“Faneuil Hall” – Organ Solo

Webster Replying to Hayne

Pamela Decker’s Faneuil Hall is a large-scale prelude and fugue;

I Elegy: The Cradle of Liberty
II Fugue: Liberty and Union Now and Forever. The piece was inspired by the large painting above the stage in the Great Hall, Webster replying to Hayne.

“Faneuil Hall pays tribute to the city of Boston through a musical portrait of the landmark that has housed pivotal meetings and events in the history of the United States. Faneuil Hall was built in 1742 as a market house that offered a meeting hall on its upper level. The hall has been referred to as “the Cradle of Liberty,” in connection with its status as the location for citizens’ meetings and government actions that advanced the cause of liberty.

The first movement is cast in the form and meter of a lullaby.  The overall mood is meditative, lyrical, and post-Romantic in nature. The melodic and harmonic materials are derived from nontonal modes based on intervallic patterns related to flamenco modes. There is a hint of Impressionism, but within a flamenco-inflenced language.

The second movement is a fugue, a procedure that is especially evocative of the type of interaction that would take place in a meeting of citizens and/or officials. “Liberty and Union Now and Forever”, is the title of the speech by Daniel Webster depicted in the painting by George Healy that is prominently centered above the stage area in Faneuil Hall. The fugue subject is based on a musical spelling of “Faneuil Hall,” combined with the continuation of a language based on flamenco modal patterns. As the fugue develops, the subject/answer entries begin to alternate with fanfare-like motives. The distinctive intervallic patterns of the flamenco modes have qualities that can be either “spicy” or “sweet” in nature.  This interaction of “flavors” is juxtaposed with the alternation of subject lines and fanfare motives and builds to the work’s highest point of intensity as the fugue reaches its final pages.” (From Pamela Decker’s program notes).  Faneuil Hall is available from Wayne Leupold Editions

Pamela Decker

Pamela Decker is professor of organ and music theory at the University of Arizona and organist at Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, both in Tucson. She has performed as a featured recitalist at American Guild of Organists national (1992) and regional conventions, the University of Michigan Conference on Organ Music, the Twice Festival, the Redlands Organ Festival, and the Tallinn International Organ Festival, among others. Some of her major works have been recorded by Douglas Cleveland, Janice Beck, and Christa Rakich.

Dr. Decker holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from Stanford University and was a Fulbright Scholar in Germany. She has won prizes in national and international competitions as performer and composer. In 2004, she was awarded the Henry and Phyllis Koffler Prize for Research/Creative Activity and, in 2000, she was awarded the College of Fine Arts Award for Teaching Excellence, both from the University of Arizona.

“Neumark Dances” – Organ Solo

Lisa Bielawa’s ‘Neumark’ Dances are based on the hymn tune “Wer nur den lieben Gott”  for organ solo.  She writes:  “ ‘Neumark’ – which I remember as “If thou but suffer God to guide thee” – has the charisma of an oscillation between natural and harmonic minor, along with melodic cells that encourage us to hear contours echoed upside-down. These properties made me feel a combination of yearning and excitement. In this chorale prelude I wanted to accentuate, deepen and explore these properties, and these feelings. I also wanted to find as many canons within the melody as I could, at different speeds, some of them upside-down.”  ‘Neumark’ Dances is available through Ganesa Music.

Lisa Bielawa

Composer-vocalist Lisa Bielawa is a 2009 Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition. She takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and close artistic collaborations.

Born in San Francisco into a musical family, Lisa Bielawa played the violin and piano, sang, and wrote music from early childhood. She moved to New York two weeks after receiving her B.A. in Literature in 1990 from Yale University, and became an active participant in New York musical life. She began touring with the Philip Glass Ensemble in 1992, and has also toured with composers such as John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, and Michael Gordon. In 1997 she co-founded the MATA Festival, which celebrates the work of young composers.

Bielawa was appointed Artistic Director of the acclaimed San Francisco Girls Chorus in 2013 and is an artist-in-residence at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, California.

Lo Ira Ra (I Will Not Fear) – Mixed chorus, accordion, clarinet, harp and piano

Betty Olivero has written a solemn, moving choral piece for SATB chorus and soloists, clarinet, accordion, piano and harp using a compilation of psalm verses of supplication.  The title, Lo Ira Ra is taken from Psalm 23 and is translated “I Will Fear No Evil.”  Each voice in this composition speaks in dialogue with the others in the style of Middle Eastern heterophony.  There is essentially one melody that is played and sung differently by each voice in the composition, each voice inspired in part from the music rising from the swarming population of Jerusalem.  The Psalms themselves are shared by a number of religions and in this piece the text and music reflect the reality of the music that is already shared.

“I find the process of confronting and juxtaposing traditional, formal means with contemporary vocabulary to be highly challenging and of great curiosity. One of the most fundamental issues in my work, and the aim of my musical creation, is to use traditional, ethnic music materials in the compositional processes and thereby participate in the essence of oral tradition: transmission of essence, through evolution of expression: preservation and change. I do not seek these materials out of any scientific-musicological point of view. They serve purely as a dramatic stimulus and as a point of reference. Close scrutiny of these sources uncovers hidden, unpremeditated musical means, which invite further extension and development. These traditional melodies and texts undergo thorough transformation, so profound as to make their original form, at times, unrecognizable, yet their spirit and highly-charged dramatic potential remain untouched.” (from www.olivero.co.il)

Betty Olivero

 Betty Olivero is a contemporary Israeli composer, who has lived during most of her career in Florence,Italy.

In Olivero’s works, traditional and ethnic music materials are processed using western contemporary compositional techniques; traditional melodies and texts undergo processes of development, adaptation, transformation, assimilation, resetting and re-composition, to the point of assuming new forms in different contexts. These processes touch on wide and complex areas of contrast, such as east and west, holy and secular, traditional and new.

Olivero was awarded the Fromm Award by the Fromm Music Foundation (USA, 1986), the Prime Minister’s Prize (Israel, 2001 and 2009), the Rosenblum Award for the Performing Arts (Israel, 2003), the Landau Award for the Performing Arts (Israel, 2004), the ACUM prize for Life Achievements (Israel, 2004), and the ACUM Award for Achievement of the Year (Israel, 2010).

In 2000, Olivero was awarded the prestigious Koussevitzky Award by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation and the Library of Congress.

‘Apparitions’– Organ and String Quartet

Robert Sirota’s Appartitions for string quartet and organ is in four movements based on American Hymn tunes.  The movements are:  1.  My Shepherd will supply my need, 2.  Jesus calls us, 3.Come, thou fount of every blessing and 4.  What wondrous love is this?

“American hymnody has played a significant role in my organ writing for some time. The last organ piece I wrote was for the historic Appleton organ, an 1830 instrument housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s a rather ghostly instrument, so I imagined that three early American hymns (Helmsley, Semley, and From Greenland’s Icy Mountains) had been played on the Appleton so many times that the organ was able to play them by itself, and I went from there. The title of that piece is holy ghosts. I was still turning that idea over out in my mind when I learned that the 2014 AGO commission would be performed in King’s Chapel, practically the epicenter of 18th and 19th century New England hymnody.

Apparitions emerged as paraphrases on four tunes – not so much variations as jumping-off points for something more flexible and fantastic. I have employed two Southern Harmony tunes: Jesus Calls Us (Restoration) and Wondrous Love, and two Northern tunes: My Shepherd Will Supply My Need (Resignation) and Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing (Nettleton), and am in awe of the spiritual and emotional range of these great melodies: the stark simplicity of Resignation, the primal power of Restoration, the passionate joy of Nettleon, and particularly the fierce piety of Wondrous Love.” (From Robert Sirota’s program notes)  Robert Sirota’s music is available through Muzzy Ridge Music.

Robert Sirota

 Over the last four decades as a composer, Robert Sirota has developed a distinctive voice, clearly discernable in all of his work – whether symphonic, choral, stage, or chamber music. The New York Times has described his styles as, “fashioned with the clean, angular melodies, tart harmonies, lively syncopations and punchy accents of American Neo-Classicism,” and writes, “Thick, astringent chromatic harmonies come in tightly bound chords to create nervous sonorities. Yet the textures are always lucid; details come through.”

A native New Yorker, Sirota’s earliest compositional training began at the Juilliard School; he received his bachelor’s degree in piano and composition from the Oberlin Conservatory, where he studied with Joseph Wood and Richard Hoffman. A Thomas J. Watson Fellowship allowed him to study and concertize in Paris, where his principal teacher was Nadia Boulanger. Returning to America, Sirota earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University, studying with Earl Kim and Leon Kirchner.

Embertides – Organ Solo

Hilary Tann’s  Embertides consists of four separate movements that take their inspiration from the roughly equal divisions of the church year – Advent, Lent, Whitsun, Michaelmas. These divisions in turn pay homage to earlier, secular traditions – Winter (seeding), Spring (awakening), Summer (harvesting), Autumn (vintage). The cycle is unified by references to verses from the 11th-century plainsong sequence ‘Veni Sancte Spiritus’; in addition, each piece contains hints of hymns appropriate to each season. The work may be performed as a concert suite or individual movements may be used separately within church services.  Embertides is available from Oxford University Press.

Hilary Tann

Welsh-born composer, Hilary Tann, lives in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains in Upstate New York where she is the John Howard Payne Professor of Music at Union College, Schenectady. She holds degrees in composition from the University of Wales at Cardiff and from Princeton University. From 1982 to 1995 she held a number of Executive Committee positions with the International League of Women Composers.

She was guest Composer-in-Residence at the 2011 Eastman School of Music Women in Music Festival and will be composer-in- residence at the 2013 Women Composers Festival of Hartford. Praised for its lyricism and formal balance, her music is influenced by her love of Wales and a strong identification with the natural world. A deep interest in the traditional music of Japan has led to private study of the shakuhachi and guest visits to Japan, Korea, and China. Her compositions have been widely performed and recorded
by ensembles such as the European Women?s Orchestra, Tenebrae, Lontano, Meininger Trio, Thai Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBCNOW, and KBS Philharmonic in Seoul, Korea. Website: hilarytann.com.

 Prelude on ‘Picardy’ – Organ Solo

David Lasky’s Prelude on “Picardy” is expertly designed for use as an organ prelude with its  essential reflective quality interjected with modal and rhythmic changes that lead to an unexpected ending. The tune “Picardy” is most often paired with the text “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence”.  This composition is a set of continuous variations moving from d minor to d dorian and back again. The first directions on this piece ask the organist to play “reflectively but not too slowly.”  There are slight chromatic modifications in the first variation that are used more expressively toward the end of the piece.  The middle variations move somewhat faster with more chromatic and rhythmic changes.  The final variation spins to a pensive ending.

David Lasky

David Lasky earned his Bachelor of Music in 1979 at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, where he also earned his Master of Music in organ performance. In 2005, he earned his Master of Arts in church music and liturgy at St. Joseph’s College in Renssalaer, Indiana. He is organist and director of music at St. Cecelia’s Church in Leominster, Massachusetts, and resides in Hartland, Vermont with his wife, Pamela, and their beloved cats, Chloe, Puzzle, and Leo. The heartbeat of their home is their dog, Shelby, whom they love beyond measure. As an organist, Mr. Lasky has performed as soloist and in ensemble throughout Massachusetts and in recital at the National Cathedral and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, both in Washington, D.C. He is very active as a composer and arranger of sacred organ and choral music, with thirty-nine collections of organ music in print.

“Eternal Ruler of the Ceaseless Round”  – SATB chorus and Organ

Libby Larsen is the 2014 AGO Distinguished Composer.  She has a catalog of over 400 works that can be seen at libbylarsen.com.

 Eternal Ruler of the Ceaseless Round is a hymn and anthem in one composition, scored for congregation, SATB chorus and organ.  The organ part leads with triumphs and restless vitality while the hymn moves in a straightforward way reminiscent of the hymns sung at the birth of our nation.  The glorious organ introduction begins the piece in C Major after which the congregation sings the first stanza.  The organ then introduces the choir to sing the second stanza in the Lydian Mode (in E Flat).   The organ again leads the choir to sing the final stanza in C.  The text is by the New England theologian and hymnwriter John W. Chadwick in 1864.  Eternal Ruler of the Ceaseless Round is available from Oxford University Press.

Libby Larsen

Libby Larsen’s catalogue spans virtually every genre, from intimate vocal and chamber music to massive orchestral works and more than fifteen operas. Her music has been praised for its dynamic, deeply inspired, and vigorous contemporary American spirit. She has been hailed as “the only English-speaking composer since Benjamin Britten who matches great verse with fine music so intelligently and expressively” (USA Today); as “a composer who has made the art of symphonic writing very much her own” (Gramophone); as “a mistress of orchestration” (Times Union); and for “assembling one of the most impressive bodies of music of our time” (Hartford Courant).

Ms. Larsen received a 1994 Grammy Award as producer of The Art of Arlene Augér, an acclaimed recording that features Larsen’s Sonnets from the Portuguese. USA Today named the premiere of her opera Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus one of the eight best classical music events of 1990. She has held residencies with the California Institute of the Arts, the Arnold Schoenberg Institute, the Philadelphia School of the Arts, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, The Minnesota Orchestra, and the Charlotte and Colorado symphonies. Her works are widely recorded on such labels as Angel/EMI, Nonesuch, Decca, and Koch International. She held the Harissios Papamarkou Chair in Education at the Library of Congress in 2003–2004, and is the recipient of the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

O Be Joyful in the Lord– SATB Chorus and Organ

Matthew Martin’s  O be joyful in the Lord is designed to be easily rehearsed and to be suitable for general use throughout the year. It has a declamatory organ part but which can be played on instruments of a modest size, and the choir parts are celebratory in style.  The piece shifts accents and intensity for an elegant, expressive effect.  O be joyful in the Lord is available from Faber Music.

Matthew Martin

 Matthew Martin studied at Magdalen College, Oxford and the Royal Academy of Music. He is one of the United Kingdom’s leading choral composers and is frequently commissioned to write for prominent ensembles, most recently the BBC Singers and the choirs of Westminster Abbey; St. Paul’s Cathedral; Chester Cathedral; St. John’s College, Cambridge; and Magdalen College, Oxford. His upcoming projects include new works for The Sixteen and the Gabrieli Consort. His work is published exclusively by Faber Music. Mr. Martin was assistant master of music at Westminster Cathedral from 2004 through 2010, and has also held positions at New College, Oxford and Canterbury Cathedral. He currently conducts the Nave Choir at the annual Edington Music Festival and is the organist at the London Oratory.

Benedictus – SATB chorus, organ

Scott Perkins’s Benedictus has a glorious, exuberant opening that reflects the joyfulness of this canticle of thanksgiving. In a middle section, swirling melodies intertwine over rich harmonies as Zechariah reveals to his son, John the Baptist, the role John will have in preparing the way for the Lord. An exultant doxology concludes the work.  Benedictus is available through Encore Music Creations.

Scott Perkins

Connecticut native Scott Perkins enjoys a multifaceted career as an international prizewinning composer, a versatile performer, an award-winning scholar, and a music educator. His music includes art songs, opera, musical theatre, solo instrumental works, choral music, electroacoustic media, and music for film and church, and has been performed throughout North America and Europe. His recently composed opera, Charon, commissioned and premiered by the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center, has been praised by the Washington Post (“dramatic,” “colorful”) and the Washington Times Community (“perfectly orchestrated,” “haunting,” “a remarkable and welcome musical surprise”).. He is published by Augsburg Fortress.

He holds master’s degrees in both music theory and music theory pedagogy from Eastman.

Since Fall 2012, Scott has been a member of the faculty at DePauw University, where he teaches courses in composition, music theory, and musicianship. He has also taught at Central Connecticut State University, Nazareth College, and the Interlochen Summer Arts Academy.