Wiki Category: Women Composers

Austin, Elizabeth R.

1938, Baltimore, MD
American composer and educator.

Works for Brass Ensemble
  • To Begin (1990) for brass quintet
Biography

Elizabeth R. Austin received her early musical training at The Peabody Conservatory. When Nadia Boulanger visited Goucher College (Towson, MD), she awarded the composer a scholarship to study at the Conservatoire Americaine in Fontainebleau, France, after hearing Austin’s Drei Rilke Lieder. Her association with the Hartt School of Music (University of Hartford), where she earned a Master’s in Music while on the faculty, included the establishment of a faculty/student exchange with the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Heidelberg-Mannheim. While studying for her Ph.D. at The University of Connecticut, Elizabeth Austin won First Prize in the Lipscomb Electronic Music Competition (Klavier Double for piano and tape).

Her awards have included a Connecticut Commission on the Arts grant, selection by GEDOK (Society of Women Artists in Germany/Austria) to represent the Mannheim region in its 70th anniversary exhibition, and First Prize in IAWM’s 1998 Miriam Gideon Competition (for Homage for Hildegard [von Bingen], and a Rockefeller Foundation residency at Bellagio, Italy (2001). Performed in Europe and Scandinavia, as well as in The United States and the Caribbean Austin’s music has been received with distinction and critical acclaim. Featured on Germany’s Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, the Leipzig pianist Ulrich Urban has championed her piano music, performing at the Gewandhaus and The National Gallery of Art.

Dr. Michael K. Slayton, Professor of Theory/Composition, Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University, wrote his DMA dissertation (University of Houston, 2000) on Austin’s music. Dr. Slayton also edited the book, Women of Influence in Contemporary Music: Nine American Composers, Scarecrow Press, 2011, also writing the chapter on Austin’s music. Dr. Teresa Crane, U. Illinois, wrote a DMA dissertation on Austin’s song cycles (2007). In several IAWM Journals (2001-2014), her music has been the subject of interviews and articles. The online journal SCOPE (Winter, 2011) has a feature article on her music. Dr. Austin was the BMI/Vanderbilt University Composer in Residence in 2015. An excerpt from Austins’ opera I am one and double too, was performed in a portrait concert. The Hartford Musical Club awarded her a commission and an Austin portrait concert in honor of their 125th anniversary in 2015. In 2017, Austin’s Litauische Lieder was performed in Berlin.

Resources

Arrieu, Claude

30 November 1903, Paris France – 7 March 1990
French composer. Claude Arrieu was the pseudonym used by Ann Marie Simon.

Works for Brass Ensemble
  • Brass Quintet (1962)
Biography

Claude Arrieu was a classically trained musician from an early age. She became particularly interested in works by Bach and Mozart, and later, Igor Stravinsky. However, Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel provided her the most inspiration.

Dreaming of a career as a virtuoso, she entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1924. She became a piano student of Marguerite Long and took classes from Georges Caussade, Noël Gallon, Jean Roger-Ducasse, and Paul Dukas. In 1932, she received first prize for composition.

From this point on, she developed her personal style. She was particularly interested in the evolution of musical language and various technical means available. In 1935, she joined the French Radio Broadcasting Program Service (« Service des programmes de la Radiodiffusion française »), where she was employed to 1947. She participated in the development of a wide range of programming, including Pierre Schaeffer’s experimental radio series, La Coquille à planètes (1943–1944). In 1949, she won the Prix Italia of the RAI for her score Frédéric Général.

She wrote music in all styles, composing works of “pure music” as well as music for theatre, film, radio, and music hall, contributing her own voice to every situation, dramatic or comic, with a particular taste for rhythm and imagery. Her musical gift is typified by its ease of flow and elegance of structure. Vivacity, clarity of expression, and a natural feel for melody are her hallmarks.

Pierre Schaeffer wrote: “Claude Arrieu is part of her time by virtue of a presence, an instinct of efficiency, a bold fidelity. Whatever the means, concertos or songs, music for official events, concerts for the elite or for a crowd of spectators, she delivered emotion through an impeccable technique and a spiritual vigilance, finding the path to the heart.”

Archer, Violet

24 April 1913, Montreal, Quebec – 21 February 2000, Ottawa
Canadian composer, pianist, percussionist, and educator

Works for Brass Ensemble
  • I va vari (1987) for brass quintet
  • Divertimento (1963) for brass quintet
  • Celebration: a Fanfare for Brass Quintet (1983) for brass quintet
Biography

Violet Louise Archer earned an L MUS from McGill University in 1934, and a B MUS from McGill in 1936 where she studied composition with Douglas Clarke. She travelled to New York City in the summer of 1942 where she studied with Béla Bartók who introduced her to Hungarian folk tunes and to variation technique. She taught at the McGill Conservatory from 1944–1947. Later in the 1940s she studied with Paul Hindemith at Yale. She earned a B MUS from Yale in 1948, and a M MUS also from Yale in 1949. From 1950–1953 Archer was Composer-in-Residence at the University of North Texas. From 1953 through 1961 she taught at the University of Oklahoma. Returning to Canada in 1961 for doctoral study at the University of Toronto, she set that aside when, in 1962, she joined the Faculty of Music at the University of Alberta. There she would become chairman of the Theory and Composition Department. She remained at the University of Alberta until her retirement. Her notable students include Larry Austin, Jan Randall, Allan Gilliland, and Allan Gordon Bell.

Archer built a career as a musician and composer in addition to her teaching. She played percussion with the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra from 1940 to 1947, a time when major municipal orchestras were not admitting women to their ranks. In addition to percussion, Archer played clarinet and strings, and worked in Montréal as an accompanist and organist. As a composer, Archer’s prolific work of more than 330 compositions included traditional and more contemporary works for instrument and voice. Examples of her wide-ranging work include a 1973 comic opera, Sganarelle, the film score for a 1976 documentary, Someone Cares, and experimentations with electronic music. Archer is noted for her 90 compositions written for novice performers, which she wrote to encourage musicians and audiences of all levels to enjoy and understand key elements of modern music like harmony, melody, and rhythm.

Archer has received honorary degrees from McGill University (1971), University of Windsor (1986), University of Calgary (1989), Mount Allison University (1992), and University of Alberta (1993). In 1983, she was made a Member of the Order of Canada.

In Edmonton, the Violet Archer Festival in Edmonton in 1985 was the first festival to honor a living Canadian composer. She is memorialized at Violet Archer Park in the Park Allen neighborhood of Edmonton. In Calgary, the Prairie Region of Canadian Music Centre Library is home to The Violet Archer Library which holds over 20,000 scores. The Canadian indie rock band The Violet Archers is named for Archer.

Anderson, Beth

1950, Lexington Kentucky
American composer and pianist

Works for Brass Ensemble
  • The Brass Swale (1989) for brass quintet
  • Saturday/Sunday Swale (1991) for brass quintet
Biography

Beth Anderson studied with John Cage, Terry Riley, Robert Ashley, and Larry Austin, among others. She studied at the University of Kentucky, UC Davis, New York University and Mills College.

She began playing the piano as a child and began composing shortly after. At age 14 she began studying piano with composer Helen Libscomb. Lisbcomb taught Anderson the rules of counterpoint, enabling her to compose simplistic traditional music. During her last two years of high school she began to compose serial music, learning from books on the topic.

Anderson is best known in her field for her swales, a musical form she invented based on collages and samples of newly composed music rather than existing music. She told a reporter for The New York Times in 1995 she named the form based on this definition of the word: “A swale is a meadow or marsh where a lot of wild things go together.”

Alston, Lettie Beckon

1953, Detroit, MI – 2014
American composer and pianist

Works for Brass Ensemble
  • Quintet for Brass and Piano (19XX) for brass quintet and piano
Biography

Lettie Beckon Alston and received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music composition from Wayne State University in Detroit, studying composition with James Hartway and piano with Mischa Kottler.  She also worked with Frank Murch and Wesley Fishwish.  Continuing her education, she was the first African American composer to obtain a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan in 1983, where she studied composition with Leslie Bassett and William Bolcom. Alston also worked with Eugene Kurzt and George Wilson in the electronic music area.  Dr. Alston’s works have been featured widely in eastern and mid-western states, Austria and England. Her music has been recorded on compact disc under the Leonarda, Albany, Videmus and Calvin College labels.  Alston’s music scores are published with MMB, Vivace Press and under the assumed name of Lettie Beckon Alston.

References

Alexandra, Liana

27 May 1947, Bucharest, Romania – 10 January 2011
Romanian composer, pianist, and educator.

Works for Brass Ensemble
  • Collages (1977) for brass quintet
Biography

From 1965 to 1971, Liana Alexandra studied at the Ciprian Porumbescu Conservatory (now the National University of Music Bucharest) under Tudor Ciortea and Tiberiu Olah and took composition courses in 1974, 1978, 1980 and 1984 in Darmstadt, Germany. She had a doctorate in musicology and taught composition, orchestration, and music analysis at the Conservatory from 1971 until her death in 2011. A prolific composer in the neoromantic style, Alexandra had over 100 of her works performed and published in Romania. According to musicologist Octavian Cosma, she was “in her element with orchestral and chamber music, employing repetitive and evolving techniques, with melodic lines which suggest lyricism and meditation” and an instrumentation that used “a palette of delicate, pastel colours.” Alexandra married the Romanian cellist and composer Şerban Nichifor in 1978. They performed together as Duo Intermedia from 1990 and were co-directors of the Nuova Musica Consonante – Living Music Foundation Festival.

Liana Alexandra died at her home in Bucharest of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 63. On 12 January 2011, two days after her death, the broadcast Univers muzical românesc on Radio România Muzical was dedicated to her. In May of that year, Liana Alexandra: Marturii despre muzica ei (Liana Alexandra: Confessions about her Music) was published by Editura Stephanus in a bilingual Romanian and English edition. Edited by Şerban Nichifor, the book is an anthology of writings on Alexandra’s music by composers, critics and musicologists including Viorel Cosma, Grete Tartler, Robert Voisey, and Jacques Leduc. Later that month, her 1987 opera În labirint (The Maze) was performed in her memory by the Banatul Philharmonic of Timișoara as the closing concert of the Timișoara International Music Festival (31 May 2011).

References

Liana Alexandra Wikipedia page

Likhuta, Catherine

28 May 1981, Kyiv City, Ukraine
Australian-based composer and pianist

Works for Brass Ensemble
  • It Comes and Goes (2013) for brass quintet
  • Apex Predators (2015) for brass quintet
Biography

Catherine Likhuta‘s music exhibits high emotional charge, programmatic nature and rhythmic complexity. Catherine’s pieces have been played extensively around the world, including highly prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage), Glyndebourne Opera House (Organ Room), five International Horn Symposiums and two World Saxophone Congresses, as well as and many festivals and conferences. Her works have enjoyed performances by prominent symphony orchestras (such as Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra of the National Radio of Ukraine), chamber ensembles (such as Atlantic Brass Quintet, Ensemble Q, NU CORNO and U.S. Army Field Band Horns) and soloists (including former president of the North American Saxophone Alliance Griffin Campbell and president of the International Horn Society Andrew Pelletier). Catherine has held residencies at Tyalgum Music Festival, North Carolina NewMusic Initiative, University of Missouri Kansas City, University of Georgia and other institutions. She is a two-time winner of the International Horn Society Composition Contest (virtuoso division) and a recipient of several awards, including two grants from the Australia Council for the Arts. Her music can be heard on Albany, Cala, Equilibrium and Summit Records.

Catherine’s wind band works have enjoyed performances by Columbia University Wind Ensemble, SUNY Potsdam Crane Wind Ensemble, Sydney Conservatorium Wind Symphony, University of Georgia Hodgson Wind Ensemble, University of Kentucky Wind Symphony and many other groups. Her music has been played at Australian School Band and Orchestra Festival (Sydney), CBDNA Conference (Norman, OK) and Midwest Clinic (Chicago, IL).

Catherine holds a Bachelor’s degree in jazz piano from Kyiv Glière Music College, a five-year post-graduate degree in composition from the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine (Kyiv Conservatory) and a PhD in composition from the University of Queensland. She is an active performer, often playing her own music. She was the soloist on the premiere and the CD recording of Out Loud, her piano concerto commissioned by the Cornell University Wind Ensemble, and the pianist on Adam Unsworth’s CD Snapshots.

Resources

Catherine Likhuta Official Website

Larsen, Libby

24 December 1950, Wilmington, Delaware
American composer

Works for Brass Ensemble
  • Northern Star Fanfare (1987) for brass ensemble
  • Brass Flight (1996) for brass ensemble
  • Brazen Overture (2000) for brass quintet
  • Fanfare for Humantity (2003) for brass ensemble
  • Fanfare for a Learned Man (2005) for brass quintet
BIography

Libby Larsen is one of America’s most performed living composers. She has created a catalogue of over 500 works spanning virtually every genre from intimate vocal and chamber music to massive orchestral works and over 15 operas. Grammy award-winning and widely recorded, including over 50 CDs of her work, she is constantly sought after for commissions and premieres by major artists, ensembles, and orchestras around the world, and has established a permanent place for her works in the concert repertory.

An advocate for the music and musicians of our time, in 1973 Larsen co-founded the Minnesota Composers Forum, now the American Composer’s Forum. Grammy Award winner and former holder of the Papamarkou Chair at John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress, Larsen has also held residencies with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony, and the Colorado Symphony. As Artistic Director of the John Duffy Institute for New Opera (2014-2020 ), she guides a faculty of practicing professional artists in nurturing and production of new opera by American Composers.  Larsen’s 2017 biography, Libby Larsen: Composing an American Life, Denise Von Glahn, author, is available from the University Illinois Press.

References

Libby Larsen Official Website

Roger, Denise

21 January 1924, Colombes, Hauts-de-Seine – 15 November 2005, Paris
French composer and pianist

Works for Brass Ensemble
  • Ciselures (1970) for brass quintet
  • Supplique et Polychromie (1984) for brass quintet
  • Climats (1991) for brass quintet
Biography

Denise Roger  was a 20th century pioneer for women composers. She studied at the Paris Conservatory where she won three prizes in composition and piano. A student of both Jean Gallon and Marguerite Long, her unique linear style demonstrates dramatic musical language.

Beecroft, Norma

11 April 1934, Oshawa, Ontario
Canadian composer, producer, broadcaster, and arts administrator.

Works for Brass Ensemble
11 & 7 for 5+
Biography

Norma Marian Beecroft is a member of the Canadian League of Composers and an associate of the Canadian Music Centre, she twice won the Canada Council’s Lynch-Staunton Award for composition. She has been commissioned to write works for such organizations as the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Electronic Ensemble, The Music Gallery, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the National Ballet of Canada, the Quebec Contemporary Music Society, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and York Winds among others. She is an honorary member of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community and has served on the juries of the SOCAN Awards and the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music. In 1988 she donated many of her original manuscripts, papers, and recordings to the library at the University of Calgary.

Beecroft is the daughter of Julian Beecroft, a musician and inventor who was a pioneer in the development of electronic tape, and actress Eleanor Beecroft (née Chambers). She received her earliest musical education from her parents, both of whom had a significant amount of musical training. Her father had originally intended to pursue a career as a concert pianist and had performed in concerts in his early 20s. His career, however, was cut short when he lost three of his fingers in a tragic woodworking accident. Her parents married in 1931 and their marriage produced four other children besides Norma. They divorced in 1947 when she was 13 years old.

In 1950 Beecroft began taking private piano lessons with Aladar Ecsedy, studying with him until she entered The Royal Conservatory of Music (RCMT) in 1952. She attended classes at the RCMT through 1958 where her professors included Gordon Hallett (piano), Weldon Kilburn (piano), and John Weinzweig (music theory and composition). In 1957-1958 she studied the flute privately with Keith Girard and in the summer of 1958 was a pupil at the Berkshire Music Center where she studied composition with Aaron Copland and Lukas Foss.

In 1959 Beecroft went to Rome to pursue graduate studies in composition with Goffredo Petrassi at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. She remained in that city through 1962 where she also continued studies in the flute privately with Severino Gazzelloni. In the summers of 1960 and 1961 she attended lectures taught by Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany and at the Dartington School in England. In 1962 she returned to Canada to pursue courses in electronic music at the University of Toronto with Myron Schaeffer. After completing these studies, she went to New York City to work with Mario Davidovsky at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in 1964.

Beecroft began her career working as a script assistant for television music programs for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from 1954-1957. From 1956-1957 she served as the president of Canadian Music Associates, the Toronto concert committee of the Canadian League of Composers. She continued to work for the CBC in a variety of capacities, including music consultant (1957–1959), script assistant (1962–1963), talent relations officer (1963–1964), and national program organizer for radio (1964–1966). From 1966-1969 she was a producer for CBC Radio for such programs as Organists in Recital, RSVP, and From the Age of Elegance. She also hosted and produced the program Music of Today during these years and, after resigning as a producer at CBC in 1969, continued to host and commentate for that program in the 1970s. She also served as the president of Ten Centuries Concerts from 1965-1968.

She is among a generation of pioneering professional electronic music composers. From 1967 to 1976 she worked independently in the Electronic Music Studio inside the Edward Johnson Building (UTEMS) of the University of Toronto, Faculty of Music. Because of her reputation as a composer she was one of the first non-students to be able to experiment in the new facility. There she focused on multitrack recording and looping as an extension of existing instrumental or vocal sounds. Her podcast Conversations With Post World War II Pioneers of Electronic Music features some of the fellow composers around that time.

During the 1970s, Beecroft was busy working as a freelance radio producer, notably creating numerous documentaries for CBC Radio on Canadian composers like Jean Coulthard, Harry Freedman, Bruce Mather, Barbara Pentland, Harry Somers, Gilles Tremblay, and John Weinzweig among others. She also created documentaries on composers Murray Adaskin and Violet Archer for CJRT-FM. In 1975 she put together 13 broadcast records entitled Music Canada that contained music taken from recordings in the collections at the libraries of Radio Canada International and the Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada. In 1976 she won the Major Armstrong Award for excellence in FM broadcasting for her documentary The Computer in Music. She later produced electronic music scores for William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1982) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1983) at the Stratford Festival.

In 1971 Beecroft co-founded the New Music Concerts (NMC) with composer and flutist Robert Aitken. The NMC was founded with the purpose of providing a performance venue for new music as well as providing performers with opportunities to further master modern performance techniques. Beecroft served as the organization’s president through 1989. She was a member of the music faculty at York University from 1984-1987 where she taught classes in electronic music and composition. She has since returned there as a guest lecturer and worked in that capacity at the University of Montreal as well.

References

Norma Beecroft Wikipedia Page