25 NOVEMBER 2019

HELEN PERKIN - UK

BORN 25 NOVEMBER

Helen Perkin was born in London in 1909, and she began playing the piano at the age of three, receiving her first lessons from her mother, before studying under Arthur Alexander, who was a professor of piano at the Royal College of Music. By the age of sixteen, she was awarded scholarships in both piano and composition at the RCM, where she went on to study for a further six years. 

After graduating, she travelled to Vienna with the aid of another scholarship to study piano and composition under two prestigious pedagogues: Eduard Steuermann and Anton Webern. As a pianist, her first broadcast was at the age of nineteen in a programme that included some of her own compositions. Then, in 1930, when Perkin was aged just 21, John Ireland dedicated his Piano Concerto for her to première at the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts, and this led to the beginning of Perkin’s flourishing concert career. In the 1930s alone, Perkin was to play the Ireland Concerto again several times, along with Beethoven’s First and Third concertos, Prokofiev’s Third Concerto, and Haydn’s G major Concerto. Her recital repertoire focussed primarily on French music, but she also championed the solo works of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and Ireland alongside her own compositions.

The Four Preludes were written in the same decade and published in 1933, and they vary significantly in terms of character: i. Cortège; ii. The Wheel; iii. Shifting Sands; iv. Ambush. There are moments when the harmonic language looks to Vaughan Williams and indeed Ireland, but the use of parallel chords displays French qualities – Ravel’s piano music springs to mind. 

Source: Robert Farnon Society and Gary Oshea

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Carnival by Helen Perkin

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MARTI EPSTEIN - USA
BORN 25 NOVEMBER

Marti Epstein is an American composer. She is Professor of Composition at Berklee College of Music and the Boston Conservatory at Berklee.

She began composition studies in 1977 while still in high school with Professor Robert Beadell at the University of Nebraska. She earned degrees from the University of Colorado (Bachelor of Music in Composition, summa cum laude, 1982) and Boston University (Master of Music in Composition, 1984; Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition, 1989). Her principal composition instructors were Charles Eakin, Joyce Mekeel, and Bernard Rands.

Dr. Epstein has received numerous awards and commissions. She was a fellow at the MacDowell Colony  and twice a fellow in composition at the Tanglewood Music Center, where she worked with Oliver Knussen and Hans Werner Henze. Composition prizes include a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant, Fromm Foundation Commission, Lee Ettleson Composition Prize Bay Area Women's Philharmonic Composition Prize, and Friends and Enemies of New Music Composition 

Her music has been performed in Europe and America by ensembles such as the San Francisco Symphony, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Frankfurt, the Atlantic Brass Quintet, and Ensemble Modern. In 1992 she was invited by the City of Munich to compose her puppet opera, Hero und Leander, for the 1992 Munich Biennale for New Music Theater.

Dr Epstein's work for piano,Waterbowls, has been described as "a luminous study in quiet sonorities and the ache of memory". Writing for The Boston Globe, David Weininger writes Epsteins's music "has the feel of suspension in space, fragile and almost static..." The International Trumpet Guild Journal comments on her exploration of color in the Two Canons for Seven Natural Trumpets.

Source: Wikipedia and Marti Epstein Official Website

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Oil and Sugar by Marti Epstein

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24 NOVEMBER 2019

HELENA MUNKTELL - SWEDEN

BORN 24 NOVEMBER

Helena Mathilda Munktell (24 November 1852 – 10 September 1919) was a Swedish composer. 

She was born at Grycksbo in Dalarna County, Sweden. She the youngest of nine children of Henrik Munktell (1804–1861) and Christina Augusta Eggertz (1818-1889). Her mother lived separately in Stockholm and after her father died, the family moved there. Her sister Emma Josepha Sparre (1851–1913) was a painter. 

Munktell studied music at the Stockholm Conservatory with Conrad Nordqvist, Johan Lindegren, Ludwig Norman and Joseph Dente, and then in Vienna with Julius Epstein. She studied both piano and voice, and continued her education in composition in Paris with Benjamin Godard and Vincent d'Indy. Her debut as a composer took place in Sweden in 1885. In the late 1890s, Helena Munktell began to compose music for orchestra. In 1915 she became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and in 1918 she co-founded the Swedish Society of Composers.

She suffered from eye disease and died at the age of 67 in Stockholm. She was buried at Norra begravningsplatsen in Solna.

Source: Wikipedia and Gehrmans Musik Förlag

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Suite Delecarlienne by Helena Munktell

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EMMA LOU DIEMER - USA
BORN 24 NOVEMBER

Emma Lou Diemer (Kansas City, Missouri) is an American composer.

Diemer's parents were George Willis Diemer (1885-1956), American educator, college president, one of a group of American educators who were sent by the U.S. Dept. of State to reorganize the educational system of Japan after World War II; and Myrtle Diemer née Casebolt (1889-1961),church worker and homemaker. Diemer's siblings were poet/teacher Dorothy Diemer Hendry (1918-2006); George Willis Diemer II (1920-1944), Marine fighter pilot, musician/teacher; John Irving Diemer (1920-1964), school principal/musician in Overland Park, KS.

Diemer has written many works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, keyboard, voice, chorus, and electronic media. Diemer is a keyboard performer and over the years has given concerts of her own organ works at Washington National Cathedral, The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, Grace Cathedral and St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco, and others.

Works include many collections and single pieces for organ as well as many for solo piano, piano 4 hands, and two pianos. Her major chamber works include a piano quartet, string quartet, two piano trios, and sonatas and suites for flute, violin, cello, and piano as well as settings of the psalms for organ with other instruments. Diemer has written many choral works as well. She has written numerous hymns, several of which appear in church hymnals. Her songs number in the dozens, using texts by many contemporary and early poets including Walt Whitman, Amy Lowell, Sara Teasdale, Alice Meynell, Thomas Campion, Shakespeare, John Donne, her sister Dorothy Diemer Hendry, Emily Dickinson, Robert Lowell, and many others.

Diemer's compositional style over the years has varied from tonal to atonal, from traditional to experimental. She has written works for non-professional and professional performers, originally under the "Gebrauchsmusik" philosophy, but has produced many works, particularly for keyboard, that are difficult and challenging. The latter category includes her "Fantasy" for piano and many psalm setting collections. Her work in the electronic field during her years on the faculty of the University of California influenced a number of works including her Toccata for piano that has a number of performances on YouTube.

Source: Wikipedia and Emma Lou Diemer Official Website

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O Virdissima Verga by Emma Lou Diemer

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23 NOVEMBER 2019

ISABEL GÜELL - SPAIN

BORN 23 NOVEMBER

Isabel Güell López (Barcelona, November 23, 1872 - Barcelona, May 8, 1956) was a Catalan composer.

Born in Barcelona, she was the daughter of Eusebi Güell Bacigalupi, first count of Güell and Isabel López Bru, born in Cuba, daughter of the first Marquis of Comillas, Antonio López and López. His father was the patron of Gaudí, and commissioned several works throughout his life, such as the Palau Güell or Parc Güell.

She got married in 1901 with Carlos Sentmenat and Sentmenat, Marquis de Castelldosrius, Grand of Spain, Marquis de Orís, baron of Santa Pau. Gaudí decorated the house for the young couple in the Junta de Comerç street. It explains the story that Gaudí, unable to fit Isabel's grand piano, recommended that she played the violin from now on. This fact is collected by Josep Carner in his book.

She was a great fan of music, played piano and organ, and singed in the coral of the Institute of Women's Culture directed by Francesca Bonnemaison. She studied piano and organ in Barcelona and Paris. She composed several pieces, especially religious music. She also sang poems by Jacint Verdaguer.

Her main dedication was charity and charity was almost mandatory for a woman of her social class.

She died in Barcelona on May 8, 1956.

Source: Wikipedia and Las Mujeres Musicas

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La Rosa Marcida by Isabel Guëll

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RUTH WATSON HENDERSON - CANADA
BORN 23 NOVEMBER

Ruth Louise Watson Henderson is a Canadian composer and pianist She was the accompanist for the Festival Singers of Canada under Dr. Elmer Iseler for many years, where she developed her ear for composing mixed-choral works. Henderson also accompanied the Toronto Children's Chorus under Jean Ashworth Bartle from its inception in 1978 to 2007 and was music director for Kingsway Lampton United Church in Toronto from 1996 to 2013.

Watson Henderson made her professional concert debut in 1952 in Toronto and quickly became active as a solo concert pianist with symphony orchestras throughout Canada. She also played with some frequency on CBC Radio. In 1956 she won the grand prize on the Canadian version of Opportunity Knocks. After this, she moved to Manitoba where she lived in Winnipeg until 1961. After a few years in Kitchener, she returned to Toronto where she still resides.

An associate of the Canadian Music Centre, Watson Henderson's compositional output includes works for organ, piano, violin, trumpet, string orchestra, and more than 200 choral pieces. Her works are known for their use of modal and impressionistic harmonies. In 1989 her Chromatic Partita for Organ won a prize in an International Competition for Women Composers in Mannheim, Germany. In 1992 her Voices of Earth won the National Choral Award for Outstanding Choral Composition. In 1996 she received the Distinguished Service Award of the Ontario Choral Federation. Many of her works have been recorded and enjoy international popularity. Additionally, Canadian choirs often perform entire concerts of her compositions.

Source: Wikipedia and CPM Music Library

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Cantate Domino by Ruth Watson Henderson

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22 NOVEMBER 2019

SARAH MACDONALD - CANADA

BORN 22 NOVEMBER

Sarah MacDonald is a Canadian-born organist, conductor, and composer, living in the UK, and currently holds the positions of Fellow and Director of Music at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and Director of Ely Cathedral Girls' Choir. She has been at Selwyn since 1999, and is the first woman to hold such a post in an Oxbridge Chapel. In 2018 Sarah was given the honorary award of Associate of the Royal School of Church Music (ARSCM).

Sarah came to the United Kingdom from Canada in 1992 as Organ Scholar of Robinson College, Cambridge after studying piano, organ, and conducting at The Royal Conservatory of Music's Glenn Gould School in Toronto. At Cambridge she read for a degree in Music, and studied the organ with David Sanger. Her early musical studies as a pianist took place at the Victoria Conservatory of Music on the west coast of British Columbia.

Sarah has played numerous recitals and conducted choirs throughout the UK, North America, the Middle East, New Zealand, and much of mainland Europe. She has made over 35 recordings, variously in the guises of pianist, organist, conductor, and producer, and currently works most frequently with Regent Records. Sarah is a winner of the Royal College of Organists' (RCO) coveted Limpus Prize, and has taught organ and conducting for Eton Choral Courses, Oundle for Organists, the Jennifer Bate Organ Academy, and courses run by the RCO. For its first ten years, she was a regular director of the Girl Chorister Course at St Thomas' Church Fifth Avenue, in New York City, and she is currently in demand as a guest conductor of international RSCM residential courses. Sarah holds the Royal College of Organists' Fellowship Diploma (FRCO), is Examiner for the RCO and the Cambridge University Music Faculty, and also spent many years as a member of the Academic Board of the RCO and as a Trustee. She is an Honorary Patron of the Herbert Howells Society.

Sarah is active as a composer, and has had several of choral compositions published by Encore Publications, the Royal School of Church Music, August Press and St James Music Press. Sarah also writes a popular monthly column for the American Guild of Organists' magazine 'The American Organist', called "UK Report".

Source: Wikipedia and Minerva Festival

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Magnificat and Nunc dimittis by Sarah MacDonald

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KAMALA SANKARAM - USA
BORN 22 NOVEMBER

Kamala Sankaram is an american composer and musicist.

Praised as “strikingly original” (NY Times), and a “new voice from whom we will surely be hearing more” (LA Times), she has received commissions from Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Beth Morrison Projects, the PROTOTYPE Festival, Opera Memphis, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, among others. Awards, grants and residencies include: Jonathan Larson Award, NEA ArtWorks, MAP Fund, Opera America, NY IT Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical, the Civilians, HERE, the MacDowell Colony, and the Watermill Center. As a resident artist at HERE Arts Center, Kamala created MIRANDA, which was the winner of the New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical. 

Her opera, THUMBPRINT (written with librettist Susan Yankowitz), premiered in the 2014 PROTOTYPE Festival, and was featured on NPR, Agence France Presse, and media outlets around the world. THUMBPRINT has since received productions at LA Opera and Opera Ithaca. She is currently working with Opera on Tap and librettist Jerre Dye on THE PARKSVILLE MURDERS, the first opera written for virtual reality. Episode 1 is now available on SamsungVR. Her current season includes premieres at Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Ithaca, and music for Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC.

In addition to her own work, she was recently named co-Artistic Director of the New York based company Experiments in Opera. Dr. Sankaram holds a PhD from the New School, is currently a member of the composition faculty at SUNY Purchase, and is also serving as a mentor for Turn the Spotlight, a program dedicated to fostering equity in the arts.

Source: Kamala Sankaram Official Website and New Music Usa

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Coffee Shop by Kamala Sankaram

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21 NOVEMBER 2019

FERNANDE PEYROT - AUSTRALIA

BORN 21 NOVEMBER

Fernande Peyrot was born November 21, 1888 in Geneva, and died in the same city on March 10, 1978. She was a composer and a music teacher.

She was the student of Ernest Bloch and Emile Jaques-Dalcroze at the Geneva Conservatory of Music. She graduated in 1916 with a higher diploma in rhythmic music, a method of musical education developed by Jacques-Dalcroze and then, she joined the Jaques-Dalcroze Institute.

In 1919, she moved to Paris where she continued her studies in music composition at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris with André Gédalge and Paul Dukas. In 1920, she returned to her hometown and started teaching at the Jacques-Dalcroze Institute and devoted herself to musical composition. She was also teaching Harmony at the Geneva Conservatory of Music.

Source: Wikipedia and Smaro Gregoriadou

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Preloudes pour guitar by Fernande Payrot

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JUDITH SHATIN - USA
BORN 21 NOVEMBER

Judith Shatin (born November 21, 1949) is an American composer. Currently, she is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor at the University of Virginia. She also founded and is Director of the Virginia Center for Computer Music. She holds degrees from Douglass College, the Juilliard School, and Princeton University, at which institution she was a pupil of Milton Babbitt.

In 2012 Shatin was honored as one of the Library of Virginia's "Virginia Women in History".

In demand as a master teacher, Shatin has served as senior composer at the Wellesley Composers Conference and at the Chamber Music Conference of the East, as a Master Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and guest composer at the Aspen Music Festival. Beyond her contributions as a composer, Shatin is a strong advocate for her fellow composers. She served as President of American Composers, was for two terms a board member of the League/ISCM in New York, and has served on the boards of the American Composers Alliance and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. She is currently a member of the Fellows Council of the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and the advisory board of the International Alliance for Women in Music. Educated at Douglass College (Phi Beta Kappa), The Juilliard School (MM) and Princeton University (MFA, PhD), Judith Shatin is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor Emerita at the University of Virginia, where she founded the Virginia Center for Computer Music and led the program to national prominence.

Source: Wikipedia, Judith Shatin's Official Website and Music and Virginia

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For the Valley by Judith Shatin

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