SKU: FA.MFRO001P

8.27 x 11.69 inches.

Over the years 1908-16, Debussy had produced a viable scenario for Usher on his third attempt. Butwhen he came to making a complete draft of the music, he seems to have lost interest during Roderick Usher's long monologue, even though he was setting his own text. As in No-ja-li he jumped to the next passage that interested him, in this case the exciting final melodrama and the collapse of the Usher house itself. In the process of completing the missing half of the score, I discovered that by reusing Debussy's material for similar psychological situations across the opera, and by metamorphosing existing ideas (as Debussy does with Melisande's theme in his opera Pelleas et Melisande), the only things I really needed to add were linking material and any passages where fast music was required. So the 'nightmare scherzo', and Lady Madeline's escape from her coffin and her final bloody revenge on her brother are all mine, but most of the rest is existing Debussy in changing contexts (in which the Russian technique of 'changing backgrounds', both harmonic and textural, proved extremely useful, as it did to Debussy in his Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune). Eventually, both my completed ballet No-ja-li and the House of Usher were successfully premiered in 2006 and the latter soon began to find its way into the established repertoire in Europe and the US. To further support this, I transcribed some of the highlights of Debussy's score as A Night in the House of Usher for organ, and subsequently piano--with a focus on Scene 2 and the final, horrific and maca-bre melodrama. This climaxes in the double deaths of Roderick Usher and his Sister Madeline, together with the disintegration of the ill-fated House of Usher into the stagnant lake-all beneath a blood-red moon.In this form it was first performed by Ian Buckle in the Howard Assembly Rooms, Leeds in 2010.

SKU: GI.G-10451

ISBN 9781622775934.

Featuring: George Lynn • George Eugene Umberson • Donald Neuen • Paris Rutherford • Peter Bagley • Charlene Archibeque • Eph Ehly • Joseph Flummerfelt • Joan Conlon • Ann Howard Jones • Simon Carrington • Earl Rivers • Henry Leck • Hilary Apfelstadt • André Thomas • Maria Guinand Choral conductors shoulder a great responsibility as custodians of their craft. And there is perhaps no better source of inspiration and guidance for today’s conductors than the experiences and insights of choral giants who have blazed the trail we now tread. In Search of Inspiration is a collection of in-depth interviews with fifteen highly respected choral conductors from around the world. Each answers a series of fundamental questions about how they shaped their achievements: How do they balance their time making music and fulfilling teaching schedules and concert schedules? How do they motivate students, manage outside professional commitments in the educational setting, and satisfy administrators? Each conductor generously shares their wisdom and expertise, discussing memorable educational moments on the podium and in the classroom, recounting stirring experiences in the concert hall, and sharing stories about their work with historic figures in music. They also offer insights on programming repertoire and explain how they have successfully navigated a career in music. These interviews document the through lines within the choral art—elements of performance and mentorship stemming from such luminaries as Julius Herford and Robert Shaw that connect so many of the great conductors. A fascinating and relevant read for any choral educator, In Search of Inspiration explores the choral art through extraordinary 20th- and 21st-century voices whose artistry and influence will be felt for generations to come. Gregory Gentry is director of choral studies and the Lynn Whitten Choral Music Faculty Fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is editor of the Gregory Gentry Choral Series (Fred Bock Publishers), past president of Arizona ACDA, and former chorus master with the Phoenix Symphony and Colorado Music Festival. Gentry states that he felt it was time to revitalize and update the book In Quest of Answers: Interviews with American Choral Conductors (Howard Swan and Carole Glenn). Contributors: Emilie Bertram, Corie Brown, Galen Darrough, Stephen Futrell, Anna Wheeler Gentry, Gregory Gentry, Sharon A. Hansen, Aaron Harp, Vernon Huff, David Kates, Dee Romines, Kira Zeeman Rugen, Paul Thompson, Betsy Cook Weber, Adam Zrust.

SKU: HL.354338

ISBN 9781705107669. UPC: 840126936964. 9.0x12.0x0.109 inches.

Richard Wilson was born in Cleveland on May 15, 1941. He studied piano with Roslyn Pettibone, Egbert Fischer, and Leonard Shure, andcello with Robert Ripley and Ernst Silberstein. After beginning composition studies with Roslyn Pettibone and Howard Whittaker, he went on in 1959 to Harvard, studying with Randall Thompson, G.W. Woodworth, and principally with Robert Moevs, and graduating in 1963 magna cum laude. Awarded the Frank Huntington Beebe Award for study abroad, he continued studying piano with Friedrich Wührer in Munich, and composition, again with Moevs, in Rome, where he also gave piano recitals. Wilson joined the faculty of Vassar College in 1966. He was appointed to the Mary Conover Mellon Professorship of Music there in 1988, and he has served three times as chairman of the Department of Music. Wilson has been commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, the American Symphony, the New Juilliard Ensemble, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Fromm Foundation, Chamber Music America, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation, and the Library of Congress. His works have been heard in such American musical centers as New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Cleveland, and Los Angeles and at the Aspen Music Festival, but also in London, Berlin, Frankfurt, Zurich, Milan, Amsterdam, Graz, Leningrad, Stockholm, Tokyo, Bogota, and a number of Australian cities. The recipient in 1992 of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he was awarded the Elise L. Stoeger Prize of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 1994, the Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2004, and has served as composer in residence with the American Symphony Orchestra since 1992. Wilson has been praised by 21st Century Music as a “splendidly talented and highly accomplished composer whose music rewards seeking out” and by the New York Sun as “possessed of a hard-won idiom that has grown and developed over the years into a probing blend of wit, classic form, modern harmony, and impressionistic color.” Writing in the New Yorker, Andrew Porter called his String Quartet No. 3 a “richly wrought and unusual composition,” while the New York Times called it “a work of substance and expressivity ... [that] merits a place in the active repertory.”.

SKU: OU.9780193546400

ISBN 9780193546400. 11 x 9 inches.

For SATB unaccompanied In Grown about by fragrant bushes, Skempton sets a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson using gentle, lilting melodies. The theme of loss is sensitively conveyed in a tonal language that is made more expressive through the use of chromaticism.