Female composers

[Mr. Three Putt]

Marina Khorhova : existential sounds on the border of life



"My composition VORderGRENZE (2010) for clarinet, cello and prepared piano deals with the edges of life: existential sounds on the border of life and death represented by different breath sounds, reinforced with partials and translated into the instrumental parts. The fight to the last breath is the essential message of the piece, which is expressed by some extreme sound gestures. Various processes and characteristics of inhalation and exhalation were tried in quasi sound-photographs. Suffocating breath sounds, for example, are chaotic and noisy. Last breaths have a dark timbre with delicate nuances (such as wheezing) during inhalation and exhalation. The instrumentalists were also directed to blow on megaphones and this natural and quiet breathing was compared and linked, as it were, with the inhalation and exhalation of the instrumental sounds."

I couldn't find this on Youtube but sampled a work of hers there. I'm listening now from your blog. It has a Pink Floyd "Echoes" quality that I like.

[San Antone]

I couldn't find this on Youtube but sampled a work of hers there. I'm listening now from your blog. It has a Pink Floyd "Echoes" quality that I like.

Glad you listened and enjoyed it.  I wish she would update her Soundcloud page with some of her more recent works; e.g. I am interested in hearing her second string quartet (2015).  Thanks.

[San Antone]

Sarah Kirkland Snider : Unremembered



"In the case of Unremembered, that was a project where the commissions came from two different places and the piece sort of evolved over time. It started out as a Roomful of Teeth commission. I wrote these five songs, based on these poems that I asked my friend Nathaniel [Bellows] to write. These poems felt like a leather-bound book of old stories that I wanted to dive into. I really loved writing those songs, so when we were finished, Nathaniel kept writing more poems and I decided to make it a song cycle."

[Mr. Three Putt]

Glad you listened and enjoyed it.  I wish she would update her Soundcloud page with some of her more recent works; e.g. I am interested in hearing her second string quartet (2015).  Thanks.

I just made a Soundcloud page to follow a few composing friends. My page will remain blank, as I'm likely to decompose before composing anything.

[San Antone]

Annea Lockwood : sound artist



Born in New Zealand in 1939 and living in the US since 1973, Annea Lockwood is known for her explorations of the rich world of natural acoustic sounds and environments, in works ranging from sound art and installations, through text-sound and performance art to concert music.

[Daverz]

Has Vivian Fung been mentioned.  There is an excellent Naxos CD:

[asin]B008N66KNO[/asin]

Or Judith Lang Zaimont?  She has had several Naxos CDs.  I found the CD below in the bargain bin at Amoeba, and it's pretty good

[asin]B00004TVAE[/asin]

Her Symphony No. 1 and other orchestral works.

[San Antone]

Lisa Bielawa : Singing Rilke



Lisa Carol Bielawa (born in San Francisco, California, September 30, 1968) is a composer and vocalist. She is a 2009 Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition and spent a year composing as a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. She takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and close artistic collaborations.  Her song cycle, The Lay of the Love and Death, has recently received a very good recording by baritone Jesse Blumberg and violinist Colin Jacobsen (both premiered the work in 2006) on Innova Records.

[Rinaldo]

Whoa. Ró for flute, bass clarinet, piano, percussion, violin I, violin II, viola & cello.

https://www.youtube.com/v/m_4JM4rcn70

Second piece by Anna Þorvaldsdóttir I've heard, after aequilibria, and I like this one even better.

[psu]

Caroline Shaw ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogu7Wfg1MLY

[Rinaldo]

Caroline Shaw ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogu7Wfg1MLY

Shaw's amazing, I keep returning to both the celebrated Partita and other pieces she's done. Even Kanye West is a fan!

[relm1]

Shaw's amazing, I keep returning to both the celebrated Partita and other pieces she's done. Even Kanye West is a fan!

If it has Kanye West's endorsement which is hard to get (ask Taylor Swift) then that's all I need to know...

[ibanezmonster]

Whoa. Ró for flute, bass clarinet, piano, percussion, violin I, violin II, viola & cello.

Whoa, indeed. Very beautiful piece. Between this and Halloween, I'm kind of getting in the mood to play Silent Hill!

[Rinaldo]

Another name that's new to me, the Estonian composer Helena Tulve.

https://www.youtube.com/v/AjdkyBKF57Q

[San Antone]

Another name that's new to me, the Estonian composer Helena Tulve.

https://www.youtube.com/v/AjdkyBKF57Q

Wonderful composer.  I interviewed her for my blog - HERE.

[Rinaldo]

Wonderful composer.  I interviewed her for my blog - HERE.

Cool, thanks for the link! I need to go through the older entries in your archive.

[Brian]

This March the Houston Symphony will deliver the premiere performance of Gabriela Lena Frank's viola concerto. She's a very good composer - I'm thinking about making the trip.

[Mirror Image]

Another good female composer: Ester Mägi (b. 1922).



Ester Mägi (born 10 January 1922) is an Estonian composer, widely regarded as the First Lady of Estonian Music.

Her compositional output is substantial and represents all genres, from chamber and vocal music to choral and highly regarded symphonic works. She trained initially under Mart Saar at the Tallinn Conservatory, then from 1951 to 1954 at the Moscow Conservatory under Vissarion Shebalin. Amongst her best-known works are her Piano Sonata (1949), Piano Trio in F minor (1950), Piano Concerto (1953), Violin Concerto (1958), Symphony (1968), Variations for Piano, Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra (1972), Bukoolika for orchestra (1983) and Vesper for violin and piano/organ (1990, arranged for strings in 1998). Much of her work has been inspired by Estonian folk music.

https://www.youtube.com/v/OfkXE_bsakE

https://www.youtube.com/v/Ady_84T2ESU

[jochanaan]

Whoa. Ró for flute, bass clarinet, piano, percussion, violin I, violin II, viola & cello.

https://www.youtube.com/v/m_4JM4rcn70

Second piece by Anna Þorvaldsdóttir I've heard, after aequilibria, and I like this one even better.

Yes, very lovely piece!

[San Antone]

Myriam Alter : encompassing jazz, classical music, and various European influences



Coming from a Judeo-Spanish family, Myriam Alter was raised with all kinds of musics such as Latin, Italian, Oriental, Spanish, South American and classical. As a piano player she was trained in classical music but later found her way into jazz.

Myriam Alter doesn't play the piano herself on her fifth record, Where is There (2007), she "merely" composed eight songs and assembled a sextet to perform them: reassembling the rhythm section from her last album, If  of bassist Greg Cohen, and drummer Joey Baron, as well as clarinet player John Ruocco, she added to the mix pianist Salvatore Bonafede, cellist Jaques Morelenbaum, and soprano saxophonist Pierre Vaiana.

[San Antone]

Laurie Anderson : performance artist; poet; provocateur; widow



Initially trained as a sculptor, Laurie Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s. Throughout the 1970s, Anderson did a variety of different performance-art activities. She became widely known outside the art world in 1981 when her single "O Superman" reached number two on the UK pop charts. She also starred in and directed the 1986 concert film Home of the Brave, which was based on her landmark recording Mister Heartbreak ((Warner Bros. 1984)

She has once again directed her creative energies toward film with the release in October of Heart of a Dog at once mediation on life, loss and the passage of time.

At the center of the imagery and subtle ambiances and strings, stands her voice which is mesmerizing and hypnotic. Her abstract thoughts on a variety of subjects, such as death, love, loss, grief are tapping deeply into the subconscious and resonate strongly in the way poetry does. She loves to examine a certain subject from innumerable angles and that sounds like an amazing outpouring of stories in a stream of consciousness manner that subtly intertwine, mesh and morph together. The result to that is a compelling, single intimate story.

"Every love story is a ghost story," Ms. Anderson says at one point, quoting David Foster Wallace, yet another lingering spirit.