Women Composers – Page 26

Camm, Cheryl

1964 New Zealand

Cheryl Camm Official Website

Works for Brass Ensemble

Four Pieces for Brass Quintet (1983)
Destination 6574 (1984) for brass band

Byström, Britta

14 March 1977; Sundsvall, Sweden
Swedish composer & conductor

Britta Byström Official Website

Works for Brass Ensemble

The Fugitive (2004) for brass quintet
In the Tower (2009) for brass quintet
Inferno (2011) for brass quintet and one actor
The Bell Tolls (2020) for brass band

Biography

Britta Byström was born in Sundsvall 1977 and began her musical career as a trumpet player. In her teens, she began to compose music and studied composition at the Royal University of Music in Stockholm 1995-2001, where her main teachers were Pär Lindgren and Bent Sørensen.

Byström has composed for most sizes of orchestras and contexts including chamber music, vocal music and opera, but the emphasis has been on orchestral music. Some of those who have performed her music are the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Gürzenich Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. She has written pieces directly for soloists such as Malin Broman, Rick Stotijn, Radovan Vlatkovic and Janine Jansen.

Britta Byström has received many awards for her music: In 2014, the viola concerto A Walk After Dark, with soloist Ellen Nisbeth, received the da capo-prize at the Brandenburger Biennale. In 2016, Byström was named winner of the prestigious American ”Elaine Lebenbom Memorial Award for Female Composers”. The song cycle Notes From the City of the Sun, with soloist Malin Byström, was selected as one of ten ”recommended works” at the International Rostrum For Composers 2019. The stage work Gállábártnit, libretto by Rawdna Carita Eira, which had its acclaimed premiere at the new music scene Soundstreams in Toronto in November 2019, was nominated to a Canadian Dora Award 2020 for ”outstanding new opera”.

Among the works could be mentioned Many, Yet One (2016), which was first performed by Detroit Symphony Orchestra, conductor James Gaffigan (see a video from the world premiere), and Infinite Rooms – a double concerto for violin/viola, double bass and orchestra, written for the soloists Malin Broman and Rick Stotijn (see a video from the world premiere). The piece was awarded with the Stora Christ Johnson-priset 2020. A CD with Byström’s music, Invisible Cities, was nominated to a 2015 Swedish Grammy and selected as ”the classical album of the year” in several magazines. (See review in Gramophone.)

Since 2016, Byström is a member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

Brouwer, Margaret

8 February 1940; Ann Arbor, Michigan
American composer and educator

Margaret Brouwer Official Website

Works for Brass Ensemble

Timespan (1986) for brass quintet
Tolling the Spirits (1994) for brass quintet
Celebration (1998) for brass quintet

Brooks, Sandra Smith

USA

Brass Quintet 1986

Britain, Radie

17 March 1899; Silverton,Texas – 23 May 1994; Palm Desert, California
American pianist, writer, music educator and composer of symphonic music

Works for Brass Ensemble

Awake to Life (1968) for brass quintet
Ode to NASA (1981) for brass quintet

Bremer, Carolyn

28 October 1957, Santa Monic, CA – 2 September 2018, Long Beach, CA
American composer and educator

The Four Winds (2000) for brass ensemble
Opposable Thumbs for brass ensemble
Throw Caution to the Wind for brass ensemble

Carolyn Bremer has been dubbed a composer “driven by hobgoblins of post modernist cant.” Bremer came to composition on the heels of intensive training as an orchestral bassist. Her catalogue contains works based on feminist symbolism (Athene), baseball (Early Light), and popular culture (It Makes Me Nervewracking). Recently, Bremer has incorporated her photography and music into multimedia works.

Bremer has had recent performances of her works at Carnegie Hall; in Germany, Norway, and Sweden; and for the gala 150th anniversary concert at West Point. Her commissions include the Symphony for Wind Band, premiered by Ray Cramer at Indiana University; Returns of the Day, premiered by Thomas Dvorak at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Pieces of Eight, premiered by the California State Honor band; Spark, premiered by Adam Brennan at Mansfield University; and Saturnalia, premiered by Calvin Hofer and the Mesa State Wind Symphony at the 2008 Best of the West Festival. Recent CDs include the El Paso Wind Symphony on Summit Records, the Heritage of American Band of the US Air Force, the Towson University Symphonic Band, and the Monarch Brass Ensemble.

Her work Early Light is a mainstay in the wind ensemble repertoire, receiving hundreds of performances each year. The original version for orchestra has been performed by professional orchestras including the Houston Symphony, California Philharmonic, Chattanooga Symphony, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Holland Symphony, and Waco Symphony.

Bremer studied at the Eastman School of Music, CalArts, and received the Ph.D. in composition from UCSB. She was Chair of Composition at the University of Oklahoma from 1991-2000 where she held the O’Brien Presidential Professorship. Currently, she is Professor and Area Director of Composition and Theory, and Associate Department Chair of the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University Long Beach.