12 AUGUST 2019

IRENE M. GIBLIN - USA
BORN 12 AUGUST

Irene Marie Giblin (August 12, 1888 – May 12, 1974), also known as Irene Giblin O'Brien, was an American pianist and composer of ragtime. She published a total of ten pieces between 1905 and 1911. Her song "Chicken Chowder" of 1905 was her biggest success.

Giblin was a popular young woman in the Irish-American community in St. Louis. She worked at music stores Grand Leader and Stix, Baer and Fuller, playing the piano for several hours a day to convince the customers to buy the latest scores.

Giblin published a total of ten ragtime songs over a period of six years, from 1905 to 1911. Among them, "Sleepy Lou" and "The Aviator Rag" were popular sellers. However, it was her first rag, "Chicken Chowder" (1905) that was her most successful. She published her last rag in 1911, "The Dixie Rag".

In 2018, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music marked the 150th birthday of Scott Joplin, along with the 130th birthdays of May Aufderheide and Irene Giblin, with a special concert of their works.

Source: Wikipedia

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Chicken Chowder by Irene M. Giblin

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NINA MAKAROVA -  RUSSIA
BORN 12 AUGUST   

Nina Vladimirovna Makarova (Russian: Нина Владимировна Макарова; 12 August [O.S. 30 July] 1908, Yurino, Nizhny Novgorod Governorate – 15 January 1976, Moscow) was a Russian composer who had great interest in Russian and Mari folksongs. She studied under Nikolai Myaskovsky, like composer Aram Khachaturian, who she married in 1933. Her nickname was "Gayane" (Гаянэ). She conducted her symphony in Moscow on 12 June 1947. She also co-composed several pieces with her husband, including the Music to M. Aliger's Play "A Tale of Truth" (1947) and Music to Yu. Chepurin's Play "Spring Stream" (1953).

Nina and Aram's son, Karen, became an art critic.

Source: Wikipedia

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Symphony in D Menor by Nina Makarova

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24 JULY 2019

ALISSA FIRSOVA - RUSSIA//UK 
BORN 24 JULY

Alissa Firsova is a British-Russian pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist she gave her Wigmore Hall and Proms debuts in 2009 and has appeared in Dartington, Cheltenham, Presteigne, Messiaen at Southbank, Fuerstensaal Classix and Seattle festivals as well as numerous concert venues throughout UK, Germany, Holland, France, Turkey, Portugal, Switzerland and the US. She has enjoyed collaborations with distinguished artists such as Stephen Kovacevich, Tim Hugh, Roman Simovic, Andrew Marriner, Julius Berger and the Dante Quartet. Her debut solo piano CD, Russian Emigres, was released in Aug 2015 on Vivat with music by Rachmaninov, her parents and herself.Since winning the BBC Proms/Guardian Young Composer competition in 2001, she has received two world premieres at the Proms, both conducted by Andrew Litton: her Bach Allegro was performed by the RPO in 2010 and her Bergen’s Bonfire Op. 31 featured in the Bergen Philharmonic’s 250th Anniversary Prom in 2015. 

 Her music was also performed by Imogen Cooper, Henning Kraggerud, Tim Hugh, Julius Berger, Dante Quartet, Netherlands Blazer Ensemble, Seattle Chamber Players, Xenia Ensemble, Philharmonia Soloists, Northwest Sinfonietta, Interface Quartet, Tana Quartet and Britten Sinfonia. She was recently invited to Verbier, Asiago and Conques Festivals as composer-in-residence and her music is recorded on CD by Henning Kraggerud and The Sixteen.After completing the postgraduate conducting course at Royal Academy of Music under Colin Metters, Alissa had her triple-debut with the English Chamber Orchestra as director, composer and conductor at the Cadogan Hall in 2013. In 2015 she conducted the Camerata RCO in the world premiere of her Le Soleil de Conques Op. 33.

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Fantasy for Cello & Piano by Alissa Firsova

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HELOISA FLEURY - BRAZIL  

BORN 24 JULY

French/Brazilian composer Heloisa Fleury has lived in Paris since 1980, after obtaining a scholarship from the French Government. At the CNSMP she was trained in Composition and Analysis (with Claude Ballif) and Orchestration (with Serge Nigg), and at the Sorbonne in Musicology. Heloisa Fleury has attended several international composition and contemporary music master-classes and has composed a great number of pieces in the late 20th century style, ranging from post-serialism to spectral music. This includes her orchestral works, such as Briseur d’Images and Vom Lichte getragen. Over time she evolved towards a more “classical”, tonal, and, at the same time, a more modern style, with works such as Germinal, an opera rock, and dozens of songs in English, Portuguese or French. Next she entered a sacred music phase, with works like the Brazilian Mass, Missa Brevis, Requiem, Preghiera Semplice and There the soul dwells, among others.

Heloisa has often performed in Europe and won several awards in composition competitions; some of her scores have been edited in France (Editions À Coeur Joie) and in England (Recital Music).

In 2018, Heloisa Fleury’s music was performed three times, at the Hoffnungskirche, Berlin, with Michael Geisler as conductor. In addition to a new version of the Brazilian Mass, others new pieces were also performed, as Ich stehe an deiner Krippen hier, Tempo de Natal, Chacona Latina and Prélude (all these pieces based on J.S.Bach) and Die Seligpreisungen.

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Chacone Latina by Bach-Fleury 

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2 JULY 2019

PRINCESS NATALIA IVANOVNA DE KUKARINA - RUSSIA 
BORN 2 JULY

Princess Kurakina was born in 1766 into a wealthy, upper class family and as a young child, she was considered to be somewhat of a musical Protégé recognized for being talented at playing the guitar and the harp. Princess Natalia Ivanova Kurakina was also very talented and highly respected female composer in St. Petersburg, Russia. She is said to have been the second most prominent male or female composer in 17th century Russia. In 1783, at 16, she married Prince Aleksei Borisovich Kurakin, who became Procurator General, which was one of the highest government positions in all of Russia. Through her marriage she became a noblewoman, where she lived in the court of Tsar Paul 1 and became heavily involved in country music, which also allowed her access to the upper class/intellectual thinkers in Russia at the time.

Princess Kurakina represents the rise of the intellectual level of women during 18th century Russia and their presence in the salons. She was also a pioneer because she really paved the road, so to speak for other Russian women composers to put their work out there. In addition, she used her musical talent to put her into the center of Russian salons and the intellectual social scene:Princess Kurakina was a critical female figure in the development of Russian social life, so much so,that, in 1797, she was pronounced as a Dame of Lesser Cross of the order of St. Catherine, which was an award bestowed upon women in Russia.

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Je vais donc quitter pour jamais by Natalia Ivanovna de Kukarina

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MARGARET HUBICKI - UK 

BORN 2 JULY

Margaret Olive "Peggy" Hubicki MBE  was an English composer and teacher of musical harmony, who invented the Colour-Staff method to help people with dyslexia to read music.

Hubicki was born Margaret Mullins in Hampstead, London on 2 July 1915. Her mother was Scottish and her father English. She studied piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music, winning the gold medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, and at her graduation recital in 1934 performed a sonata of her own composition.

At the Academy she met fellow-student Bohdan Hubicki, a Canadian violinist of Ukrainian descent, and they married in July 1940. Three months later Bohdan died when their house was bombed; Peggy sustained severe injuries. Thereafter she devoted much of her life to music education. She did not remarry.

Hubicki devised the Colour Staff method to help people with dyslexia to read music by using colour. "Its particularly distinctive characteristic is that it enables musical notation to be taught in a multi-sensory way". She was one of the founders of the British Dyslexia Association, and involved in the Council for Music in Hospitals.

Hubicki was Professor of Harmony at the Royal Academy of Music until she retired in 1986; her students included composer Sir John Tavener, flautist James Galway, pianist Jeremy Menuhin and singer Annie Lennox. She was also one of the first teachers, and a governor, of the Yehudi Menuhin School.

She was appointed MBE in December 1986 in recognition of her service to music in hospitals.

An album of her compositions, Dedication in Time, was released on the Chandos label in 2005 to celebrate her 90th birthday.

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Irish Fantasy by Margaret Hubicki

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30 JUNE 2019

VERA IVANOVA - RUSSIA
BORN 30 JUNE

Visionary composer Joelle Wallach writes music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo voices and choruses. Her String Quartet 1995 was the American Composers Alliance nominee for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize in Music. The New York Philharmonic Ensembles premiered her octet, From the Forest of Chimneys, written to celebrate their 10th anniversary; and the New York Choral Society commissioned her secular oratorio, Toward a Time of Renewal, for 200 voices and orchestra to commemorate their 35th Anniversary Season in Carnegie Hall. Wallach’s ballet, Glancing Below, a 1999 Juilliard Dance Theater showcase production originally commissioned by the Carlisle Project, was premiered in Philadelphia during the summer of 1994, entered the repertory of the Hartford Ballet in February 1995, and received its New York City premiere that June. 

As early as 1980 her choral work, On the Beach at Night Alone, won first prize in the Inter-American Music Awards.Wallach grew up in Morocco, but makes her home in New York City, where she was born. Her early training in piano, voice, theory, bassoon and violin included study at the Juilliard Preparatory Division, and she earned bachelors and masters degrees at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University respectively. In 1984 the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with John Corigliano, granted her its first doctorate in composition.A pre-concert lecturer for the New York Philharmonic for several subscription series, Ms Wallach speaks on a broad range of musical subjects, bringing fresh insights to familiar works and opening doors to modern ones and to those less frequently heard.

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Three Chants and Three Interludes by Vera Ivanova

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ADRIANA HÖLSZKY  - ROMENIA  

BORN 30 JUNE

Adriana Hölszky was born in Bucharest. In the years 1959-1969 she studied piano with Olga Rosca-Berdan at the music school in Bucharest. In 1972, she began to study composition with Ştefan Niculescu as parallel to piano studies at the Bucharest Music Conservatory. In 1976 she moved with her family to Germany. Here she continued her studies, and in 1977-1980 she studied composition at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart with Milko Kelemen, and chamber music with Günter Louegk. During her studies she performed as a pianist of the Trio Lipatti, together with her twin sister, violinist Monika Hölszky-Wiedemann and cellist Hertha Rosa-Herseni.

In 1977 and 1978, she participated in the International Mozarteum Summer Academy, and in 1978-1984 regularly in the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music. In 1980 she received a teaching position at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart, and in 1983 a grant from the Arts Foundation of Baden-Württemberg. In 1986 she took first place at the Composers' Forum of the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music. In 1987 she received a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture of Lower Saxony. In 1992 she took composition seminars in Tokyo and Kyoto, and at the IRCAM in Paris. Her increasing international popularity was shown by three concerts she performed in Athens, Thessaloniki and Boston in 1993.

Between 1997 and 2000, Hölszky was professor of composition at the Rostock University of Music and Theatre, and since 2000 she has been professor of composition at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg. Since 2002 she has been a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin.

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High Way for one by Adriana Hölszky

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17 JUNE 2019

GALINA USTVOLSKAJA - RUSSIA 
BORN 17 JUNE

Galina Ivanovna Ustvolskaya, was a Russian composer of classical music. From 1937 to 1947 she studied at the college attached to the Leningrad Conservatory (later renamed the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory). She subsequently became a postgraduate student and taught composition at the college. Her composition teacher Dmitri Shostakovich, said of her:

"I am convinced that the music of G. I. Ustvolskaya will achieve world fame, and be valued by all who hold truth to be the essential element of music."

On several occasions Shostakovich supported her in the Union of Soviet Composers against opposition from his colleagues. He sent some of his own as yet unfinished works to Ustvolskaya, attaching great value to her comments. Some of these pieces even contain quotations from his pupil’s compositions; for example, he employed the second theme of the Finale of her clarinet trio throughout the Fifth String Quartet and in the Michelangelo Suite (no. 9). The intimate spiritual and artistic relationship between the two composers has been compared to that of Schoenberg and Webern.

She was a pupil of Shostakovich from 1939 to 1947 but retained little influence of his style from the 1950s onwards. As a modernist, she had few public performances; until 1968 none of her works were performed other than patriotic pieces written for official consumption. Until the fall of the USSR, only the violin sonata of 1952 was played with any frequency, but since then her music has been increasingly often programmed in the west.

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Concerto for piano, timpani and strings by Galina  Ustvoskaja

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ELLEN FULLMAN - USA 

BORN 17 JUNE

Ellen Fullman has been developing her installation, the Long String Instrument, for over 30 years; exploring the acoustics of large resonant spaces with her compositions and collaborative improvisations. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, commissions and residencies including: Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists (2015); Center for Cultural Innovation Grants (2008 and 2013); Japan/U.S. Friendship Commission/NEA Fellowship for Japan (2007); and DAAD Artists-in-Berlin residency (2000). Fullman has recorded extensively with this unusual instrument.

The Long String Instrument (Superior Viaduct, 2015) was first issued on Apollo Records in 1985 and was selected as the number one reissue for 2015 by the Wire. Her work was cited by Alvin Lucier in his Music 109: Notes on Experimental Music (Wesleyan University Press, 2012). Ellen has served on the faculty of the Milton Avery School of the Arts Summer MFA Program at Bard College and was invited to give the Distinguished Alumni Lecture at the Kansas City Art Institute.

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Past the Angels by Ellen Fullman 

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16 JUNE 2019

SARA CARVALHO - PORUGAL  
BORN 16 JUNE

Sara Carvalho is a Lecturer in the Department of Communication and Arts of the University of Aveiro, Portugal, where she holds the position of vice director of the music undergraduate degree course. She is a fellow researcher of Instituto de Etnomusicologia – Centro de Estudos em Música e Dança, and her research interests centre on the fields of composition and music education. As a composer Sara is interested in the interaction of different Performing Arts, as an extension and transformation of musical thinking, and all aspects associated with musical narrative and performer-composer collaboration. Her folio has over 50 pieces that are played regularly both in Portugal and around the World, including commissions by ensembles and soloists of international merit, and prestigious international institutions. Several of her pieces are available on CD. In 2012 Numérica edited her first monographic CD “7 pomegranate seeds”. Many of her scores are published by the Portuguese Music Information & Investigation Centre. In the field of Music Education, Sara is researching the influence of creative processes on the development of musical thinking in children. 

Her research themes include: creativity in education, optimization of teaching-learning in the classroom, the influence of musical projects in schools and communities, music education of adults, and emotion and flow in a musical context. She is regularly invited to sit on the panel of experts of the European Commission to evaluate projects for “Culture” and “Creative Europe” programmes. She has been a panel member of the scientific comities of many academic conferences and in 2011 organised the conference Performa – Conference on Performance Studies. Her research work is presented at national and international conferences, and is published in different journals and book chapters, such as ASHGATE/SEMPRE Studies in The Psychology of Music Series and London: Imperial College Press.

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Inside silence by Sara Carvalho  

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TATYANA CHUDOVA - RUSSIA

16 JUNE

Tatyana Alexeyevna Chudova is a Russian composer. She was born in Moscow and studied at the Central Music School in Moscow and then at the Moscow Conservatory. After completing her studies, she took a teaching position at the Conservatory. On June 21, 2007, she was awarded the title of Honored Master of Arts of the Russian Federation.

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Three Ttimes about the same by Tatiana Chudova 

1 JUNE 2019

ARLENE SIERRA - USA 

BORN 1 JUNE

An American composer based in London, Arlene Sierra writes music that takes its impetus from rich sources including military strategy, game theory, Darwinian evolution, and the natural world. Her music has been lauded for its “highly flexible and distinctive style” (The Guardian), and its “remarkable brilliance of color, rhythmic dexterity and playfulness” (NPR Classical). Declared “a name to watch” by BBC Music Magazine, Arlene Sierra is the subject of a critically-acclaimed series of portrait discs with Bridge Records. She has received fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the MacDowell Colony and the Tanglewood Music Festival, and has had portrait concerts at the Crush Room, Royal Opera House, London, the Yellow Barn Music Festival, Vermont and Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, New York. A Takemitsu Prize-winner and Latin GRAMMY nominee, Sierra has received commissions from BBC Radio 3 and the BBC Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Bremen Philharmonic Society, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Albany Symphony, the Cheltenham, Huddersfield and Tanglewood Music Festivals, and many ensembles and soloists. Performers of her work include the Tokyo Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Alabama Symphony, New York City Opera VOX, London Sinfonietta, International Contemporary Ensemble, Carducci Quartet, Österreichisches Ensemble für neue Musik, Lontano, Psappha, and the Benedetti-Elschenbroich-Grynyuk Trio at the BBC Proms.

Born in Miami to a family of New Yorkers, Arlene Sierra holds degrees from Oberlin College- Conservatory (BA, BMus), Yale School of Music (MMus) and the University of Michigan (DMA). Her principal teachers were Martin Bresnick, Michael Daugherty and Jacob Druckman; she worked with Betsy Jolas, Louis Andriessen, Magnus Lindberg, Colin Matthews and Judith Weir at various summer festivals. Dr Sierra is currently Reader in Composition and Deputy Head of School at Cardiff University School of Music.

Oda a la mesa by Arlene Sierra 

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ZHANNETA METADILLI - RUSSIA
BORN 1 JUNE

Zhannetta Metallidi is a renowned composer and teacher: she has developed comprehensive method of teaching music theory and composition for the initial period of music education. Composition and teaching are entwined in Zhannetta Metallidi?s life. Among her works one can find a variety of genres; she writes for chamber ensembles and symphonic orchestra, for choir and for young soloists, she composes cantatas and stage works, and all the abundance of her creativity is related to children.

Metallidi composes for orchestra, chamber ensemble and chorus. She is noted for children's music. Selected works include:

Tarakanishche (The cockroach), opera, 1992

Strana (Valyay forsi!) (The country (Swagger, Go Ahead)), musical, 1989

Siuita, 1975

Romances, song cycle, 1973

Smeyantsi, cantata for children's chorus, percussion, piano, 1981

Flute Concertino by Zhanetta Metallidi 

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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."

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In the Midst of Nature by Leokadiya Kashperova

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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).

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Big Sur Tryptich by Deon Price

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