Composer's Studio

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“In times of crisis and peril, we have but the reliance of faith - from the profound faith in humanity, faith in love, and faith that we will persevere and get through this with dignity” -Composer Vivian Fung

On Composer’s Studio this week:

JUNO Award-winning Canadian composer Vivian Fung’s new work, Prayer, was composed with a young child at home 24/7, a bronchial infection, and a very tight timeline to complete the piece in a manner feasible for COVID remote performance requirements. Known for the theoretical complexity and virtuosity required to play her compositions, Vivian has taken a different approach to this piece, bearing her heart completely with a directness that allows the listener to transcend our current moment, if only for a few minutes. Join Anna and Tarik on Composer’s Studio, Sunday, September 20 at 4pm ET on WHUPfm.org, composersstudio.net, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe today!

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Allison Loggins-Hull is a composer and producer with roots in classical, urban art pop, hip-hop, electronic programming, and R&B.  The flute duo, Flutronix, she and collaborator Nathalie Joachim founded has been described as  “a unique blend of classical music, hip-hop, electronic programming, and soulful vocals reminiscent of neo-R&B stars like Erykah Badu.” Flutronix has collaborated with an impressive range of artists and ensembles including legendary hip-hop producer Ski Beatz, electronic music sensation Dan Deacon, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Take a deep dive into Allison Loggins-Hull's fascinating music and genre defying career with Anna and Tarik.

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At just 19 years old, Grammy award winning Iranian American Jewish-Christian composer Richard Danielpour had a strange mystical experience that left him awed and shaken, but with new clarity in his faith and life’s purpose as a composer. His powerful and deeply spiritual music made him one of the most beloved and recorded composers of his generation, yet he still struggled to complete the spiritual quest assigned to him during that epiphany those many years ago--to tell the story of the last hours of Jesus of Nazareth from the perspective of his Middle Eastern Jewish followers--not that of his later European interpreters.  After more than 25 years of internal struggle, Danielpour’s magnum opus, The Passion of Yeshua, an oratorio written in both Hebrew and English, had its premier in 2018. On this episode of CS, Richard Danielpour joins Tarik and Anna to tell his story and share some of his favorite moments from the new Naxos recording of this monumental work, released in March 2020. Special thanks to Naxos Records and Bill Holab and Lean Kat Music (BMI) for allowing us to play this recording.

https://www.naxos.com/feature/Danielpour-The-Passion-of-Yeshua.asp

Danielpour, The Passion of Yeshua

Copyright © 2017 by Lean Kat Music (BMI). All Rights Reserved.

Sole Agent: Bill Holab Music.

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A composer with a deep love of the English language and a secret dramatic streak, Juliana Hall is one of the most prolific Art Song composers alive today.  Juliana ventures out of her monastic studio to join Anna and Tarik for a rare conversation about the relationship between poetry and music, her habit of mining other people’s letters for material, and the real reason Lady Godiva rode naked through the streets. Enjoy a sneak peek into her upcoming album, Bold Beauty, on Griffin Records, set to come out this fall.

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Composer Daniel Bernard Roumain doesn’t ask for permission. He is a revolutionary, changing the world of concert music and opera by creating unapologetically black music--opera, string quartets, a YouTube requiem--all for black audiences. Taking the classical music world by storm, DBR is challenging some of the most powerful names and revered institutions in the classical music world to examine their repertoire and their hearts. Why in spite of blind auditions are there so few black musicians in the world’s orchestras? Why are classical music audiences so white? Are the orchestras and opera companies racist? Maybe. Or maybe it’s the repertoire. Well, not anymore. Join Tarik and Anna for an important conversation about the future of American concert music. 

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How can the act of creating transform fear and anger into courage and hope? Composer Adrienne Albert harnesses the mysterious emotional power of music to strengthen the spirit and change the heart. An artist who has had an extraordinary life in music, Adrienne started out as a singer working with  such luminaries as Igor Stravinsky and Leonard Bernstein before taking up the composer's pen three decades ago. Join Tarik and Anna for an uplifting, music packed hour with this gifted artist and lovely human being.

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What makes a life? After the early death of her younger brother, Andrew Blue, this question consumed composer Jennifer Higdon. Her beloved orchestral work, Blue Cathedral was her creative answer to that question. Blue…like the sky.  Where all possibilities soar.  Cathedrals…a place of thought, growth, spiritual expression…serving as a symbolic doorway into and out of this world.  Join Amy Scurria this week for a very personal conversation with Pulitzer prize and 3 time Grammy award winning composer, Jennifer Higdon about her life, her meteoric rise to prominence in the music world, and how she has adapted to pandemic life.

* List of works played on this episode:
1. The Shallows for string trio and orchestra, from Jennifer Higdon's "Concerto 4-3", commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the Wheeling Symphony. Performed by Time for Three and The Fort Worth Symphony with Miguel Harth-Bedoya conducting.
2. Our Beautiful Country for men's chorus, from Jennifer Higdon's opera, Cold Mountain based upon the novel by Charles Frazier with a libretto by Gene Scheer. Commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera, Opera Philadelphia, and the North Carolina Opera. Performance by Chanticleer from their CD, Heart of a Soldier.
3. Pale Yellow from Jennifer Higdon's Piano Trio. Commissioned by the Bravo-Vail Music Festival. Performed by Anna Akiko Meyers on violin, Alisa Weilerstein on cello, and Adam Neiman on piano. This work is available for purchase on the Naxos CD: "Jennifer Higdon: Piano Trio, Voices, Impressions"
4. Blue Cathedral for full orchestra. Commissioned by the Curtis Institute of Music. Performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with Robert Spano conducting. This work is available for purchase on the Telarc CD: "Rainbow Body"

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As a guitarist, composer Andrew McKenna Lee blends virtuosic classical technique with a Rocker’s hard driving passion for rhythm and originality. As a composer, he defies categorization. A self-admitted perfectionist, Andrew’s music is not your typical two rehearsal and done type of music, a quality, he says, has not made his musical journey an easy one. Still, with accolades from the likes of Steve Reich, we think he has done rather well for himself. On CS this week, Andrew opens up to Tarik and Anna about his musical education and mentors,  his quest to get everything he can from his instrument, and his struggle against self doubt that eventually led him to create music that has been described as the best synthesis of classical and rock music yet attempted.

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On CS this week, Amy is reunited with an old friend and collaborator, Emmy Award-winning composer, Steve Heitzeg. A lifelong peace and environmental activist, Steve’s music often features found instruments that reflect the theme of his work such as stones, driftwood, Joshua Tree branches, manatee and beluga whale bones, found bullets, and prosthetic limbs. A composer who believes in the power of children’s voices, Steve explains some of the unique challenges and considerations he takes into account when writing for these delicate performers. After he tells Anna whose score he is currently keeping under his pillow, we hear excerpts of Heitzeg’s 75-minute Nobel Symphony, commissioned to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prizes Finally, we hear his recent trumpet concerto American Nomad, a sonic journey across America, written for trumpet virtuoso Charles Lazarus. How did an armature from the Statue of Liberty happen to become a percussion instrument in this piece? You’ll have to listen to find out.

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"This is where your world and my world meet." - Tashi Tsering, Royal Tibetan Court Singer in Lo Mothang, Nepal. 

 When composer Andrea Clearfield accepted a commission from Network for New Music to collaborate with visual artist Maureen Drdak on a new work, she didn’t know it, but her life was about to change forever. As part of the commission, Maureen invited Andrea to join her and  anthropologist and ethnomusicologist Katey Blumenthal to travel to the remote, restricted northern Himalayan region of Lo Monthang, Nepal to research and record the area’s indigenous Tibetan folk music. The royal court singer of Lo Monthang was aging, and with no willing heirs to learn his repertoire, songs passed down orally for generations were being lost. Under the auspices of the Rubin Foundation, the three women recorded 130 songs previously undocumented that were then sent back to the village on horseback with boom boxes, cassette tapes, headsets and batteries so that the children could learn the music. Their recordings are now part of The University of Cambridge World Oral Literature Project, dedicated to the preservation of endangered languages. 

 This experience and this music has become an inextricable part of Andrea’s music. Join Amy Scurria and Anna Linvill this week as we speak with Andrea Clearfield about this powerful experience and its impact on her work.

* Recordings with performances by: 

- Lung-Ta commissioned and performed by Network for New Music, Linda Reichert in collaboration with artist Maureen Drdak and Group Motion Dance Company; 
- Tse Go La commissioned by The Mendelssohn Club and the Pennsylvania Girlchoir. Commissioned by The Mendelssohn Club, the Pennsylvania Girlchoir, and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia conducted by Alan Harler.
- MILA, Great Sorcerer commissioned by Terry Eder and Gene Kaufman. Libretto by Jean-Claude van Itallie and Lois Walden. Directed by Kevin Newbury. Performed by New York Virtuoso Singers with the Knights Orchestra conducted by Manoi Kamps.