and over the years has given concerts of her own organ works at Washington National Cathedral, The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, Grace Cathedral and St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco, and others.
Works include many collections and single pieces for organ as well as many for solo piano, piano 4 hands, and two pianos. Her major chamber works include a piano quartet, string quartet, two piano trios, and sonatas and suites for flute, violin, cello, and piano as well as settings of the psalms for organ with other instruments. Diemer has written many choral works as well. She has written numerous hymns, several of which appear in church hymnals. Her songs number in the dozens, using texts by many contemporary and early poets including Walt Whitman, Amy Lowell, Sara Teasdale, Alice Meynell, Thomas Campion, Shakespeare, John Donne, her sister Dorothy Diemer Hendry, Emily Dickinson, Robert Lowell, and many others.
Diemer's compositional style over the years has varied from tonal to atonal, from traditional to experimental. She has written works for non-professional and professional performers, originally under the "Gebrauchsmusik" philosophy, but has produced many works, particularly for keyboard, that are difficult and challenging. The latter category includes her "Fantasy" for piano and many psalm setting collections. Her work in the electronic field during her years on the faculty of the University of California influenced a number of works including her Toccata for piano that has a number of performances on YouTube.
♫ LISTEN
O Virdissima Verga by Emma Lou Diemer
O Virdissima Verga by Emma Lou Diemer
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