ROXANNA PANUFNIK - UK
BORN 24 APRIL
Roxanna Panufnik studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music and, since then, has written a wide range of pieces – opera, ballet, music theatre, choral works, orchestral and chamber compositions, and music for film and television – which are performed all over the world.
Roxanna has a great love of world music - this has culminated in her "Four World Seasons" for violinist Tasmin Little, the world premiere of which was picked by BBC Radio 3 to launch their Music Nations weekend, celebrating the London Olympics; her multi-faith Warner Classics CD "Love Abide" (www.loveabide.com) and "Dance of Life: Tallinn Mass" for Tallinn Philharmonic (www.tallinnmass.com), commissioned to celebrate Tallinn's reign as European Capital of Culture.
She is especially interested in building musical bridges between faiths and her first project in this field was the violin concerto "Abraham", commissioned for Daniel Hope, incorporating Christian, Islamic and Jewish chant to create a musical analogy for the fact that these three faiths believe in the same one God. This work was subsequently converted into an overture for the World Orchestra for Peace and premiered in Jerusalem and London under the baton of Valery Gergiev, in 2008 and at the 2014 BBC Proms.
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VIOLET ARCHER _ CANADA
BORN 24 APRIL
Dr. Violet Balestreri Archer, a seminal figure in Canadian composition, created a distinguished body of work during a career that spanned over six decades. With a life-long commitment to music that left no room for marriage, her music was heralded and performed around the world, and earned honours and awards for her both in Canada and abroad.
Her musical training began before she was ten years of age with piano lessons. She began to compose at the age of 16. Following graduation from McGill University in piano and composition, she obtained the Associate Diploma of the Royal Canadian College of Organists. During those years, she was active as a professional accompanist for singers and as a piano teacher, as well as deputy organist in many Montréal churches. She continued to compose and in the summer of 1942 she was accepted by the great composer, Bèla Bartûk, as a composition student and studied with him in New York.
Her teaching career was an extensive one and very active in the guiding of young composers. Many of her former composition students both in Canada and the United States are now professionals and recognized in their field.
She was an ardent promoter of Canadian music and other 20th-century music, being active on the boards of a large number of national and regional organizations. She was also active both as a national and regional adjudicator of young composers' contests in the United States and later in Canada.
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