Composers of the day: May 16

COMPOSERS OF THE DAY:

MAY 16

POLDOWSKI (RÉGINE WIENIAWSKI) - BELGIUM

Born 16 May

More about her

Find scores by Poldowski (Régine Wieniawski):

ZLATA TKACH - MOLDOVA

Born 16 May

More about her

Find scores by Zlata Tkach:

Check here last year's composers of the day

16 MAY 2019

LEOKADIYA KASHPEROVA - RUSSIA

BORN 16 MAY

Known primarily as a pedagogue and pianist, Leokadiya Kashperova was also active in St Petersburg as a composer of Romantic songs, chamber music and symphonic works. She had studied composition with Nikolay Solovyov and piano with Anton Rubinstein and was a favoured interpreter of virtuosic new works by Glazunov and her friend Balakirev. She travelled internationally, playing twice at London's Aeolian Hall in 1907, where she attracted positive reviews, as well as performing her own piano concerto in Berlin. She taught Stravinsky for two years from 1899 elevating his piano technique to a professional level which enabled him to re-launch his career in the 1920s as an interpreter of his neoclassical works for piano.

In 1916, at the age of 44, Kashperova married one of her piano students, Sergey Andropov, a twice-arrested and exiled Bolshevik revolutionary, and the couple was forced to flee in the wake of the Russian Revolution, first to the Caucasus in 1918 and then to Moscow. Although nearly all Kashperova's works had been published and performed before the Revolution, not a note of her music was heard following her flight from Petrograd.

Kashperova’s compositions have come to light thanks to the scholarly endeavours of Dr Graham Griffiths, whose book Stravinsky's Piano: Genesis of a Musical Language (CUP, 2013) is the first published account of the creative impact of Kashperova’s teaching upon her piano pupil, Igor Stravinsky. Stravinsky's generally disparaging remarks about his piano teacher led Dr Griffiths to question the teacher-student relationship, revealing that Kashperova was in fact a highly talented and successful composer as well as a pianist-composer: "as soon as I began uncovering Kashperova’s lyrical and beautifully-crafted music I realised that Kashperova had been unjustly overlooked not just by one ungrateful pupil; her considerable achievements had been erased by the misfortunes of History… Truly, I feel that after a century of neglect, this long-forgotten and quite excellent composer thoroughly deserves re-discovery."

♫ LISTEN 

In the Midst of Nature by Leokadiya Kashperova

➺ Find Scores by Leokadiya Kashperova 

DEON NIELSEN PRICE - USA
BORN 16 MAY

Deon Nielsen Price is a prize-winning pianist, commissioned composer, choral and orchestra conductor, recording artist, veteran educator and published author. Dr. Price serves on the Boards as president and past-president of the National Association of Composers, USA (NACUSA) and the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM). She also has been an officer in Mu Phi Epsilon International Music Fraternity (MPE) and the International Congress on Women in Music (ICWM) and is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).

As a solo and collaborative pianist, since the early 1950's, she has performed regularly on university and community concerts across the continental United States, as well as at international festivals in the U.S.A., China, Alaska, Italy, Austria, Germany, England, France, Spain, Mexico, Panama, and Korea, under the auspices of Academia Pro Arte, the International Congresses on Women in Music, the National Association of Composers/USA, the International Alliance for Women Composers, the ECHOSPHERE touring ensembles and the Price Duo (son Berkeley Price, Doctor of Musical Arts in clarinet performance Eastman School of Music, and Deon, pianist/composer.) Her piano teachers included C.W. Reid, Carl Fuerstner, Erwin Schmieder, Benning Dexter, Gyorgy Sandor, Aube Tzerko, Daniel Pollack, Malcolm Hamilton, Gwendolyn Koldofsky, and Brooks Smith.

Having studied composition primarily with Leslie Bassett and Samuel Adler, she has heard her compositions performed in many countries in Europe, former Soviet Union, Asia and Central America. Most titles are published by Culver Crest Publications or Southern Music Company. Many chamber works are recorded on Cambria/NAXOS: SunRays: Music of Deon Nielsen Price ("first rate" American Record Guide); SunRays II: City Views; Clariphonia ("inventive and entertaining" AMR).; and orchestral works on Dancing on the Brink of the World("...recorded at higher level than usual...close-up and vivid...intriguing-rich...very Californian... freewheeling... impressions flood in...ear constantly beguiled..." Music Web).

♫ LISTEN 

Big Sur Tryptich by Deon Price

➺ Deon Price's Website