CELEBRATING THREE AMERICAN WOMEN COMPOSERS

RUTH CRAWFORD SEEGER

Ruth Crawford Seeger started composing music in 1925 and continued throughout her life until she died in 1953. In 1936, she turned her attention to American folk music. She worked as a music editor on the Lomax Our Singing Country where she notated hundreds of traditional American folk songs.

Long ago, before CDs and IPods, folk songs were passed from generation to generation. Older people would teach the young as this was the only way to keep a song from disappearing forever. Sometimes the melodies would change a bit from person to person. Have you ever played the game “telephone”, where you whisper a phrase, traveling person to person, around a circle? By the time you get all the way around, the phrase has changed quite a bit. Sometimes it makes no sense by the end! Folk songs would evolve over time, as well.

Ruth began with field recordings from the Archive of American Folk Song in the Library of Congress. These field recordings created a permanent record of folk songs which had been collected and recorded from across the country. Ruth had the task of writing them down using musical notation. This was definitely not an easy task. She would have to listen to a recording many, many times to try to get the right notes and rhythms. She sometimes would listen to a field recording 100 times just to get it right! Ruth also had to be creative in how she notated these recordings. Sometimes she had to invent a new musical symbol because the singers would perform a melody in a way that traditional music notation could not accurately represent.

With her work, she ensured that these American folk songs would live on forever. She also continued to promote American folk songs by publishing three home and nursery school books; American Folk Songs for Children, Animal Folk Songs for Children, and American Folk Songs for Christmas.

Click on the links below to hear field recordings of American Folk music!

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/guide/audio/1-RolltheOldChariotAlongHaultheWoodpileDown.mp3

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/guide/audio/6-ShoveItOver.mp3

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/guide/audio/2-ManabusTellstheDuckstoShutTheirEyes.mp3

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/guide/audio/4-RockyMySoul.mp3

ASSIGNMENT: Do you know an older friend or family member that remembers a song from their childhood? Just like the way that folk songs were passed from generation to generation, maybe they could pass this song along to you. Ask them to sing the song a few times, and then try to join in. You could write down the lyrics so that you can remember it in the future.

JENNIFER HIGDON

Jennifer Higdon began studying music at the age of 15, when she taught herself how to play the flute. She continued studying music and began composing at the age of 21. Jennifer now composes between 5-10 pieces each year. She has received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her piece, Violin Concerto. In addition, the League of American Orchestras reported that she is one of America’s most frequently performed composers. Her music is often described as having an “American sound”, in that it conveys “immediacy, vitality, and sense of optimism.”

On the upcoming concert, you wi hear Jennifer Higdon’s piece called blue cathedral. This piece has been performed over 400 times worldwide since it premiered in 2000. She wrote this piece in tribute to her younger brother who died from cancer at the age of 33. While it is sad that she lost her brother, she did not want to compose a mournful piece. She wanted her music to create an uplifting feeling.

The piece features a solo clarinet, the instrument that her brother played, and a flute, the instrument that Jennifer played. The flute appears before the clarinet as she was older, and came in to the world before him. Other instruments weave in and out of the piece, just as people come into our lives. At the end of the piece, the flute breaks off as the clarinet continues its upward journey toward the heavens. There is a distant chiming 33 times, played by a piano, representing his age when he died. Jennifer described her thoughts and imagery for blue cathedral:

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. Cathedrals represent a place of beginnings, endings, solitude, fellowship, contemplation, knowledge and growth. As I was writing this piece, I found myself imagining a journey through a glass cathedral in the sky. Because the walls would be transparent, I saw the image of clouds and blueness permeating from the outside of this church. In my mind’s eye the listener would enter from the back of the sanctuary, floating along the corridor amongst giant crystal pillars, moving in a contemplative stance. The stained glass windows’ figures would start moving with song, singing a heavenly music. The listener would float down the aisle, slowly moving upward at first and then progressing at a quicker pace, rising towards an immense ceiling which would open to the sky. As this journey progressed, the speed of the traveler would increase, rushing forward and upward. I wanted to create the sensation of contemplation and quiet peace at the beginning, moving towards the feeling of celebration and ecstatic expansion of the soul, all the while singing along with that heavenly music.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFa_2ROayCE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99Ys-Y2MGvs&feature=relmfu

JOAN TOWER

Joan Tower was born in New York in 1938, but she moved to South America at a young age. She credits her experiences there for making rhythm such an important part of her work. She moved back to the United States for college.Tower has written a wide variety of works, from chamber and solo pieces, to orchestra works, and a ballet commission. In 2008 the recording by the Nashville Symphony under Leonard Slatkin of Tower’s piece Made in America won three Grammy’s for Best Orchestral Performance, Best Classical Album, and Best Classical Contemporary Composition.

This upcoming NBSO concert features Copland’s Symphony No. 3 in which Copland included his famous Fanfare for the Common Man in the last movement. After listening to that well-known American piece, you may want to listen to Joan Tower’s piece entitled, Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman. This piece is also very powerful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm8EZj5skY8

In this youtube video, Joan Tower talks about the importance of new music and the place of living composers in classical music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXIFArjXT0M&feature=relmfu

In this youtube video, Joan talks about her piece Made in America. She demonstrates on the piano how the piece was inspired by our national anthem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yaySB_sBM4&feature=relmfu