Category: Ledes

Many musicians and hard-core music lovers will swear to you that they never ever listen to music “in the background” while they work. Only some of them are lying. For me, music in the background generally has the same tantalizing effect as the smell of food coming from the kitchen — I just have to stop what I am doing and check it out. Then again, I am one of those people who derive perverse pleasure from devoting analytical attention to music specifically composed to be played in the background — outwitting the Muzak people, I like to think. Seriously, however, with the way all of our lives keep getting busier, most of us will probably admit that some of our most intense listening experiences may be not at home, sitting in front of the stereo, but at the dinner table, or in the car, when we are forced to sit still…

Given the season, if you are stuck in the car traveling or shopping, it might be a good idea to bring along the new CD of Ned Rorem songs, recently recorded by Suzanne Graham and Malcolm Martineau. The songs are all short — none longer than a couple of minutes — and each one packs an emotional punch. If your trip is a little longer, instead of listening to the Mendelssohn Op. 49 one more time, you could listen to one of the Arthur Foote piano trios. You could re-acquaint yourself with Copland’s masterful opera The Tender Land, released by Sony as part of a 3-volume set celebrating the composer’s centennial. If you like Copland, you would also certainly enjoy listening to the composer himself, rehearsing the chamber version of Appalachian Spring at a rehearsal in 1973.

There are also a few CDs I would recommend saving for the morning commute; perhaps listening to one of these recordings will save you that fourth or fifth cup of coffee. Peter Schickele’s String Quartet No. 5 is an energetic piece that demonstrates the composer’s strong love for diverse kinds of music, including fiddling and jazz. Three of Morton Gould’s orchestral works have been recorded by the National Symphony of the Ukraine for Naxos, including the Foster Gallery of 1949. And included as part of the Sony Copland commemorative is Oscar Levant’s enthusiastic performance of three movements from Billy the Kid, in an arrangement by Lukas Foss.

If you aren’t in traffic, however, try putting Ezra Laderman’s Duo for Violin and Violincello on your car stereo. Laderman’s music is full of intriguing changes of affect, from grand to playful to melancholy. Herbert Bielawa’s organ music is a fascinating mix of the old and the new: the Monophonies, for instance, are single-line pieces cast in medieval and renaissance forms, but written in a modernist melodic style. His Pipe Organ Adventures, on the other hand, are full of playful jazz touches. Jazz and modernism also meet in Bob Nieske’s CD called Simplicity, recorded by his group, the Bob Nieske 3, and the Lydian String quartet. According to Nieske, the combination of trumpet and strings was inspired by Charles Ives’ On the Pond and The Unanswered Question.

For staring out the window during an early winter sunset, I would recommend the stunning choral music of Morton Feldman, released on a disc that also contains some overtly political pieces by Stefan Wolpe. Then there is Clint Mansell’s score to the movie Requiem for a Dream, a melancholy mixture of rock and minimalism, featuring the Kronos Quartet. Also for quartet is Augusta Read Thomas’ passionate Fugitive Star. However, the ultimate “brooding” disc this month is Silencio, recorded by Gidon Kremer’s group Kremerata Baltica. This disc includes Philip Glass’ Company, along with pieces by Martynov and Pärt.

When you sit down for a nice bowl of hot winter stew, you might try listening to film composer’s Elmer Bernstein’s Guitar Concerto, written for and performed by Christopher Parkening, or John Biggs’ lushly-scored Cello Concerto. I wouldn’t advise pouring a martini, however, without a copy of Monika Brand’s new CD, Love. These are really catchy, sophisticated songs, all original material from the pen of the singer herself. And speaking of shakers, there is a particularly suave arrangement of Cole Porter’s “In the Still of the Night” for strings and shaker on Tom Wopat’s In the Still of the Night.

When it gets right down to it, though, there is some music that is destined to stop whatever it is that you happen to be doing — pieces like Terry Riley’s In C, featured in a rousing new performance by the Ictus Ensemble. If you love words, I would advise setting aside an evening for Stephen Sondheim’s first musical, Saturday Night, which has finally been released in its fully-orchestrated version — the lyrics are witty, and full of references to 1920s Brooklyn. You might also enjoy Jon Deak’s The Passion of Scrooge, a wonderfully inventive treatment of the Dickens classic. Most of the characters are played by the baritone, but the instruments in the ensemble also contribute musical “commentary” that is specified in the libretto.

Electronics also have a way of capturing my attention, even when they are used in a neo-Romantic context, as in Jerry Gerber’s Symphony No.3, for MIDI orchestra. The American Composer’s Forum Sonic Circuits VIII is a compilation of a wild variety of electronic pieces; two of them share the strange distinction of including Coke bottles in their “instrumentation.” Another CD of electronic music, Transmigration Music, includes a piece by Mark Trayle that at times sounds intriguingly “wet,” being based on sounds drawn from the “animal, mineral, and vegetable kingdoms.” There is another piece on the same disc that evolves in real-time according to the interaction of a computer with the brainwaves of one of the performers! A fourth electronic disc this month is a CD issue of a 1970s German radio broadcast: a live performance of John Cage’s Mureau and David Tudor’s Rainforest II. The recording features a combination of pre-recorded electronics and Tudor’s on-the-spot “processing” of Cage’s rendition of the writings of Henry David Thoreau.

There are also some works for acoustic instruments that might as well be for electronics, the use of the instruments is so sonically interesting. John Cage’s microtonal work Two^{4< /sup>} was written for acoustic instruments, but you would never know it. The violin plays within a microtonal system of 84 notes to the octave, and in one of the two interpretations on the disc, is accompanied by the traditional Japanese sho. Aaron Bachelder’s Nomos was written for violinist Sarah Johnson and an ensemble of percussionists with developmental disabilities. Mark Engebretson’s The Bear was written for an appropriately “growly” combination of four baritone saxophones (but only two players). Roger Reynolds’ music for strings is ear-catching for its brilliant, icy display.

Lastly, I really think that regardless of Gary Lucas’ association with NewMusicBox, his solo guitar cover of the Ride of the Valkyries will make the most apathetic music lover sit up and take notice. His reason for including this on a disc of music with Jewish associations: “to defeat thine enemy, sing his song!” Another NewMusicBox In The First Person alumnus, Don Byron, has devoted almost an entire CD to covers of everything from Stevie Wonder’s Creepin’ to Puccini’s Nessun Dorma. And given the season, I would recommend the new Christmas Album simply because every piece on it is American (including a piece by Charles Ives’ 10-year-old daughter!), but also because there is one piece on it that is simply stunning: Carlisle Floyd’s Long, Long Ago.

The Presser Archive

After 51 years in Bryn Mawr, the Theodore Presser Company will move its entire operations to nearby King of Prussia in January. The present facility houses historical archives of the Oliver Ditson Company and The John Church Company, as well as Presser and newer companies including Merion, Mercury, and Elkan-Vogel. In preparing to move to the new, smaller facility, the company has decided that to offer a large portion of these archives to one or more libraries.

“Theodore Presser Company is essential to the development of the music publishing business in America, and much of the material that we have on our premises reflects the history of this company and its interaction with other companies, from the infancy to the present day of the American music publishing business, ” commented President Tom Broido in a telephone interview. Presser was founded in 1883, but its subsidiary Oliver Ditson dates back to 1783, making it the oldest music publisher in the United States.

The offered materials are mainly publications and supporting information of Presser, Ditson, and Church, from the late 19th century through the 1960s. This includes metal and wood printing plates from the 1930s and 40s, financial records, and correspondence between the company and musicians. In addition, there are piles of out-of-print sheet music, much of it solo music for piano and voice. “That was the heart of what Presser published at that time,” Broido pointed out.

However, there is no existing inventory or catalog of the materials being offered. “We don’t necessarily know every little thing in every box, that’s one reason we want some one to catalog it,” Broido commented. “As a reward, they will get the lion’s share of it.” Broido feels strongly that the materials in the archive will be much more useful when housed in a library. He explained that Presser does not have the facilities to serve as a “destination” for viewing such a collection. Once the archive is properly stored, “if somebody wanted a copy of an out-of-print title, we could refer them to that library.” Also, if the inventory turns up an item of “historical value,” Broido wants to make sure that researchers have proper access to it.

Since the company made it known that this archival material is available, they have received inquires from approximately twenty institutions, most of them libraries. Broido wants to make a decision about who will house the collection “soon,” but stated that no official deadline had been set.

In an interview about their archives from the last century, the question came up about whether or not the company is currently accumulating similar material that will form an archive for the next century. Broido mused that “it might be nice to see a letter from Rochberg or Persichetti a hundred years from now,” but added that “saving a lot of paper has become a luxury in business.” They save letters from composers that make direct reference to publications, and discard thank-you notes and letters containing news of premieres. At the same time, the whole notion of archiving has changed with the advent of technology. They do save emails, but Broido feels that these are of “very little historical interest.” Broido is also ambivalent about the value of manuscripts produced using Finale, Sibelius, or similar computer notation software. In Broido’s opinion, “every copy that comes out has equal value, except the attributed value of the composer signing.”

Joanna Lee, photo credit Kitty Katz

Joanna Lee, lecturer in the Music Department at the University of Hong Kong, has launched a series of nine weekly broadcasts over RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong) called American Pitches. The programs will serves as “a showcase of music that is uniquely American.” Lee explained that she wants to “throw ideas and connections about current musical culture at my listeners, like a pitcher at baseball, that quintessentially American game.” Lee will focus on the “many paths of American music in the last century,” emphasizing the works of “concert hall” composers who have “crossed over” to write music that uses jazz and rock.

The first broadcast, on November 3rd, featured the music of John Adams. Lee selected an excerpt from Nixon in China that she felt would be particularly relevant to her listeners. “I want to discuss musical style in my radio shows,” Lee explained. “Hence, whatever frames of reference I can provide my Hong Kong radio listeners are useful.” With that in mind, she chose the opening of the storm scene of the “revolutionary opera” within the opera, called The Red Detachment of Women because it reminded her of the opening of Das Rheingold.

The second broadcast was devoted to the music of David Del Tredici. In Dr. Lee’s opinion, “Del Tredici’s works based on Alice in Wonderland, which won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1980, tend to overshadow the composer’s much broader output before and after the Alice series.” Though Lee included the “Acrostic Song” from his Final Alice, she also aired two lesser-known vocal works: Syzygy, a setting of Joyce’s poems Ecce Puer and Night Piece; and three songs from Gay Life.

The third broadcast, on November 17, celebrated the centennial of Copland‘s birth. Lee chose the Benny Goodman recording of the Clarinet Concerto to represent the composer; the Short Symphony and an excerpt from its transcription for sextet; and the last movement of the Piano Quartet. Again, Lee wanted to “avoid all of the popular hits.”

On November 24, Lee devoted an hour to Steve Reich: both his music, and “remixes” of his music by other composers from Nonesuch’s CD Reich Remixed. The fifth broadcast, on December 1, will feature two American musicals based on a pre-existing drama or novel: Cole Porter‘s Kiss Me Kate and Leonard Bernstein‘s Candide. On December 8, Lee will look at the music of Stravinsky, Weill, and other American immigrants. She will look at works influenced by what she calls “American circumstances” that changed the composers’ output. For instance, she will play excerpts from Weill’s Knickerbocker Holiday and Lady in the Dark, both written for Broadway. Stravinsky will be represented by his Ebony Concerto and his Elegy for JFK. She will end the program with Osvaldo Golijov‘s Last Round for two string quartets and double bass.

Lee will devote the last three programs to “jazz repertoire” and “the newest concert music that has entranced audiences in America.” The seventh show will focus on the work of younger composers. The music of many of these young men has yet to be heard in Hong Kong. Composers include Paul Moravec, Daron Hagen, Steven Burke, David Lang and Michael Gordon. Because the eighth show will be broadcast on December 22, it will feature some unusual arrangements of Christmas carols and American holiday music. The last show is called “gems,” and it will feature short “character pieces.”

The shows can be heard internationally on Radio Hong Kong’s website. The link http://www.rthk.org.hk/rthk/radio4/american/ will give you the ability to listen to the most recent broadcast, using RealPlayer. To access archived broadcasts, follow the format http://www.rthk.org.hk/rthk/radio4/american/20001103.html, substituting the appropriate date in the ‘2000mmdd’ part of the link. The current series of nine are broadcast in Cantonese, but an entire English series of the same programs will be broadcast in a few months, according to Lee.

Joanna Lee’s familiarity with American music comes from her fifteen years of work in New York City. Lee received her PhD in musicology from Columbia University, and held administrative posts at the Kurt We
ill Foundation and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra between 1994 and August of 2000. Lee describes herself as “closely associated with many of America’s living composers,” people like David Del Tredici, Paul Moravec, Daron Hagen, and Steven Burke.

Lee’s association with RTHK dates back to the early 1980s, when she worked for them in her “first-ever summer job.” “I have known Dr. Richard Tsang, the head of Radio 4 (the classical station) for more than 20 years,” Lee explained. “When I knew I was returning to Hong Kong to teach, I e-mailed Richard and offered to provide some special programs on radio. I came up with the idea of covering American music of the twentieth century in early September, and by early October, I was already in recording in the studio.”

Lee hopes to follow American Pitches with another series about new music, possibly opening up the scope to include other countries, as well. In the next series, she also hopes to include conversations with the composers of the music she is showcasing.

The Goldie Award

The San Francisco Bay Guardian, the Bay Area‘s largest alternative newsweekly, has honored Pauline Oliveros with a Lifetime Achievement Award, as part of their 12th annual “Goldies” awards program. Each year, the Bay Guardian arts editorial staff selects multiple “Outstanding Local Discovery Award” winners for the “challenge and inspiration provided by their contributions to life in the Bay Area.” Each year since 1992, the staff has additionally selected one Bay Area artist to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award.

A tribute to Oliveros in the Goldie Awards program book calls her the “godmother of experimental music in the Bay Area,” beginning with her work at the San Francisco Tape Music Center in the 1960s. The article briefly describes her theory of Deep Listening, which led to the formation of the Deep Listening Band and the Deep Listening Foundation. The recording of her Six for New Time by alternative rockers Sonic Youth is cited as further evidence of her “incredible lifetime influence in music.”

The awards ceremony was held on November 9 at Slim’s in San Francisco, hosted by Bay Guardian arts columnist Summer Burke. Other musicians who received 2000 Outstanding Local Discovery Awards included the groups The Aislers Set, Anticon, Rasoul, Tarentel, and Zion-I, and musicians Kit Clayton, Phillip Greenlief, Jenna Mammina and Simone White.

Herbert Brün Photo credit Yehuda Yannay

Herbert Brün, a pioneer in applying computers and electronics to the composition of music, died on November 6 in Urbana, Illinois. He was recognized within and beyond the field of music as an eloquent and original thinker, a contributor of ideas relating to composition and systems theory, language, thought, performance, and everyday life. He was 82 and lived in Urbana.

Mr. Brün was Professor Emeritus of Music Composition at the University of Illinois School of Music. He formally retired in 1988 but continued to conduct a seminar in experimental composition until his death.

Erik Lund, Chairman of the Composition Department at the University of Illinois, described Brün as “a profoundly innovative individual. “Brün’s contributions to acoustic, electroacoustic, and computer music were pioneering in every respect,” Lund explained “Professor Brün was a devoted teacher and mentor, teaching until just days before his death. His presence at the University of Illinois in particular will be greatly missed.”

Scott Wyatt, Director of the Experimental Music Studios at the University, called Brün a “teacher and philosopher in the most provocative sense. His writings and teachings regarding composition, the function of art in society, the awareness and construction of language, syntax and differentiation gave many of us intellectual challenges that shall remain relevant to current and future generations. His contributions, creations and provocations were many – and he shall be missed.”

Both Wyatt and Susan Parenti, a close associate of Brün’s, describe the composer’s preoccupation with the concept of intention. “His definition of a composer was that someone is a composer when they attempt to make something happen which would not happen without them and their attempt,” Parenti explained. “This definition freed it from the idea that you had to be a composer in acoustics. You didn’t have to be a composer in music, even; you could be working in many media, but still be one of his composition students.”

Brün saw performers as people who “selected from alternatives as a way of demonstrating their intentions.” Brün considered himself a performer not only because of his experience as a pianist, but also because, under this broad definition, he felt that as a teacher he was performing, as well.

In the late 1970s, Brün started a “performance lab” at the University of Illinois because he was concerned that students were not dealing with performance issues in their private lessons. “A performer would play something,” Parenti described, “and the listener would give instructions on a different way to play the piece.” Some of the “composer/performers” involved in the performance lab formed the Performance Workshop Ensemble in 1978. Jeff Glassman, a member of the current Ensemble, explains that the group progressed from “primarily music” to more mixed-media work as the years progressed.

Another of Brün’s focuses was the use of language to accurately convey intention. In his 1970 book For Anticommunication, Brün defined “communicative language” as “an accumulated language based on obsolete and present paradigms” that “cannot speak for those of us who think and dream in another paradigm.” In other words, according to Parenti, “the language you inherit from the current culture shapes your intention to the current available thinking.” Brün described the arts as a “measuring meta-language about the language that is found wanting.” Parenti remembers that in composition lessons, Brün paid a great deal of attention to “the language that you used to describe an initial idea. He saw the composition process as parallel to the describing process. He wouldn’t let you get away with language that you didn’t intend.”

She describes the School for Designing a Society, which Brün co-founded with Parenti and Mark Enslin in 1993, as an outgrowth of some work they have been doing in the Performance Workshop Ensemble under Brün’s guidance. “We have been using composition in relation to accessibility — we learned how to write skits, lectures that would turn into performances. We aren’t making things simple, but rather we are trying to make people sympathetic to the complexity of composition.” At the School, which was named after a course taught by his wife, Marianne Kortner-Brün, the instructors and their students have taken the notion of a “social” approach to performing/composing and applied it to a higher level. “The School is based on the premise that just like one can compose a music piece, you can also ‘compose’ the social structure you’re in,” Parenti explained. The School has been full-time since 1997, and has 25 to 30 students of high school age and older. Brün taught at the School for two hours a day until three weeks before his death.

Parenti teaches at the School for Designing a Society, performs and composes as part of the Performance Workshop Ensemble, and works with Patch Adams to reform our current healthcare system. She also recently published a book of plays, The Politics of the ‘Political’ and Other Plays. She credits Brün with giving her the motivation for working in multiple “languages.” “In lessons, he would jump from language to language. He was very interested in cybernetics, in creating an interdisciplinary language. He gave you a vocabulary.”

Herbert Brün was born in Berlin in 1918. He left Germany for Palestine in 1936 and studied piano composition in Tel Aviv and at the Jerusalem Conservatory of Music. Further studies included a scholarship at Tanglewood and at Columbia University (1948-50). Brün’s composition teachers included Eli Friedmann, Frank Pelleg, Wolf Rosenberg, and Stefan Wolpe.

Brün wrote modern music for acoustic instruments, small and large chamber ensembles and orchestra. But he also became a central figure in melding electronics and computer technology with music, and his teaching and writings in English and German influenced that development.

From 1955 to 1961, Brün conducted research concerning electro-acoustics and electronic sound production and their possibilities in musical composition at studios in Paris, Cologne, and Munich. In addition, during this period he also worked as a composer and conductor of music for the theater, radio, and television. He also gave lectures that were broadcast on Bavarian Radio in Munich (where he met his wife, Marianne Kortner), and led summer courses in Darmstadt.

After a lecture-tour through the United States in 1962, Lejaren A. Hiller offered Brün a professorship at Urbana, primarily to do research on the significance of computer systems for composition. While continuing to write pieces for traditional instruments, he used computers to generate sound, which he integrated into his compositions. He collaborated with Heinz von Foerster on interdisciplinary courses in heuristics and cybernetics at the Biological Computer Laboratory (1968-1974). He wrote widely on the function of computers in music and on the place of music in society and politics.

Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Brün was invited repeatedly to be composer-in-residence at universities and festivals in the U.S. and Europe. In 1970, he was one of two participants from the United States, invited by UNESCO to their symposium Music and Technology. He served a co-host of the 1975 International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) at the University of Illinois, and his computer-generated graphics were featured in the Computer Music Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2, summer, 1981. He delivered the keynote address at the 1985 ICMC in Vancouver.

Brün’s awards include the Norbert Wiener Medal, an award from the American Society for Cybernetics, and first prize from the International Society of Bassists. In January, 1999, Brün was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Department of Classical Philology and Art of the Johan Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main in Germany. One week before his death, The Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) voted unanimously to present Brün with their Award for Lifetime Achievement. It will be presented at the National Conference at Louisiana State University in March, 2001.

In addition to his wife, Professor Brün is survived by two sons, Michael and Stefan, both of Urbana, and a sister, Erika Brün of Haifa, Israel.

Jeanne Lee Photo courtesy Naima Hazleton

Jeanne Lee, one of the great jazz singers and composers in the avant-garde tradition, an author, and a teacher of singing, died on October 25, 2000, in Tijuana, Mexico. She was 61.The cause was cancer, said her daughter Naima Hazelton.

Born in New York City in 1939, Lee graduated from Bard College in 1961. At Bard, she met Ran Blake, a pianist, and the two of them began to work as a duo. After winning the Apollo Theater’s Amateur Night in 1962, they recorded an album for RCA Victor, The Newest Sound Around, and went on their first European tour. In Europe, Ran Blake remembers, “she created such a sensation – they called her the heir of Billie Holiday.”

The album included jazz standards and Thelonious Monk tunes, but Ms. Lee and Mr. Blake subtracted swing, but added intellectual coolness, abstruse piano harmonies and vocal influences from Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington. This landmark album was re-issued on RCA France in 1978, by Bluebird CD (USA) in 1988, by BMG France in 1994 and in 1997 by BMG Belgium as part of BMG’s Collection Jazz! Series. In 1989 she and Mr. Blake recorded a duet album in the same style called You Stepped Out of a Cloud an OWL/EMI.

“In all the years I knew her, she was one of the great human beings,” Blake commented in a telephone interview. “She had a wonderful warmth with people, and she was an extremely good listener – almost like a muse. She was no Polyanna, but she willed it upon her friends to look for optimistic solutions. She always talked about the dreams she had, and they gradually began to form what she did in her music.”

In the 1960s, Ms. Lee developed a new, inventive vocal style, approaching words as sounds and using her teeth, lips and tongue to wring drama out of each syllable. She wrote: “As an improvising singer, there was always the option to scat, thus imitating the jazz instrumental sounds. There were also jazz lyricists who set words to instrumental solos. Neither of these options allowed space for the natural rhythms and sonorities or the emotional content of words…”

Jazz singer/composer Sheila Jordan first met Jeanne Lee in the 1970s, when they collaborated on a workshop for Cobi Narita. They then made a recording together with the Italian jazz bassist Marcello Melis called Free to Dance. “Jeanne Lee was an original sound,” she reminisced. “I always felt that when she sang, she was always smiling, she sang with a smile, her sound was a smile…” Jordan collaborated most recently with Lee on the 1994 Jane Bunnett CD The Water is Wide. “To sing with Jeanne was a beautiful spiritual trip for me. I loved to sing with Jeanne because I never felt any kind of competition, I always felt a kind of closeness, a ‘oneness’, it was like we became one sound,” Jordan mused. “She had a wonderful sense of lyrics and sound, and she was inspiring to sing with. I think she brought out the best in everyone.”

Jeanne Lee recorded over 40 albums and performed with some of the leading contemporary composers and improvisers of the later 20th century, both avant-garde musicians like Marion Brown, Carla Bley, Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, Peter Kowald and Reggie Workman and more mainstream player-composers such as Bobby McFerrin and Chick Corea. She was active as a composer, combining vocal jazz with music and dance, working often with the choreographer Mickey Davidson.

Ms. Lee married sound-poet David Hazelton in 1964, but returned to Europe in 1967, where she began a long association with vibraphonist and composer Gunter Hampel recording with on his Birth label on number occasions over the next two decades (The 9th July, Spirits, Journey To The Song Within, Fresh Heat). One of these, recorded in 1972, was an entirely improvised session with Anthony Braxton, Anthony Braxton at Town Hall.

In the mid-1960s, Lee composed music for the “sound-poetry” of Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles, among others, first at the Open Theater in Berkeley, California, as part of a multi-disciplinary company of artists, then in concert at Town Hall in New York. Lee was invited by John Cage to be one of four vocal soloists in his bicentennial work Renga and Apartment Building 1776, which she performed with several major American and European orchestras.

Working with Cage on Renga was a seminal experience for Lee. “I had attended opera, Broadway musicals and revues since childhood,” Lee wrote, “but I had never experienced the juxtaposition of freedom and organization, or diversity within unity, that Cage achieved in this composition. Since I had long been interested in combining improvised and composed music, poetry and dance into a unified whole, I was inspired by this experience to begin composing extended works.” With the assistance of a NEA grant in 1976, Lee adapted the 13^th-century Persian poet Farid Ud-din Attar‘s Conference of the Birds into Prayer for Our Time, a two act, ten scene “jazz oratorio” with dance. She also collaborated with Diedre Murray and Pauline Oliveros on Flashes, written for dancer Blondell Cummings in 1993.

In the 1980s and 90s, Jeanne Lee made a number of important recordings, two of which she produced: Conspiracy, Travellin’ in Soul-Time, Ambrosia Mama, You Stepped Out of a Cloud, and Natural Affinities. The 1994 Lee/Waldron Duo album After Hours, released on Owl/EMI, received the Diapason D’Or among other awards. That same year, she recorded Nuba, which was co-composed with drummer Andrew Cyrille and saxophonist Jimmy Lyons. One track from this album, titled “Nuba One,” was included in soundtrack to the 1999 Jim Jarmusch film Ghost Dog: the Way of the Samurai. Lee’s performance of “Don’t Worry Now, Worry Later” was included in the Smithsonian collection The Jazz Singers 1919-1994, which was nominated for a 1997 Grammy.

Lee’s main focuses during the last ten years of her life were the Jeanne Lee Ensemble, featuring poetry, music and dance, and the Jeanne Lee/Mal Waldron Duo. The Ensemble has performed in festivals Europe, appearing at the 1997 Banlieue Bleues Festival in Paris. This past summer, Lee toured with the Orchestre National de Jazz and was the subject of a TV special focusing on a day in her life.

In 1998, Lee was named one of the “Hundred Most Influential in Jazz” by Jazziz magazine. She was included in the award-winning documentary film Femmes Du Jazz and the Women in Jazz documentary shown on A&E in the 1980s.

Lee earned a Masters Degree in Education from New York University in 1972, with the assistance of a Martin Luther King Fellowship for Urban Studies. Lee developed an integrated arts and education curriculum, and wrote the textbook Jam!: The Story of Jazz Music for students in grades 4 to 7. During the last five years of her life, she taught music and movement in the jazz departments at the Royal Conservatories in The Hague, Netherlands, and Antwerp, Belgium.

Two memorial services for Ms. Lee were held in New York in November, and services are planned in Belgium and France in coming months. In addition to Ms. Hazelton, Ms. Lee is survived by two children, Ruomi Lee-Hampel and Cavana Lee-Hampel, and a grandson.

In early September, Ned Corman, Director of The Commission Project, announced an impressive line-up of composers and musicians who will engage in long-term residencies at a wide variety of schools in 12 American cities this fall. The Commission Project is a non-profit arts education organization that brings professional composers and musicians into classrooms to write music for student ensembles and mentor young musicians as performers, improvisers and composers.

In 2000-2001, The Commission Project will carry out a wide range of programs in over 40 schools, almost double last year’s number, engaging over 3,000 students in collaborative projects with professional composers and musicians. At least 42 new titles for student bands, choruses, orchestras, and jazz ensembles will result. Prominent guest artists will give additional workshops and solo with student ensembles. Partnerships are built with sponsoring schools and colleges over the long-term, each for a minimum of 3 years. Many of the artists involved with The Commission Project give their time and services pro bono, or for a nominal fee.

“Increasingly in public education, standardized testing has become the norm, and this makes me fearful,” Corman commented in a phone interview. While the time spent preparing for these tests tends to be factually driven, the residencies generated by The Commission Project help to “bring highly creative people in contact with students as much as possible.” While the “visible and audible byproduct” of the residencies is often “music that is performed,” Corman emphasized that “what you can’t put your hands on” is the fact that the students come away with “a better idea of what the creative process is all about.”

The list of this year’s participants includes well-known composers David Liptak, Tania León and Paquito D’Rivera, each of whom will begin a one to three year commitment to mentor the music students at a particular school, creating at least one new work for them that will in turn be performed by each student ensemble and a guest artist. The guest artists, who conduct workshops and clinics for the students in addition to performing, include renowned instrumentalists Larry Combs and The Ying Quartet.

“A typical residency has the composer in the school twenty times over the course of the year,” Corman explained. He encourages the composers to “use all their tricks: bring in recordings, play [their instruments] with the kids, talk to the teacher about [the class’] strengths and weaknesses.” Then he recommends that they “disappear for a while” and at some future point “show up with 16 measures, play it and talk about how it came to pass.” By witnessing the compositional process as the work evolves, Corman believes, the students will gain a sense that “all creativity is a balance of inspiration and perspiration.”

Twenty-two schools from the Rochester area will benefit from TCP programs, affecting at least 1500 students. Many of these projects are composer residencies. Eastman School of Music faculty composer David Liptak will compose a work for the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and give workshops on his creative process. Jazz composer and pianist Michael Holober will write a piece for the Rush Henrietta High School jazz ensemble, featuring himself and saxophonist Dave Demsey as soloists. Howard Rowe will write for bands at Pittsford Middle School and chamber groups at Brookside Elementary in Greece, NY.

The Commission Project will also sponsor four community-wide events in Rochester during the 2000-2001 season. The first Commission Project Retrospective Concert will be held in Greece in February 2001. The concert will consist entirely of music commissioned by The Commission Project, performed by various school ensembles and professional soloists. One of the highlights of the program will be a new piece commissioned by TCP from University of Maryland faculty member Mike Crotty for the Prism Brass Quintet and saxophonist Chris Vadala.

As part of the Swingin’ Jazz Festival, created and produced by The Commission Project, over a dozen prominent jazz musicians will come to Rochester in June, 2001, to give free community-based workshops for kids and perform concerts. At each site, children will get to play for and with these musicians, and they will also receive free tickets to the evening concert. Additionally, through the support of the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, participating schools receive new instruments.

In December, trombonist and composer Richard Fote will direct the third installment of the Trombone Circus, a daylong festival and workshop. The event attracts trombonists of all ages and levels from throughout the region. Highlights of this year’s festival will be the performance of a new piece commissioned from Bob McChesney for the Fairport High School Jazz Ensemble, and two new titles by Fote written for all participants to play en masse.

The fourth community-wide project, now entering its third year, is the Ying Quartet Project. In a partnership with the Eastman School, the Ying Quartet will present a series of lecture-demonstrations on the creative process. They are planning to commission a piece for the Quartet and Jay Stetzer, the storyteller. Over 200 students from orchestras and theory classes will participate and attend the Quartet’s public premiere of the new work.

At least 500 students from the greater New York City area will be involved in this year’s program. Paquito D’Rivera will write a piece to play with the All-City High School Jazz Ensemble. Composer Judith Lane is composing an opera for the Children’s Opera Company of Ossining.

The opera is named after the book The Secret Cave that Lane first read when she was 9 years old. (The book is currently published as Twenty and Ten.) The book tells the story of twenty French schoolchildren who hid ten Jewish children from the Nazis. Currently in Europe for a five-week stay, Lane intends to make a visit to Dieulefit at the end of her trip in order to verify some of the facts. “It takes place at a school called Beauvallon, which is now a school for emotionally disturbed students,” Lane explained. “We do know that the school hid people during the war, but we don’t know specifically if they were Jewish children.”

Judith Lane Photo credit Dennis Purse

Lane describes her opera as “music theater, but different, with unusual harmonies.” She has finished the actual composition of the opera, and has begun work on the orchestration. Lane has been named co-director of the opera. She will function as composer-in-residence with the Company, educating them about the holocaust and leading them through preparatory exercises. She emphasized, however, that she has not written this piece to be performed exclusively by children. “I would like to see it performed at some point with adults in the adult roles, and children in the children’s roles,” she confessed. “Ideally, you want the height and vocal differences between a Nazi soldier and a child; when it’s performed all with children you are going to miss a little bit of that.”

The Children’s Opera Company of Ossining will give The Secret Cave its premiere on April 4, 2001. The Company, which was founded ten years ago, consists of children from area schools between the ages of 8 and 10. They meet once a week for much of the year, increasing the amount of rehearsal time as performances draw near. Lane enjoys working with the children because they are always willing to except a challenge. “I don’t write down for children,” Lane stated. “Children will sing anything, if you just don’t tell them it’s difficult. These kids are amazing.”

Lane’s connection with the Children’s Opera Company did not begin with this project. Lane wrote another opera The Mill Girl that was given its premiere by the Company in 1998. Having already made the decision to collaborate again on The Secret Cave, Lane was determined to find funding. Corman sees the grant as a significant step for TCP, as it marks their first involvement with opera.

Tania León is writing piece based on Latin American texts for the virtuoso percussionist Andres Patrick Forero and professional vocal soloists to perform with the senior chorus at Herricks High School in New Hyde Park. Adam Silverman will write a new work for the Tottenville High School on Staten Island.

The Commission Project is also sponsoring projects in eight schools located outside New York State. Greg Yasinitsky, on the composition faculty of Washington State University, will be in residence at the Clarkston (WA) High School to composer a new work for the Concert Band and give a series of 20 workshops on composition. Corman praised Yasinitsky not only as a “good composer, ” but also as someone adept at “writing something to suit the situation.”

At Deer Path Middle School, a school of about 250 students in suburban Chicago, composer Antonio Garcia will give workshops and write for the 8th grade concert band. Corman thinks this may be the “most outstanding residency” on the calendar this year. “Tony is extremely good at doing these sorts of things,” he explained, “and the program at that middle school is full of vitality.” Garcia started his residency at Deer Path at the end of September with a “kick-off concert” for the 8th grade band, featuring himself and pianist Dan Cray. He has visited the school every Friday since then, working with the 8th grade concert and jazz bands and giving private lessons to three students.

Tony Garcia Photo credit José L. García II

Garcia will take a hiatus from the regular visits during December and January, partly in order to complete the new work he is writing for the students. He will return in February to help the students prepare the piece for concerts on March 12 and 13, 2001. The jazz and concert bands have also been working on some of Garcia’s previously-written works; of these, “Shaping Thought” and “Jaguar Blues” were both written on previous TCP commissions.

Garcia is currently working on a piece for the students that will make use of Latin jazz rhythms. “There is not a lot of music for that in the concert band realm, especially for kids,” he commented. He particularly wants to make use of what he calls the band’s “large and talented percussion section.” The student body at Deer Path is largely white, and Garcia hopes to use the piece as a way to “share Latin culture and discuss how it affects the way they play the music.”

He also wants the piece to act as a “vehicle to interact with the community, administration, and support staff,” by providing opportunities in the piece for guests soloists to improvise. Potential soloists include not only Garcia himself, but also two of Deer Park’s assistant principals who are trained musicians.

In addition, Garcia will take some of the ideas generated by his private composition students and arrange them for smaller groups within the concert bands. “This way, they will get to hear their ideas read, and poss
ibly performed in concert by their peers.”

Garcia initially became aware of Ned Corman’s Penfield Commission Project as a graduate student at Eastman in the early 1980s. His first official involvement with The Commission Project came later, however, when he started a three-year residency with Evanston Township High School near Chicago in 1996. As part of a “whole variety of things” that Garcia accomplished at Evanston, he wrote four pieces for their jazz band; one of these pieces was premiered in collaboration with Angel Melendez 911 Mambo Orchestra at the Midwest Clinic in 1997. After that, Corman asked Garcia to write pieces for the jazz bands at Limestone Junior High School in Illinois and Jefferson Middle School in Missouri. In addition, TCP supported the visit of Max Roach and his student Zim Ngqawana to work with students at Northwestern University in May 1997.

Garcia feels that the kind of outreach supported by The Commission Project is “all about giving back to the next generation.” “It is the most important part of my life as an educator,” Garcia commented,” and one of the most exciting parts of my life as a musician.” Garcia “does a lot of outreach on [his] own,” but he claims “Ned offers the opportunity to develop long-term relationships with schools and their programs. With his support I can develop elbow-to-elbow relationships with the kids that last months, even years. They come away knowing what it is like to interact with a living composer, and they have a chance to ask questions and share lessons.” He related that some of students who were involved in his TCP projects have graduated and gone on to college at Northwestern, where he teaches. “Whether they go to Northwestern or not, they have a resource in me,” Garcia emphasized.

In addition to his position as Associate Professor of Performance and Integrated Arts at Northwestern, Garcia is the Editor of The International Association of Jazz Educators‘ Jazz Educators Journal and is a past President of the Illinois IAJE chapter. Garcia is Co-Editor and Contributing Author of Teaching Jazz: A Course of Study. He serves on the Illinois Coalition for Music Education coordinating committee, has worked with the Illinois and Chicago Public Schools to develop standards for multi-cultural music education, and is currently engaged in a curricular grant from the Council for Basic Education. Garcia thinks that jazz is excellent for exposing children not only to African-American and Latin music, but also the music of women and Jewish-Americans. “You can provide them with that kind of variety using other kinds of music, but you have to dig deeper,” he explained.

The Commission Project is also inaugurating a relationship with the New England Conservatory in Boston. NEC’s Jazz Ensemble will mentor the Jazz Ensemble at Foxborough High School in coaching and side-by-side rehearsals.

Corman oversees the formation of the residencies. “The process is mysterious,” he confessed, “I look for people who are interested. It has to do with how energetic a collaborating teacher is, because it requires organizational effort. It is easier [for the teachers] to go in and do their regular stuff.” Typically, Corman tries to meet with the composer and the teacher before the project starts, and then he “turns them loose.”

The result of this personal approach, according to Corman, is that the residencies are all different. “They don’t pass through a cookie-cutter.” For instance, when Augusta Read Thomas spent time at the Harley School in Rochester, she determined that a better use of her time would be to work with three talented composition students, rather than writing a piece herself. The result was “three fine tunes,” written by the students themselves.

Ned Corman founded The Commission Project in 1994 as a national extension of the local Penfield Music Commission Project that he founded in 1984. “At the time I started to teach in Penfield in 1968, the Ford Foundation was still putting money into Composers in the Schools. I really enjoyed watching the composers work with the kids. Then the money dried up.” In 1980, following the departure of a superintendent who did not support the arts, Corman and fellow teacher John Turner were appointed co-chairs of the music program. Jim Doser joined the faculty in 1984, and the three men came up with the idea of reviving the kind of residency the Ford Foundation had sponsored more than a decade before.

The Penfield Music Commission Project commissioned 117 titles, most of them for student ensembles in Penfield. When Corman retired from teaching in 1994, he set about expanding the program. The first TCP residency paired Eastman graduate students with the Fairport High School Jazz Ensemble. “Fairport seemed like a good place to do it, initially, because they had an outstanding jazz program.” Corman had never worked outside the district, and he was pleased to be working with Bill Tiberio, the capable director of the Fairport program. (Tiberio is now on the TCP Board.) “We put composers in residence there for two years, but we have supported the program less since then,” Corman explained, because the Fairport schools started their own program, Fairport Commissions. Several districts, in fact, have started their own commissioning programs, following the initial “push” from Corman.

The Commission Project is growing. Ted Wiprud currently looks after the Project’s “satellite” office in New York. The Board recently held its first long-range planning meeting, according to Corman, and resolved to hire a full-time administrator. “If we can raise enough money that that happens,” Corman explained, “we will have more time to find teachers and composers who have a sense for what we are doing.” Corman currently receives no salary for his services.

In late October, The Commission Project received three major grants totaling $65,000. These grants were awarded by The Dorothy and Jonathan Rintels Charitable Foundation; the New York State Council on the Arts; and New York State, with the help of Senator James Alesi. The Commission Project also receives support from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.

Steven Sloane Photo credit Stas Rzeznik

42-year-old American conductor Steven Sloane has been named Music Director Designate of American Composers Orchestra. Mr. Sloane begins his artistic planning duties with ACO effective immediately, and will make his Carnegie Hall debut with the orchestra in March 2002. He will become Music Director beginning with the 2002-03 season, succeeding Dennis Russell Davies, ACO’s founding Principal Conductor and Music Director, who will become Music Director Laureate at that time. Also effective immediately, composer Robert Beaser, ACO’s Artistic Advisor since 1993, has been named to the newly created post of Artistic Director.

The announcement comes as ACO’s 25th anniversary season in 2001-02 is on the horizon, and represents the culmination of a search that included nearly 3 years of planning, beginning shortly after Mr. Davies announced his intention to retire. Mr. Sloane’s contract runs through the 2005-06 season.

“I am very excited by the opportunity to work with such a great ensemble,” Sloane commented in a telephone interview. “I think that the American Composer’s Orchestra is one of the most important artistic institutions in the United States.” He is pleased that the Orchestra has strong ties to Carnegie Hall, and he hopes to strengthen those ties in the coming years. One benefit of this alliance, according to Sloane, could be some new works co-commissioned by the Orchestra and the Carnegie Hall Foundation. He also plans to use his new position to “break down traditional definitions of what orchestras do The ACO is partly a service organization, and it is our job to bring to the public a broader span of the orchestral experience.”

Sloane hopes through his programming, to “take away some of the sharp definitions about what is new music” by blurring the lines between classical music and other genres. In addition to the Orchestra’s current series at Carnegie Hall, Mr. Sloane will be developing new programs specifically designed for Zankel Hall, currently being constructed beneath the mainstage, slated to open in 2002. His current plans would involve a smaller ensemble in “varied” projects that include multimedia components such as dance and film. This is one of the ways that he sees the ACO functioning as an “umbrella” for a “variety of endeavors.” Mr. Sloane would also like to form larger “projects” around Orchestra concerts. Such a project might be a weekend of activities organized around a “dramaturgical theme,” embracing not just concerts, but possibly also plays and a museum exhibition.

Steven Sloane is currently Music Director of Opera North (UK) an General Music Director of the City of Bochum Symphony in Germany, as well as Principal Conductor of the English Northern Philharmonia. For the last three years he was also Music Director of the Spoleto Festival, USA. Mr. Sloane’s recent performances include the American premiere of Heiner Goebbels‘ Surrogate Cities at Spoleto this past summer. Mr. Sloane presented the work, which is scored for amplified orchestra, voice, percussion and computer sampler, in a suitably dramatic setting: an abandoned theater. With the Bochum Symphony, Mr. Sloane has offered such eclectic programming as “Monteverdi Meets Maderna,” “Jean Cocteau and his Paris, “Trans-Atlantik” (exploring connections between Germany and America), and “Assimilation: Jewish Identity in Music,” earning the German Publishers Award for the Best Programming of the Year. This season, taking the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie on tour, Mr. Sloane performed George Crumb‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning Echoes of Time and the River.

Among the many contemporary composers whose works he has performed recently are American composers Michael Daugherty, Joan Tower, Steve Reich, John Adams, Tan Dun, Christopher Rouse, John Corigliano and Stewart Wallace. He has also championed many of America’s early New England School composers, including George Whitefield Chadwick, John Knowles Paine, and Edward MacDowell, as well as leading European composers such as Luciano Berio, Mauricio Kagel, and Wolfgang Rihm. He has commissioned more than twenty Israeli composers, including Gil Shohat, Noam Sheriff, Sergiu Natra, and Tzvi Avni.

Nicolas Slonimsky Photo courtesy of Electra Yourke

The Library of Congress has acquired a large archive of the works of the important American conductor, composer, musicologist and lexicographer Nicolas Slonimsky (1894-1995). The papers, which comprise both printed and manuscript music, programs, writings, correspondence, a large musicians’ biographical file, recordings, and materials in other formats were given to the Library over the years since 1969. The collection includes materials collected by Mr. Slonimsky throughout his lifetime that document various facets of his illustrious career.

The Collection was processed in 1998-99 by Michael Ferrando, William Nelson, Stefan Patejak and Albert Tucker with the assistance of Kevin LaVine. Robert Saladini was Music Specialist and Team Leader. The collection is available for use by researchers in the Performing Arts Reading Room at the Library. In Saladini’s opinion, “spending time reading through the materials in the collection would be tantamount to receiving a MA in musicology from one of our major American universities.” In particular, he believes “working with this collection is imperative for anyone attempting to do any kind of modern lexicographical work, for Slonimsky was the undisputed master.”

Slonimsky’s daughter, Electra Yourke, is “extremely pleased” to see her father’s materials finally organized and cataloged. “In compiling his dictionaries and reference works, he insisted upon going to the source. And the sources insisted upon coming to him, so publications, scores, books, manuscripts, and programs from all over the world accumulated.”

Yourke called attention to the unique and valuable collection of letters that she donated in 1999, letters that were written by Slonimsky to his wife while he was traveling. “These letters to my mother offer a unique contemporary record of his experiences as conductor of new works and musical explorer,” Yourke observed. Starting in 1928, before they were married, until his wife’s death in 1964, he wrote to her whenever he was away, vividly describing the flavor of people and events in Paris, Berlin, South America, Havana, Hollywood, and Soviet Eastern Europe.

“My father lived to the grand old age of 101,” Yourke commented, “and greatly enjoyed the belated recognition he received in later life. I wish he were around to enjoy these additional events, as well.” She mentioned the upcoming concert by the American Composers Orchestra that will repeat the program of Slonimsky’s ground-breaking Berlin concert in 1932, including works by Ives, Ruggles, Cowell, Roldan, and Weiss.

The Nicolas Slonimsky Collection consists of 354 containers holding nearly 118,600 items. The Collection is divided into three sections 1) materials about Nicolas Slonimsky 2) materials related to his work as a composer, conductor and lexicographer, including lexicographic source materials, manuscript drafts and correspondence, and 3) printed materials (books, journals, periodicals, pamphlets), many of which are in Russian/Cyrillic.

The first category of materials pertains to Slonimsky’s life and the lives of members of his family; to his work as a composer and performer; and to his writings. Included among the writings are drafts, typescripts, reprints, etc., and newspaper, periodical, journal, and magazine articles, record liner notes, radio broadcasts, and talks, both published and unpublished. In addition, there are index cards of errata and corrigenda, typescripts, amendments, corrections of earlier editions, publishers’ proofs and other documentary material for several editions of Slonimsky’s larger-scale works such as Baker’s Biographical Dictionary, Lectionary of Music, Music Since 1900, and Perfect Pitch. Worthy of special mention is a short unpublished biography of composer Roy Harris including some Harris holograph materials.

The music by Slonimsky is divided into two sections: manuscripts and printed music. The manuscripts are mostly for solo piano or piano and voice, and many of these date from Slonimsky’s younger days. The earliest dated manuscripts are from 1913, including a musical examination exercise from the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Other manuscripts of particular interest include a volume of 15 Russian Peasant Songs that he translated in 1935, several chamber works, including the Piccolo Divertimento, the Quaquaversal Suite, and some of Slonimsky’s signature ditties such as the component works of the 51 Minitudes and the Möbius Strip Tease, a song printed on a mobius strip to be placed over the singer’s shoulders and rotated as the singer performs it.

The printed music by Slonimsky includes music published between 1920 and 1990, mostly scored for solo piano and voice and piano. Among the scores in this collection are the Bosphore Valse, published in 1920 in Constantinople, and the often-performed Five Advertising Songs, written in the 1920s, which Slonimsky claimed were the earliest singing commercials, albeit in spoof form. The only orchestral work is My Toy Balloon, a favorite for children’s programs, and the Piccolo Divertimento, for woodwinds, percussion, typewriter, and cat’s meow.

A valuable collection of programs dating from 1924-1992 chronicles Slonimsky’s life as a public figure in his roles as composer, conductor, musician, lecturer, and writer.

The second part of the collection is an assemblage of his work as a lexicographer, musicologist, and writer and consists primarily of correspondence, musicians’ biographical materials, and music. There are 42 boxes of correspondence and 76 boxes of biographical materials.

The correspondence series ranges from 1920 through the 1990s. The bulk of these letters date from the 1940s through the 1970s and most are responses to Slonimsky’s inquiries for biographical and other information relative to his editing of the International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians and Baker’s Biographical Dictionary, and his continuous updating of Music Since 1900. Written mostly in English but also in other languages, many of the letters include biographical information and provide valuable insights into the lives and personalities of some correspondents. There are l
etters to and from just about every important composer in the twentieth century, including such luminaries as Milton Babbitt, Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Benjamin Britten, John Cage, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin and Charles Ives, as well as correspondence with writers about music, people like Claude Palisca and Olin Downes.

The musical biographical materials date from the 1920s to the 1980s, generated when Slonimsky was editing Baker’s and the International Cyclopedia. There is extensive information about composers and musicians from around the world, many of them not well known. Especially interesting are materials relative to the lives and works of composers and musicians from Latin America and the former Soviet Union.

The music series is divided into subseries of manuscript scores and printed music. Among the manuscripts are many short holographic works and fragments by composers. Some better-known composers whose work is represented in the manuscript subseries are Luigi Dallapiccola, Roy Harris, and Heitor Villa-Lobos, as well as Slonimsky’s nephew, Sergei Slonimsky. There is also a significant collection of printed music by lesser- known Soviet and Latin American composers.

The scrapbooks include general materials such as announcements, flyers and related programs in addition to clippings of reviews of Slonimsky’s early work as a performer and conductor and of his later work as a writer. Of special interest are the often vituperative reviews of his ground-breaking concerts of modern music. Included also are articles he wrote for the Boston Evening Transcript and the Christian Science Monitor. Most interesting among the iconographical materials in the collection are family photographs, rare because they pre-date the Revolution, along with photographs of composers and musicians from the former Soviet Union and little known musicians from the United States and elsewhere.

One of the highlights of the third part of the collection, comprised of items from Slonimsky’s personal library, is an original copy of Charles Ives’s 114 Songs containing annotations in the composer’s hand. The collection also contains rare printed materials from the former Soviet Union, including some music in pamphlet form. Saladini finds the Soviet-era books and pamphlets “especially interesting” and thinks that these materials “may not exist anywhere else.”

Nicolas Slonimsky, a self-described “failed wunderkind,” was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on April 27, 1894, into a notable family of Russian intellectuals. His earliest piano teacher was his aunt Isabelle Vengerova. Later he studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Vasili Kalafati and Maximilian Steinberg, both of whom were pupils of Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov. After the Russian Revolution, Slonimsky took some composition lessons with Reinhold Glière in Kiev and later, in Paris, became secretary and assistant to Serge Koussevitzky.

In 1923 Nicolas Slonimsky came to the United States, where he studied composition with Selim Palmgren and Albert Coates at the Eastman School of Music. He wrote articles about music for various publications and, in Boston, conducted the Pierian Sodality at Harvard University (1927-29) and the Apollo Chorus (1928-30). In 1927 he organized the Chamber Orchestra of Boston and gave the first performances of works by Charles Ives, Edgar Varèse, Henry Cowell and others. In 1945-47 he became lecturer in Slavonic languages and literature at Harvard University. He later moved to Los Angeles where he taught at UCLA in 1964-67.

Among his musical compositions are Studies in Black and White for piano (1928); a song cycle, Gravestones, set to texts from tombstones in an old cemetery in Hancock, New Hampshire (1945); and Minitudes, a collection of piano pieces (1971-77). His only orchestral work is My Toy Balloon (1942), a set of variations on a Brazilian song, which calls for the explosion of 100 colored balloons at the climax.

In 1947 he published Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns (1947), an inventory of tonal combinations, and Music Since 1900, a chronology of musical events (1937; 4th edition 1971; supplement 1986). He became editor of Thompson’s International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians (4th to 8th editions; 1946-48) and of Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (1958, 1978, 1984, 1991). In 1988, Perfect Pitch, his autobiography, and Lectionary of Music, a “reading dictionary” and compendium of musical definitions, appeared. Among his other writings are Music of Latin America (1945), The Road to Music (1948), Lexicon of Musical Invective (1952, 2000) and innumerable encyclopedia entries, newspaper and periodical articles, program and liner notes, most of which are preserved in the Library of Congress collection.

Photo of Hollis Taylor Photo credit Carol Yarrow

The American Composers Forum has announced the results of the 2000 Composers Commissioning Program (CCP), which is funded by the Jerome Foundation. The CCP, now in its 21st year, supports the production of new musical works by emerging composers. It seeks to boost the careers of younger composers by offering them an early commission, and to aid the careers of more experienced composers by giving them a chance to stretch their current boundaries.

Composers apply with an ensemble or presenter and request support to underwrite the commissioning fee. A total of 13 projects were given awards ranging from $2500 to $7000. Each project performer is also eligible to apply for a Performance Outreach Grant to bring the new work to new audiences. Performance Outreach Grants average $1000.

The panelists for this round were Nick Demos, composers and professor at Georgia State University; Miya Masaoka, San Francisco composer/improviser; and Neva Pilgrim, soprano and director of the Society for New Music in Syracuse, New York. Applications were considered in two separate categories: Minnesota composers or composers working with certain Minnesota performers, and New York City composers.

“There are so few commissioning programs available these days,” commented Philip Blackburn, Program Director at the American Composer’s Forum. “The CCP offers opportunity for emerging composers to branch out and take new risks and be rewarded for it.” He recently completed a survey of past participants, and reported that it was “amazing to see how well they have done, and they often have CCP at the top of their resumes as one of their first commissions.” Blackburn also sees the program as “a manifestation of the ACF’s mission to link communities and performers with exciting new ventures.”

The Performance Outreach Grants are new to the CCP, which was started in 1979. Blackburn commented that the Outreach Grants “support the performer as well as the composer.” The Grants serve as encouragement to the performers to present the work in more than one setting. “It could be a second or third performance, it could be an open rehearsal, at a school, something to help people who wouldn’t ordinarily be at the performance,” Blackburn explained.

Blackburn has administered the CCP for nine years, and he admits that he was “really impressed” by this year’s crop of applicants. He emphasized that the ACF “wants people to take a risk,” and that this is reflected in the variety of projects, from “a soundtrack for an Eskimo storyteller” to a work for balloon and string quartet.

Eight projects were selected from the forty-five submitted that had a connection to Minnesota. Brian Heller of Minneapolis will write a work for multiple bamboo instruments for Bamboo Fest, a multi-cultural celebration of the bamboo arts in St. Paul’s Landmark Center to be held on April 29, 2001. Bamboo Fest is co-sponsored by the Vietnamese Cultural Association of Minnesota and the Schubert Club of St. Paul.

Brian Heller Photo by Holly Windle, courtesy of the Schubert Club

Heller is impressed with the number of cultures in which bamboo is “critical to the musical tradition.” “I am a total outsider to these cultures,” he commented in an email. “I have no personal or educational background in them. Given that, there is a major research component to the piece, as I undertake learning about each instrument and its place in the culture it comes from.” Heller explained that he is trying to “create something fresh, something that integrates the variety of traditions, acknowledges the back-drop of America, and uses bamboo instruments as a vehicle to unify: something that could only be created by an outsider.” Heller plans to feature the angklung, the shakuhachi, the mouth organ, the didjeridoo, and other bamboo instruments in the piece. He is also considering using amplification or an electro-acoustic component

One feature of Heller’s work that promises to be interesting will be his use of space. “There is a great geographical, cultural, and possibly even generational “diaspora” here. I am thinking about the connection between bamboo, these instruments and a previous lifestyle in a previous land, and how this fits in with their lives here and now. Space could play a role in representing both a the concrete and the metaphorical distance between a person’s–and an entire culture’s–identities.” Heller also thinks that his use of the space will to some extent be determined by the space itself, with its unique “timbral attraction.” “There is a wonderful 5-story balcony system overlooking a common court, so I could see groups of instruments moving up and down these balconies during the course of the piece,” he mused. “On the other hand, perhaps the audience should be moving as well.”

Heller calls the grant “a wonderful thing,” partly because it is financially significant enough that the project can happen as he and the presenters imagine it. “Almost everything involved is new to me– from the instruments to the culture to the languages– and there is a significant amount of research involved, much of it extra-musical. Given the nature of the event, there are also a fair number of logistical problems to solve. The award allows me to feel very comfortable setting aside the time and energy the project really needs to be done right.” He also considers the CCP significant because it “encourages emerging composers to take on a new project that is already grounded in reality (i.e. has a set premiere date, organization committed to it, etc). It is an ideal step into the world of ‘professional’ composition.”

Ron George, a Los Angeles-based composer, will write a work based on Icelandic rimur music to be played by elementary-school students in Little Falls and students at Metro State University. It will be premiered at Metro State in October 2001.

James Harley, from Moorhead, MN, will write a work for piccolo and live electronics to be performed by Elizabeth McNutt of La Jolla, CA. The piece will receive its premiere at Moorhead State University in April 2001.

Michael Karmon of St. Paul will write a guitar duo for a consortium of the Newman-Oltman, Gray-Pearl, Elgart-Yates, and Goldspiel-Provost duos. Russell Platt, from Minneapolis, will write a clarinet concerto for Russell Dagon and the Waukesha (WI) Symphony.

Dan Trueman, of Kingston, NJ, will write a work for Hardangar fiddle, to be premiered by Andrea Een and the St. Olaf College Orchestra during their 2002-03 season, and performed at their annual Christmas Festival.

Preston Wright of St. Paul will compose electronic music to accompany native Alaskan storyteller Jack Dalton of Anchorage. Raven Returns: the Story of the Human Beings will be used on his tours of Hawaii, Oklahoma, and Texas, starting in the spring of 2001.

Six projects were selected from the fifty-seven submitted by New York composers. Hollis Taylor will write Groove Theory for violin, strings, and percussion. It will be premiered by violinist Monica Huggett and the Portland Baroque Orchestra in November 2001. Taylor describes herself as “a violinist who composes, not a composer who plays the violin.” This is the first piece she has composed, in fact, in which she has not participated as a performer. “I grew up playing the violin and not composing, but then I started improvising and arranging, and the next logical step seemed to be composing.”

Taylor plays in a variety of styles, and it was her “re-written” version of the Bach b minor solo violin partite, called Box Set, that first brought her together with Huggett. Originally, Taylor thought she would organize a concert where I she would perform both the original and then the re-write, but “the more I played the re-write,” which she describes as “highly influenced by jazz, bebop, and Afro-Cuban music, “the more it became clear that I would have to find someone else to perform the original..” She was living in Portland at the time, where Huggett comes several times a year to lead the Baroque Orchestra. “I asked her to play the original, and not only did she accept, she asked me to compose a piece for the two of us.” The resulting piece was called The Crawl Ball, for two violins, bass and percussion. “I was struck both in writing it and performing it with Monica by how much Baroque music and jazz have in common. It was not a big transition for her. Monica has a great feeling for jazz.”

Taylor explained that the CCP grant is “meaningful on a number of levels.” “It gives me a real boost in confidence. When working by yourself as a composer, you never make much money, and you begin to wonder if you should keep investing in yourself…it’s also a boost for the Orchestra, because it confirms for them that I was a suitable choice.” Taylor has taken a year off from performing and teaching in order to write the piece. “This grant has pushed along to the next stage of my life – it is a huge confirmation that I am moving in the right direction.”

Steven Bryant will write a 15-minute work for the Amherst Saxophone Quartet to be performed during the 2001-02 season. Judy Dunaway will compose For Balloon and String Quartet, a four-movement work for solo balloon and the Flux String Quartet. It will be performed at Experimental Intermedia in December 2001, and at Wesleyan University in the spring of 2002.

Phil Kline will write When I Had a Voice, a cycle of 5 songs on poems of David Shapiro, for mezzo Alexandra Montano and her two children, accompanied by the Parthenia viol quartet. They will premiere the work in May 2001, at Exit Art. Harold Meltzer will write Brothers Grimm for pianist Sarah Cahill, who will perform it in New York, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco in November 2001.

Ushio Torikae will write Hör Träume for the Modern Art Sextet of Berlin and electronics. The work will be premiered at the Akademie der Kunste in fall of 2001, and tour to Dresden, Magdeburg, and Halle.