3 JUNE 2019

LINDSAY STETNER - CANADA 

BORN 3 JUNE

Lindsay Stetner is a composer, performer and educator in Regina, Saskatchewan. Her works have reflected the need for quality and accessible Canadian compositions in not only professional concert halls but also elementary school gyms.

In 1999, she received her Bachelor of Music Composition, from the University of Regina, having studied with Dr. Thomas Schudel. Her Masters’ of Music Composition from the University of Calgary was completed in 2002. While there she studied with Dr. William Jordan, Dr. David Eagle and Allan Gordon Bell. In 2011, her Bachelor of Education After Degree was awarded from the University of Regina and in January of 2011, she began working for Regina Public Schools.

Stetner has a wide variety of works in a wide variety of genres including small ensembles, orchestral, choral, band and on-site theatre productions. Over the years, her works have been played by the Regina Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, and university, high school and junior high school bands as far away as Newfoundland.

The blending of composer and educator has allowed Stetner ensure that students are aware that composers are not just a name on the top of a piece of music. Recently, she has begun to think more pedagogically about her writing for young bands by bringing in Canadian First Nations content into choral and band works.

Fragments in time by Lindsay Stetner

➺ Lindsay Stetner's Website 

DIANA SYRSE VALDÉS - MEXICO  
BORN 3 JUNE

Diana Syrse is a composer and singer from Mexico City. Her work as a composer involves chamber and choral music, orchestra, electronics, dance and musical theater. "Syrse is an arresting singer, as well as a composer, appear destined to play a defining role the future of Mexican music..." (LA Times, Mark Swed).

Her music has been presented at international music festivals around the world. She won the Musikförderpreise der Landeshauptstadt München, the prize given by the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste, the Residence at the Banff Center (Canada), the Jóvenes Creadores Program (FONCA) and the Akademie Musiktheater heute. She has been commissioned by organizations such as the Theater Akademie August Everding, the Transatlantic Arts Consortium (TAC), VocalEssence for their program Cantaré and the LA Philharmonic among others.

Her music has been performed by ensembles such as the Sirius Quartet, VocalEssence, the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba, IPN Symphony Orchestra, Breakout Ensemble, Túumben Paax, Nemian Dance Company, Oktopus Ensemble, Julliard New Music Ensemble, LA Philharmonic and Isura Madrigal Chor between others. She worked in productions with different stage directors such as Ersan Mondtag, Annalena Maas, and Oscar Tapia. She worked as a resident composer for the Schauspiel Frankfurt, Pinakothek der Moderne (München), Kammerspiele München and Das Berliner Ensemble. The production of the musical theater "Marea Roja" about femicide in Mexico was presented on 2016 at the National Theater of the Arts in Mexico City. In 2014 she was the founder and artistic director of the Breakout Ensemble working as a composer and a conductor of the instrumental ensemble, and on 2015 she was the artistic director of the festival Art in Perspective in Munich. As a singer, she has premiered several compositions from composers around the world. Syrse has participated as composer-performer on festivals and concerts in the United States, Canada, Europe and Latin America.

Diana Syrse was the first Mexican to present to receive a commission price from the Bavarian Fine Arts Academy and to conduct at the Munich Palace (Residenz, Munich). She lives in Munich. Between her upcoming projects, Syrse will compose an opera for the Staatsoper Hamburg (Opera Stabile), a project supported by the Deutsche Bank Stiftung.

♫ LISTEN

Principio Universo by Diana Syrse 

➺ Diana Syrse's Website 

20 MAY 2019

HELEN HOPEKIRK - SCOTLAND 

BORN 20 MAY

Helen Hopekirk was a Scottish pianist and composer who lived and worked in Boston.

Helen Hopekirk was born near Edinburgh, Scotland, a daughter of music shop owners Adam and Helen (née Croall) Hopekirk. She studied music with George Lichtenstein and Scottish composer Alexander Mackenzie, and made her debut as a soloist in 1874 with the Edinburgh Amateur Orchestral Society. After other successful performances and the death of her father, she relocated to study composition with Carl Reinecke in Leipzig. After successful debuts in Leipzig and London, she began regular concert tours of Europe.

In 1882 Hopekirk married Edinburgh merchant and music critic William A. Wilson (d. 1926), who began serving as her manager. She made her American debut in 1883 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and commenced concert tours in the United States. She planned to continue her studies with Franz Liszt, but after his death studied instead with Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna and Czech composer Karel Navrátil in Prague. She and her husband lived in Vienna until 1892, and then moved to Paris, where she began to teach piano.

Her husband was injured in a traffic accident, and in 1897 she accepted the invitation of Director George Chadwick to take a teaching position at the New England Conservatory. In 1901 she left the Conservatory and became a private teacher, also continuing her performance career. Hopekirk and her husband became American citizens in 1918. Her last performance was at Steinert Hall, Boston, in 1939.

♫ LISTEN 

Iona Memories I. Wondering by Helen Hoperkirk

➺ Find Scores by Helen Hoperkirk 

ROSA GURAIEB - MEXICO 

Rosa Guraieb Kuri was a Mexican pianist, music educator and composer of Lebanese ancestry. She composed many works performed in her native country of Mexico; most of her works have been composed for various chamber ensembles.

She began her musical studies at the age of four, and by eighteen had achieved sufficient musical mastery to become a piano teacher; a year later, she continued her studies of piano, theory, and harmony under Michel Cheskinoff at the National Conservatory in Beirut. Kuri Guraieb then did advanced work at the Conservatory of Mexico under Juan Pablo Moncayo and Salvador Ordones Ochoa. Afterwards, she went to the United States where she studied with Professor Simmonds at the Yale University School of Music, returning to Mexico to study advanced composition techniques with Carlos Chavez at the National Conservatory of Mexico. Guraieb Kuri composed chamber, vocal, and piano works which were performed at music forums and festivals throughout Mexico. Some of her works, including her Second String Quartet, Hommage a Gibran (1982), represent her personal perspective on her Lebanese heritage.

♫ LISTEN

Sonata for violin and piano by Rosa Guraieb

18 APRIL 2019

KEIKO ABE - JAPAN  

BORN 18 APRIL

Keiko Abe is a Japanese composer and marimba player. She has been a primary figure in the development of the marimba, in terms of expanding both technique and repertoire, and through her collaboration with the Yamaha Corporation, developed the modern five-octave concert marimba.

Her compositions, including "Michi", "Variations on Japanese Children's Songs", and "Dream of the Cherry Blossoms", have become standards of the marimba repertoire. Abe is active in promoting the development of literature for the marimba, not only by writing pieces herself, but also by commissioning works by other composers and encouraging young composers. She has added at least 70 compositions to the repertoire. She uses improvisation as an important element in developing her musical ideas which she then uses in her compositions.

In addition to her heavy composing, touring, and recording schedule, Abe has been a lecturer, then professor, at the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo since 1970. She was the first woman to be inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame in 1993.Her music is mainly published by Xebec Music Publishing and Schott, Japan.

♫ LISTEN

Prism by Keiko Abe

► KEIKO ABE'S WEBSITE 

MARCELA RODRÍGUEZ - MEXICO  

BORN 18 APRIL

Marcela Rodríguez belongs to a generation of Mexican and Latin American composers which has distanced itself from the regionalism of the nationalistic music of the 20th century and is trying to get into touch with European and Anglo-American music without sacrificing its search for a Latin American musical identity

She studied the guitar and composition with Leo Brouwer of Cuba. She studied for a while in London, and then returned to Mexico City to study with Julio Estrada and Ma. Antonieta Lozano. Rodríguez works have been performed internationally, including the United States, Venezuela, Spain, her opera "Las Cartas de Frida" in Heidelberg, Germany, [Moldavia]] and Greece. She has taught classes of composition for opera, dance and theater in Mexico and Spain, and at the Catholic University of Colombia and the Catholic University of Washington.

Marcela Rodríguez has written works for solo instruments and voices as well as songs, chamber music, symphonies, concertos and operas. Since 1979 she has been writing music for dramas, too, and has worked together with the most eminent Mexican directors. Marcela Rodríguez is unusually well informed in the field of music and uses the resources of the European tradition as well as those of the Latin American one. She studied the guitar under two of its greatest interpreters - the Argentinean Manuel López Ramos and the most important modern composer for the guitar, the Cuban Leo Brouwer. Bothof them made Rodriguez aware of Latin American music and the problem of defining its identity. During a lengthy stay in London, where she completed a course of studying the guitar, she devoted her time mostly to the tradition of European music. Back in Mexico City she continued her studies under the music pedagogue Jesús Estrada and Mario Lavista, the most eminent living Mexican composer.

♫ LISTEN

Caida by Marcela Rodriguez

 ► MARCELA RODRÍGUEZ'S WEBSITE