Friday, March 15, 2024

#ClassicsaDay #WomensHistoryMonth Week 2, 2024

 The #ClassicsaDay team has made Women's History Month the March theme since 2017. The challenge remains: post classical music videos from female composers on your social media channels. There are plenty of options when it comes to 21st- and 20th-century composers.

What continually surprises me is how much music is yet to be discovered from earlier centuries. And also how much of it was known at the time, but somehow fell into obscurity. Here are my discoveries for the first week of #WomensHistoryMonth. 

3/11/24 Caterina Assandra (1590-after 1618): O Dulcis Amor Jesu

Assandra was a Benedictine nun, as well as a composer and organist. She published at least two books of motets (only Op. 2 survives), as well as several other sacred works.

 

3/12/24 Francesca Caccini (1587–1640?): Chi desia

Francesca's father Giulio was one of the founders of opera. Francesca's sister Settimia was a successful singer and composer. Francesca's "La liberazione di Ruggerio" (1625) is the earliest known opera composed by a woman.

 

3/13/24 Settimia Caccini (1591–1638?): Due luci ridenti

Settima's father Giulio was one of the founders of opera. And her sister Francesca was a respected composer of opera as well. Although a prolific composer herself, only eight of Settima's works survive.

 

3/14/24 Claudia Sessa (c. 1570 – c. 1617/19): Occhi io vissi di voi

Sessa was a nun. She was also an instrumentalist, singer, and composer. Two of her sacred choral works were published in 1613. 

 

3/15/24 Lucrezia Orsina Vizzana (1590–1662): O magnum misterium

Vizzana was a nun in the convent of S. Christina, Bologna. And she was also a singer, organist, and composer. A collection of her choral music, Componimenti musicali de motetti concertati a l e piĆ¹ voci was published in 1623.

 

Friday, March 08, 2024

#ClassicsaDay #WomensHistoryMonth Week 1 2024

 The #ClassicsaDay team has made Women's History Month the March theme since 2017. The challenge remains: post classical music videos from female composers on your social media channels. There are plenty of options when it comes to 21st- and 20th-century composers.

What continually surprises me is how much music is yet to be discovered from earlier centuries. And also how much of it was known at the time, but somehow fell into obscurity. Here are my discoveries for the first week of #WomensHistoryMonth. 

03/04/24 Kassia (c.810-867): Hymn of Kassiani the Nun

Kassia, also known as Kassiani wrote extensively on theology, and composed prolifically. Many of her hymns have become part of the Eastern Orthodox hymnody.

 

03/05/24 Herrad of Landsberg (c. 1130-1195): Creatrices

Herrad was an Alsatian abbess of Hohenburg Abbey. Her major work was the Hortus deliciarum, an illustrated encyclopedia of all knowledge known to 12th-century Europeans. It also included 20 songs, notated with neumes.

 

03/06/24 Maddalena Casulana (c.1540–c.1590): Madrigal VI

Casulana was a lutenist, singer, and composer. She was the first female composer to have an entire book of her music published. She would have three collections of madrigals published in her lifetime: in 1570, 1583, and in 1586.

 

03/07/24 Alba Tressina (fl. 1590): Anima mea liquefacta est

Tressina was a Carmelite nun in Vecnza. Leone Leoni was the maestro di cappella at eh Vicenz Cathedral. Thanks to him, four of Tressina's motets have been preserved.

 

03/08/24 Vittoria Aleotti (c.1575–after 1620): Lasso quand’io credei d’esser felice

Vittoria was one of two gifted female composers in the same family. Vittoria published a single set of madrigals in 1593. Her younger sister Raffaella also published a collection of music the same year.

 

Friday, March 01, 2024

#ClassicsaDay #BlackHistoryMonth Week 4 2024

Classical music originated in Western Europe, but it's not exclusive to dead, white European males. The challenge for February is to post videos of classical music either written or performed by musicians of color. 


There's a lot to choose from. I decided to focus on composers, but there are plenty of conductors and performers going back farther than you might think. Here are my posts for the fourht and final week of #BlackHistoryMonth 

02/26/24 Shawn Okpebholo: There is Always Light

This trio for clarinet, bassoon, and marimba was composed in 2021. The title comes from the spiritual "Hold On."

 

02/27/24 Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson: Worship A Concert Overture for Orchestra

Perkinson wrote classical music and founded the Symphony of the New World. He also composed for Max Roach, wrote film scores, and did arrangements for Marvin Gaye.

 

02/28/24 Zenobia Powell Perry: Echoes from the Journey

Perry was a composer and civil rights activist. Many of her compositions reference the Black Experience. In this work, she uses spirituals to illustrate that experience from Reconstruction through the 1960s.

 

02/29/24 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Ballade in A minor for Orchestra, Op. 33

This work was composed the same year his cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast was premiered, 1898. It was one of 92 works he published before his death at age 37.

 

Next Month:



Friday, February 23, 2024

#ClassicsaDay #BlackHistoryMonth Week 3, 2024

Classical music originated in Western Europe, but it's not exclusive to dead, white European males. The challenge for February is to post videos of classical music either written or performed by musicians of color. 


There's a lot to choose from. I decided to focus on composers, but there are plenty of conductors and performers going back farther than you might think. Here are my posts for the third week of #BlackHistoryMonth 

02/19/24 Julia Perry: Prelude for Piano

Perry won two Guggenheim Fellowships and studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. She was on the faculty of Florida A&M University, a historically black land-grant university.

 


02/20/24 James Lee III: Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Orchestra

Lee studied with William Bolcom and Bright Sheng. He's currently on the faculty of Morgan State University. His Snfonia Concertante was written in 2017.

 

02/21/24 Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Sonata for Two Violins

Bologne was a virtuoso violinist as well as a composer. In the 1790s he was one of the most famous -- and popular -- musicians in Paris. 



02/22/24 Edmond Dédé: Two pieces for Piano

Dédé was a child prodigy. But as a free-born Creole in the antebellum South, opportunities were non-existent. He moved to France and became an important composer and opera conductor.

 


02/23/24 William Grant Still: Wood Notes

Still was a ground-breaking artist. He was the first Black to: conduct a major orchestra; have an opera performed on national TV; have a symphony played by a major orchestra; and have an opera performed by a major opera company.

 

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Chromosphere Explores Woodwind Orchestra's Potential

Let's be clear. A woodwind orchestra isn't a regular orchestra with the strings and brass removed. The Czech Philharmonic Wind Ensemble has 18 players. This lineup includes four sax players -- a rarity in a standard orchestra.

It's definitely a contemporary grouping of instruments. And this release presents grouping of contemporary British composers.

Judith Bingham is the most prominent of this group. Her work "Mozart's Pets" premiered in 2021. It's a lighthearted blend of instruments depicting animals with Mozart's music.

"Domes" by Kamran Ince is an entirely different kind of music. The work was originally written for orchestra in 1993. Ince reworked it for woodwind orchestra in 2022. He creates long, flowing lines with wavering dissonances. It's somber, ethereal, and thought-provoking.

The works by Keiron Anderson, Charlotte Harding, and Christopher Hussey are of similar quality. This isn't high school band music. These compositions use instrumental combinations in effective and imaginative ways.

These works are written at a level of complexity that engages the listener. And rewards multiple listening.  

Chromosphere: Symphonic Colors of the Woodwind Orchestra
Czech Philharmonic Wind Ensemble
Divine Art DDX 21117