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Composer, conductor and teacher Alice Parker was born in Boston, MA in 1925. She began composing early, and wrote her first orchestral score while still in high school. She graduated from Smith College with a major in music performance and composition, then receiving her master's degree from the Juilliard School where she studied choral conducting with Robert Shaw. Her life-work has been in choral and vocal music, combining composing, conducting and teaching in a creative balance. Her arrangements with Robert Shaw of folksongs, hymns and spirituals form an enduring repertoire for choruses all around the world. She continues composing in many forms, from operas to cantata, sacred anthems to secular dances, song cycles to string quartets. She has been commissioned by such groups as the Vancouver Chamber Chorus, the Atlanta Symphony Chorus and Chanticleer. Her many conducting and teaching engagements keep her traveling around the United States and Canada. In 1985, she founded Melodious Accord, Inc., a non-profit group that presents choral concerts, sponsors workshops, symposia, and her many professional appearances. The Fellows programs have provided unique training for composers, conductors and song leaders. She has made eleven acclaimed recordings with the Musicians of Melodious Accord, a sixteen-voice professional chorus. The group has received generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Copland Foundation, and the New York State Council for the Arts. Alice Parker serves on the Board of Chorus America, and was recently honored by the dedication to her of the Eastern Division Convention of the American Choral Directors Association. Her techniques have encouraged a generation of music teachers and choral conductors to think about music and the act of conducting in new ways. No less an authority than Robert Shaw himself has said of Parker that "…she possesses a rare and creative musical intelligence." Now a resident of western Massachusetts, Parker has published books on melodic styles, choral improvisation and 'Good Singing in Church'. The Anatomy of Melody has just been released. Five videos have appeared, showing her work with hymns and folksongs. She is the recipient of four honorary doctorates and the Smith College Medal. |
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Richard Peaslee was born in New York City and received his undergraduate degree in Music Composition from Yale University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. He received both a diploma and a Master of Science degree from The Juilliard School, in addition to studying privately with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and William Russo in New York and London. His concert works have been performed by orchestras, chamber ensembles and soloists, most notably the Philadelphia, Detroit, Seattle, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, and Buffalo Symphony Orchestras. His concerto for trombone, Arrows of Time, was premiered by the Seattle Symphony. Peaslee has written extensively for the theatre in New York, London and Paris. In addition to numerous scores for Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional theatres, he wrote the music for the Peter Brook/Royal Shakespeare Company productions of The Marat/Sade. He has also worked extensively with Joe Chaikin and The Open Theatre. In dance, Peaslee composed the score for Touch, commissioned and performed by the New York City Ballet with choreography by David Parsons, and The Four Humours, commissioned and performed by Pilobolus. His music for Elisa Monte’s Feu Follet, A Cajun Tale has toured Europe and America. Peaslee has also worked with choreographers Twyla Tharp, Lar Lubovitch, Kathryn Posin, Grethe Holby and Elizabeth Keen. |
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Ronald Perera's (b. Boston 1941) compositions include operas, song cycles, chamber, choral, and orchestral works, and several works for instruments or voices with electronic sounds. He is perhaps best known for his settings of texts by authors as diverse as Dickinson, Joyce, Grass, Sappho, Cummings, Shakespeare, Francis of Assisi, Melville, Ferlinghetti, Updike and Henry Beston. Perera studied composition with Leon Kirchner at Harvard and electronic music with Gottfried Michael Koenig at the University of Utrecht. He also worked independently with Randall Thompson in choral music and with Mario Davidovsky in electronic music. Ronald Perera has received awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, ASCAP, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the Artists Foundation of Massachusetts, Harvard University, the MacDowell colony, the Paderewski Fund, the Bogliasco Foundation, and Meet the Composer. In 1975 he co-edited The Development and Practice of Electronic Music for Prentice-Hall. His music is published by E.C. Schirmer, Boosey and Hawkes, Music Associates of New York and Pear Tree Press Music Publishers. It is recorded principally on the Albany, CRI and Opus One labels. His music has been performed by such artists as Phyllis Bryn-Julson, Sanford Sylvan, John Aler, Elsa Charlston, Leonard Raver, Scott Nikrenz, Samuel Sanders, Roman Totenberg, Jane Bryden, Karen Smith Emerson, Marni Nixon, James Maddalena, Douglas Perry, Jon Humphrey and Linda Hirst and under the direction of conductors including Gerard Schwarz, Richard Dufallo, David Gilbert, Edwin London, Theodore Antoniou, Richard Pittman, David Stock, Christopher Kendall, Amy Kaiser, Odaline de la Martinez and Paul Callaway. Perera has taught at Syracuse University, Dartmouth College and, from 1971-2002, at Smith College, where he held the Elsie Irwin Sweeney Chair in Music. The composer lives in Northampton, MA. |
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The recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, and an array of other major awards and honors, George Perle occupies a commanding position among American composers of our time. Born in Bayonne, NJ, May 6, 1915, he received his early musical education in Chicago. After graduation from DePaul University, where he studied composition with Wesley LaViolette, and subsequent private studies with Ernst Krenek, Perle served in the US Army during World War II. After the War, he took post-graduate work in musicology at New York University. His PhD thesis became his first book, Serial Composition and Atonality, now in its sixth edition. Perle’s music has been widely performed in this country and abroad. Major commissions have resulted in significant works, among them Serenade III (1983) for solo piano and chamber orchestra, choreographed by American Ballet Theater and nominated in a Nonesuch recording, for a Grammy award; Woodwind Quintet No.4 (Pulitzer Prize, 1986); Piano Concerto No.1 (1990), commissioned for Richard Goode during Perle’s residency with the San Francisco Symphony; Piano Concerto No.2 (1992), commissioned by Michael Boriskin; Transcendental Modulations for Orchestra, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for its 150th anniversary; and Thirteen Dickinson Songs (1978) commissioned by Bethany Beardslee. Recent works include Brief Encounters (fourteen movements for string quartet), Nine Bagatelles for piano, Critical Moments and Critical Moments 2 for six players, and Triptych for solo violin and piano. A particularly notable portion of Perle’s catalog consists of pieces for solo piano, many of which have been recorded by Michael Boriskin on New World Records. Though Perle is above all a composer, the breadth of his musical interests has led to significant contributions in theory and musicology as well. He has published numerous articles in scholarly journals and seven books, including the award-winning Operas of Alban Berg. He has been a guest professor at major universities and a much sought after lecturer and commentator on TV, here and abroad. He is Professor Emeritus at the City University of New York. |
| Craig Phillips
Craig Phillips (b.1961) is a distinguished and popular American composer and organist. He holds the degrees Doctor of Musical Arts, Master of Music, and the Performers Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York, where he studied with the great pedagogue Russell Saunders In July 2002, Dr. Phillips was featured as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra in a performance of his Concertino for organ and orchestraduring the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists in Philadelphia. He has also appeared as soloist with members of the Eastman Philharmonia, the Oklahoma Symphony, the Los Angeles Mozart Orchestra, and Musica Angelica at the Corona del Mar Baroque Music Festival. Dr. Phillips has appeared as soloist at regional conventions of the AGO and at various venues across the United States, and in 2004 performed and lectured at the University of Iowa’s Institute of Sacred Music. He has distinguished himself in a number of competitions, including First Prize in the 1994 Clarence Mader Competition for organ composition. He was a judge for the 2004 National Competition in Organ Improvisation at the National AGO convention in Los Angeles, and for the 2005 AGO/Holtcamp Award in Organ Composition. Dr. Phillips is increasingly in demand as a composer. He has been awarded commissions from such organizations The American Guild of Organists (for the National Convention in Seattle, 2000, and for regional conventions in San Diego, and Binghamton, 2001), The Association of Anglican Musicians, The Chamber Orchestra at St. Matthew’s (Pacific Palisades, CA), CoroAllegro of Wilmington, Delaware, University of California at Riverside, Washington National Cathedral and many other churches and institutions. His secular works include a Concerto for Harpsichord and Chamber Orchestra, Concerto for Bassoon and Strings, A Festival Song for chorus and orchestra, a song cycle for soprano and orchestra entitled Songs of the Unknown Region, Suite for Organ, Brass Quintet and Percussion, two Sonatas for organ, and a number of other chamber works. His works have received critical acclaim in journals such as Clavier, The American Organist, Cross Accent, and The Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians, and have been broadcast on National Public Radio’s Pipedreams. He has received numerous ASCAP awards, andin 1993 he was the recipient of a Meet the Composer grant for a work premiered at the Ojai Festival. His organ and choral works are published by a number of firms. A recording from Gothic Records was released in early 2004 — entitled A Festival Song — and features a sampling of Phillips' choral and instrumental works performed by All Saints’ Choir and Craig Phillips as organist. Other works have been recorded on the Arkay, JAV, Summit, and Pro Organo labels. Dr. Phillips serves as Associate Director of Music and Composer-in-Residence at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills. He has accompanied the semi-professional choir of that church on several concert tours, and been featured with them on compact discs released by Gothic Records. He is a member of the American Guild of Organists, the Association of Anglican Musicians, and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and serves on the board of the Clarence Mader Foundation. |
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Daniel Pinkham (1923-2006) was born in Lynn, Massachusetts. He studied organ and harmony at Phillips Academy, Andover, with Carl F. Pfatteicher; then at Harvard with A. Tillman Merritt, Walter Piston, Archibald T. Davison and Aaron Copland (A.B. 1942; M.A. 1944). He also studied harpsichord with Putnam Aldrich and Wanda Landowska, and organ with E. Power Biggs. At Tanglewood he studied composition with Arthur Honegger and Samuel Barber, and subsequently with Nadia Boulanger. Pinkham has taught at Simmons College, Boston University, Dartington Hall (Devon, England), and was Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University (1957-58). In 1950 he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and in 1962 a Ford Foundation Fellowship as a choral conductor. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is on the faculty of the New England of Conservatory of Music where he is senior professor in the Musicology Department. Pinkham is Music Director Emeritus of historic King’s Chapel in Boston where he actively served from 1958 until 2000. He is the recipient of six honorary degrees: Litt D., Nebraska Wesleyan University, 1976; Mus. D., Adrian College, 1977; Mus. D. Westminster Choir College, 1979; Mus. D. , New England Conservatory, 1993; Mus. D., Ithaca College, 1994; Mus. D., Boston Conservatory, 1998. Pinkham is a prolific and versatile composer whose catalog includes four symphonies and other works for large ensembles; cantatas and oratorios; concertos and other works for solo instrument and orchestra for piano, piccolo, trumpet, violin, harp and three organ concertos; theatre works and chamber operas; chamber music; electronic music; and twenty documentary television film scores. In 1990, Pinkham was named Composer of the Year by the American Guild of Organists. In 1996 Daniel Pinkham received the Alfred Nash Patterson Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions to the Choral Arts. |
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Vadim Prokhorov is an author and composer. His book, Russian Folk Songs: Musical Genres and History, was published by Scarecrow Press in 2002. He has contributed cover and feature articles to The Guardian (London), Parade Magazine, Air&Space / Smithsonian, The Moscow Times, Schwann Publications, Gramophone Online Magazine, Andante.com Magazine and American Record Guide, among others. Prokhorov has served as a features writer, columnist, and classical music critic for various daily and weekly newspapers in Connecticut. He is the author of numerous articles on classical music in the Encyclopedia Americana, for which he works as a contributing editor. He is also an editor for Musica Russica, Inc. His choral compositions and arrangements of Russian vocal compositions and folk songs have been published by Oxford University Press, Hal Leonard, Musica Russica and now ECS Publishing. He is a member of the Authors Guild and ASCAP. |
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