Composers of the day: October 01

COMPOSERS OF THE DAY:

OCTOBER 01

POZZI ESCOT - PERU

Born 01 October

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AKIKO YAMANE - JAPAN

Born 28 September

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01 OCTOBER 2019

MARJORIE KENNEDY-FRASER - UK

BORN 01 OCTOBER

Marjory Kennedy-Fraser (1 October 1857 – 22 November 1930) was a Scottish singer, composer and music teacher.

Marjory Kennedy was born in Perth to a well-known Scottish singer, David Kennedy and his second wife, Elizabeth Fraser. As a child she used to accompany her father on his tours in Scotland and abroad, playing the piano while he sang. Various of her siblings were also professional musicians, and three of them (Lizzie, Kate and James — soprano, contralto and baritone respectively) died in the fire that burnt down the Théâtre municipal of Nice, France, in 1881.

In 1887 she married her mother's younger cousin, the mathematician Alexander Yule Fraser. Marjory thus found herself a widow at the age of thirty-three, and with her two small children, David and Patuffa, to look after. She settled at 5 Mayfield Road in southern Edinburgh with her mother and two sisters and made her living as a music teacher and lecturer.

In the following years, she visited many of the islands to the west of Scotland, recording the traditional songs with a wax cylinder phonograph. She later arranged them for voice and piano, or sometimes for harp or clàrsach —an instrument her daughter Helen Patuffa played. The arrangements, with words translated to English by the Rev. Kenneth MacLeod, were published in her three-volume Songs of the Hebrides in the years 1909, 1917 and 1921. A fourth volume, From the Hebrides: Further Gleanings of Tale and Song, followed in 1925. One of the songs included in this collection eventually came to be widely known by the title "Eriskay Love Lilt".

For her contributions, Marjory was awarded with a CBE, together with an honorary degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Edinburgh, awarded in 1928. In 1930 she presented her archive of songs to the University Library, including her original wax cylinders of recordings. Marjory Kennedy-Fraser died in Edinburgh in the same year.

In order to preserve her original wax cylinder recordings, they were re-recorded on tape several decades later for the Sound Archives of the School of Scottish Studies. More recently, they have been digitized and are held in the collections at the University of Edinburgh.

Source: Wikipedia & Saltire Society

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Songs of Hebrides by Marjory Kennedy-Fraser

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MORFYDD OWEN - UK
BORN 01 OCTOBER

Morfydd Llwyn Owen (1 October 1891 – 7 September 1918) was a Welsh composer, pianist and mezzo-soprano. A prolific composer, as well as a member of influential intellectual circles, she died shortly before her 27th birthday.

Having developed her voice as a mezzo-soprano, in 1913 she sang four of her own songs in a concert at London's Bechstein Hall: Chanson de Fortunio; Song from a Persian Village, Suo Gân and The Year's at the Spring. The same year her Nocturne in D♭ major was performed at the Queen's Hall, and she won the first prize for singing at a regional eisteddfod in Swansea. Her professional debut as a singer was in January 1917 at the Aeolian Hall in London. In July 1917 she premiered a performance of Harry Farjeon's song cycle A Lute of Jade at the Birkenhead National Eisteddfod. Later in the year her setting of the song For Jeanne's Sake was performed at the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts.

Owen was made an sub-professor at the Royal Academy of Music and in 1918 she was honoured with the Academy's Associate diploma, the ARAM.

Though Owen only composed seriously for just over 10 years, she left a legacy of some 250 scores. These include pieces for chamber ensemble, piano, mixed choir and tone poems for orchestra. However, it is her compositions for voice and piano that are regarded as her most important and mature contributions. Her most well known include Slumber Song of the Madonna, To our Lady of Sorrows, Suo Gân, and her masterpiece in Welsh, Gweddi y Pechadur. There were also some 22 hymn tunes and several anthems.

In the centenary year of her death the 2018 Proms season programmed the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and its Principal Conductor Thomas Søndergård performing the Nocturne in D♭ major for full orchestra of 1913.

Source: Wikipedia and Discover Welsh Music

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Piano Trio by Morfydd Owen

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