< PreviousIAWM Journal Volume 27, No. 2 202116 dancers, singers, visual artists, etc.). These combinations give audiences and present- ers, who perhaps would not have attended or booked a concert consisting of only saxophonists, a chance to experience the instrument. It gives them the opportunity to understand how beautiful the saxophone can sound, how flexible its voice is, how many colors it possesses, and how expres- sive it can be in various styles. I believe, to enlarge and enrich the rep- ertoire, it is also important for saxophone players to be able to write and perform transcriptions of non-saxophone pieces that they enjoy, and it is especially impor- tant for students, since it will help them to fully understand classical music. They need this basic foundation to enable them to ad- equately interpret contemporary music. It is also a means of keeping interesting and well-written older works in the repertoire. An additional repertoire problem is that many good compositions that are not performed frequently are already out of print because it is not profitable for a pub- lishing company to publish works that will be performed by a comparatively small group of people. The result may be that younger players never have the opportu- nity to discover those pieces. I found that trying to book performanc- es with presenters who do not know me is often difficult. It takes a lot of endurance, perseverance, and many phone calls. In addition, they are reluctant to hire a saxo- phonist or a saxophone quartet. They might say they “presented a saxophone quartet just two years ago,” but the same presenter will book at least four string quartets in a single season. That tells me that my col- leagues and I still have a lot of work to do. I intend to keep pushing for the classical saxophone until it is as normal on any con- cert series as the flute, violin, or trumpet. My Career as a Saxophone Student, Teacher, and Performer I am from Germany, but in order to ex- pand my horizons and improve my ability as a performer, I temporarily moved to the US in 2009 and stayed for eleven years be- fore returning to Germany. I enrolled in the doctoral program at the Eastman School of Music, concertized as a soloist as well as a chamber musician, and taught, with a great deal of passion, at several universities in- cluding the State University of New York at Fredonia, Cornell University, Eastman School of Music, and Syracuse University. I performed in large venues, such as Carn- egie Hall after winning a competition, gave concerts at chamber music series such as the Berkeley [California] Chamber Series, and I had the honor of performing solo con- certos with the Hamburger Symphoniker (Germany), Lubbock Symphony (Texas), Kieler Kammerorchester (Germany), and Banatul Philharmonic (Romania). I went on concert tours in a variety of European countries plus Columbia in South America during my years in the US. At that time, unlike now, I did not have management. I booked all the solo concerts myself, found the funding, and planned the tours, in addition to performing. I joined the MANA Saxophone Quartet, and the situa- tion was similar. We divided the different aspects of booking concerts among the four of us, and we did all the work ourselves. Most concert goers were thrilled after our performances, and we were often rehired for a performance in the next season. Au- diences could not believe what they heard. Countless times, people came up to me af- ter the concert and said: “I didn’t know the saxophone could sound so beautiful!” I will never tire of being an ambassa- dor for the saxophone. I enjoy making an impact on people with my playing, moving them deeply, and convincing them that the saxophone is a worthy classical instrument due to its expressivity. Audiences are often fearful of new music, but if the performer explains the pieces to the audience before- hand, presents a program with a mixture of styles, and includes some familiar music, most audience members and presenters lose their skepticism very quickly. My experience as a performer and teacher over the past years has been amaz- ing and a lot of fun, but, like so many wom- en, I have also had some unpleasant experi- ences in both my concert life and my work as a university teacher such as teaching full time for a part-time salary, being denied promotion because I was a woman, and be- ing subjected to sexual harassment after a concert when a man groped me and said I was sexy. Many women are confronted al- most daily with such harassment incidents, and everyone deals with them in a different way. Such incidents are among the many reasons I am actively working for equality of treatment for women in the music world at Detmold Music University, where I teach, and in the town where I live. I am one of the four equal opportunity officers at the uni- versity, and I am executive vice-president of Detmold’s equal opportunity advisory council. I am fortunate to have a position teaching the saxophone because opportuni- ties are limited and very few women have risen to the rank of full professor. I am campaigning for equal opportu- nity in one’s choice of instrument, since women are often not encouraged to play the saxophone. When I chose the saxo- phone as a teenager, I did not think about whether it was an instrument for boys or girls. Early in my studies in Germany, two outstanding female saxophonists were my role models: Carina Raschèr and Linda Bangs; both were founding members of the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet in 1969. I was in luck because female saxophonists were quite rare at the time. When I was in the US, my colleagues and I founded the Committee on the Status of Women (CSW) within the North Ameri- can Saxophone Alliance (NASA) to fa- cilitate change. We established a mentoring program for female-identifying saxophon- ists. The program is designed to support them with job applications, college degree choice, and career start as well as aid against sexism and discrimination. In its first year (2019), the program had 42 applications and Louise Farrenc (1804-1875) “The works of Louise Farrenc, a 19th-century composer, are finding new, apprecia- tive audiences and welcoming orchestras.” This was the heading of a lengthy article about Farrenc by David Allen in the New York Times (October 10, 2021). The author remarked that although she was a successful composer, pianist, and teacher, the com- pliments she received were often backhanded and patronizing: her overture was “or- chestrated with a talent rare among women,” and the dominant quality of her music is what “one would least expect to find” in a work by a woman─“more power than deli- cacy.” She was, however, in the forefront in demanding equal rights. She was the first female professor at the Paris Conservatory, and she insisted that she receive equal pay. Performances of her large-scale orchestral works were also very unusual for a woman in mid-19th-century France.17 45 mentors (male and female). It is my hope and aim that this program will encourage female-identifying students to embark upon a career as a classical saxophonist. Addi- tionally, I hope that the situation for female- identifying saxophonists will change over time. By now, several projects of the CSW, such as seminars, lectures, funding for par- ticipation at conferences, are complement- ing the mentoring program to support equal opportunity and diversity. Our studies have shown that female- identifying saxophonists are not only underrepresented in master’s and doc- toral degree programs, but also at NASA conferences. NASA has 1,660 members comprised of students, university teach- ers, and professional saxophonists. Barely 30% identify themselves as “cis” women. (Cisgender describes a person whose gen- der identity matches their sex assigned at birth.) In the past, far fewer than 30% of the participants at NASA conferences— master class teachers or concertizing musi- cians—were female. My experiences in recent years as a professional saxophonist and a university teacher have provided the incentive for me to advocate for the next generation of saxo- phonists as well as for all musicians. I would like to pave their way, within the bounds of my possibilities, and I would like to be their role model as other women were mine. I was very fortunate to have had the oppor- tunity to study choral composition private- ly with Sarah Rimkus, with the support of a Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Af- fairs professional development grant. Dr. Rimkus is an outstanding teacher as well as an award-winning composer of choral, vo- cal, and chamber works. Her pieces often focus on “communication, belonging, and relationship to the environment through musical layering and contradiction.” 1 Her compositions are performed widely across the globe, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom, and she is the recipient of numerous commissions.2 In addition to teaching privately, Dr. Rimkus is an instructor at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, and she earned master’s and PhD degrees at the University of Aberdeen (Aberdeen, Scotland). I inter- viewed her online in July 2021. Jane Kozhevnikova: When did you start composing? Sarah Rimkus: I started taking piano les- sons when I was about six years old and began composing around high-school age. In my 10th-grade English class, one option for a final project was a creative response to The Lord of the Flies. My first composi- tion was a cinematic piano piece inspired by the climactic chapters of the book. 1 www.sarahrimkus.com 2 Her commissioners include The Esoterics, Harmonium Choral Society, the Miami Uni- versity of Ohio Men’s Glee Club, C4 Ensem- ble, The Gesualdo Six, the Glasgow School of Art Choir, the Cathedral Singers of Christ Church Oxford, and many others. She has been published by GIA Publications, Walton Music, and See-a-dot Publications. JK: When did you realize that being a composer/musician was your life path? SR: When I was about seventeen, I had the realization that I was probably not going to be fully happy if I did not try to pursue mu- sic professionally, and I decided to apply for university programs in composition. JK: Why did you decide to specialize in choral music? SR: For my undergraduate studies, I se- lected the University of Southern Califor- nia, which has an excellent composition program. One of the requirements for the degree was to participate in a large ensem- ble for at least six semesters. Since I did not play an orchestral instrument, my only option was joining the choir, which I loved. I took courses in music theory and choral arranging with Morten Lauridsen, and I also worked with him on an individual ba- sis. I received a really excellent foundation in choral writing, as well as writing for solo voice, and at the end of my time at USC, I decided to focus on choral music because I enjoyed it and because it afforded many professional opportunities. I selected the University of Aberdeen in Scotland for my graduate studies so that I could focus on choral music. JK: It seems to me that in the majority of composition programs, vocal/choral writing is not taught as frequently as in- strumental writing. SR: I absolutely agree with your state- ment. With so many choirs in the US, it is a shame that choral writing is left out of many university-level programs. This is certainly an area that needs to change. JK:Tell us about your mentors and how (or if) they changed your approach to composing. What are the traits of a good mentor? SR: At USC, the professor I studied with the most was Stephen Hartke. His work had a tight balance of intellect and instinct. His music inspired me—it felt accessible and yet intellectual, and his style of teach- ing enabled me to become more confi- dent. My PhD supervisor at Aberdeen was Phillip Cooke, an excellent choral com- poser who had a profound impact on my work. He gave me the necessary perspective on the bal- ance between artistic and pragmatic professional considerations. It was valu- able to study with someone who could of- fer creative advice but also had one foot in reality; this has been crucial to my work as a professional composer for the past sev- eral years, which is how I have made the majority of my income. I think that a good mentor helps you to find the best in yourself and assists you in developing your strengths and natural ten- dencies, as opposed to trying to lead you down a particular path. I believe that a good mentor is open to listening to students, hear- ing what they want out of their work, and then helping them to accomplish their goals. CHORAL MUSIC Being A Female Composer in the Choral World: New Music by Sarah Rimkus JANE KOZHEVNIKOVA Sarah Rimkus Kozhevnikova, Being a Female Composer in the Choral World: New Music by Sarah RimkusIAWM Journal Volume 27, No. 2 202118 JK: What are the major differences in the choral world between the UK and the US? SR: There are certainly some technical considerations and priorities that differ in choral ensembles from the UK to the US. For instance, in the UK, singers focus quite a lot on their sight-reading skills, whereas in the US, there is more focus on sound blending. To make a broad generalization, there is a greater sacred choral tradition in the UK than in the US. I wrote much more sacred music in the UK and had it performed, while I am less likely to have sacred music performed in the US. JK: As a composer, how was your tran- sition from the United Kingdom to the United States? SR: In Aberdeen, I could regularly col- laborate with a lot of people on new pieces and performances. When I moved back to the US, to a fairly small city in a rural area of Michigan, I had to transition to doing the vast majority of my networking and marketing online. JK: How did the pandemic affect you as a composer? Did you change your work routine in any way because of it? SR: It is impossible not to be profoundly af- fected by the pandemic as a composer who writes mostly choral music. I did my best to fulfill the pre-pandemic contracts that I had, but most of the pieces are still waiting for their premieres. I was fortunate to have gotten a few more commissions since the pandemic began. I tried to maintain my reg- ular working routine. In addition to choral music, I also wrote a couple of solo string pieces, and I started teaching more students, which is a very positive thing for me. JK: How do you get commissions today versus pre-pandemic times? SR: The process of getting commissions has not changed much, it just happens less often. I think that the pillars of getting a commission are still the same: personal networking, putting your work out there, and making genuine connections with peo- ple. That was the case before the pandemic, and that is still the case. JK: What are some of your recent com- missions? SR: I am currently working on a com- mission for the Miami University of Ohio Men’s Glee Club. It is the setting of the poem called The Dawn’s Awake by Otto Leland Bohanan. I have one more commis- sion, but it has not yet been announced. I have recently completed commissions for the Cathedral Singers of Christ Church, an adult volunteer choir in Oxford; for the Nazareth College Chamber Singers and their conductor, Brian Stevens; and for the Cathedral Singers of St. Machar’s Cathe- dral in Aberdeen, Scotland. JK: Was there any particular choral col- laboration that strongly affected you? SR: My collaboration with Eric Banks and The Esoterics3 was really important for me. I was commissioned by The Esoterics back in 2018 through the competition that they run. The commission was for a secular re- quiem, and the theme of the concert was consolation but in a secular context. Eric and I went back and forth on selecting what this piece was going to be about. I think it is important to have dialogues at the begin- ning of the collaboration process because you learn more about what the other person thinks and what you are capable of doing. JK: Tell us about the piece for The Esoterics. SR: The theme that we settled on was the Japanese Internment during World War II, and the work was titled Uprooted.4 I grew up on Bainbridge Island, Washington, which had (and still has) a large Japanese- American community. The Japanese people who lived there at the time were the first to be removed from their homes. They were taken to the Manzanar Relocation Center in the Mojave Desert in California. I was able to locate two of the Japanese women from my hometown; I interviewed them and used some of their words to put together the text for this piece. One woman was Kay Sakai, who was incarcerated when she was twenty years old. She had very strong memories of that experience. I also interviewed Lilly Kodama, who was only seven when her family was forced to leave. The survivors emphasized the impor- tance of remembering and continuing to talk about the mass incarceration. Kay Sakai said that she was one of the few people left who The Esoterics is a vocal ensemble based in Seattle, Washington, that performs contem- porary a cappella choral settings of poetry, phi- losophy, and spiritual writings from around the world. It was founded in 1992 by director Eric Banks. http://www.sarahrimkus.com/uprooted could really remember that experience. She and others want to make sure that it never happens again, and that was the consolation theme I focused on in this piece. She also spoke a great deal about the journey to the camp, and that served as the narrative for the piece and the text for the choir. In addition to the choir, the work fea- tured a soprano soloist who used Kay’s words to describe her emotional experi- ence. In writing the text, Eric and I ran into a problem with the English language: the lack of an indefinite third-person pronoun. We could have used “one” (“When one is uprooted, one feels this way”), but we de- cided to use “you” (“When this happens to you, you feel this way”). That was how I set up the texture of the piece, and I devel- oped it from there. JK: Let’s turn to another work: In the Beginning Was the Word.5 SR:In the Beginning Was the Word was commissioned by the Harmonium Cho- ral Society and Dr. Anne J. Matlack from Morris County, New Jersey. Dr. Matlack is a great supporter of new music and fre- quently commissions pieces from various composers. She had previously conducted several of my pieces with her ensemble and was pleased with them. For this com- mission, she wanted a piece for a Christ- mas concert that could also be performed at other times of the year. For the text, we decided to use multiple translations of the iconic verse from John 1:1, “In the be- ginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” I have always enjoyed working in different lan- guages as it opens up a variety of textural and rhetorical possibilities. JK: How can we advocate for program- ming music by women? SR: I am not sure that I am the best person to speak about that with authority because I am a composer and not a conductor. I do not program pieces myself. I can recall that around 2017-2018 there were a number of concerts that were focused on music by women, entire concerts of music by female composers. But now, the priority should be presenting concerts with music by women as part of the normal programming pro- cess; works by historically underrepresent- ed groups should be on concert programs across the board and not just in special- http://www.sarahrimkus.com/in-the-begin- ning19 ized programming events. And, certainly, programming music by women is not the whole story. Composers of color have been vastly neglected in Western music educa- tion in addition to concert programming. JK: Have you ever faced any gender/ age/race or other prejudice/discrimina- tion as a composer? SR: I suppose the short answer to that is always going to be “yes.” I think this is a more complicated question than we often give it credit for. I consider myself very fortunate that I have rarely experienced direct harassment, disrespect, prejudice, or discrimination as a composer. I am a fe- male composer, but I have privileges in my background that others might not have. Discrimination is not always about di- rect micro-aggressions. Those are not the only ways in which discrimination exists. Human beings have a natural tendency to support other human beings that they have the most in common with. So, if most of the people in positions of power are from the same identity group, then even without acts of direct prejudice or discrimination that cycle is going to self-perpetuate. This is why it is important to be self-aware and to inform those who might have different perspectives from us in terms of their gen- der, age, race, etc. JK: Do you have any suggestions for the future of choral music? SR: One problematic area is choral nota- tion. How to properly notate choral music is often not taught to students in composi- tion programs. I have been thinking about creating guidelines and online resources on vocal notation for students. Also, it is easy for a composer to get locked into a particu- lar style, but the composer should be aware of the music performed by choral groups around the world. We need to keep our ears open for new sounds and ideas. JK:Any piece of advice for emerging composers? SR: Stay curious about the world. Write music about what is important to you. Take the inspiration from the rest of your life. Be honest with yourself about what you genu- inely want out of your work, your career, and your life overall. Jane K (Evgeniya Kozhevnikova) is a composer, pianist, and educator. She composes in various styles and genres, from classical to jazz and tan- go, tastefully blending them together. She holds two master’s degrees, in Music Composition and in Music Performance, from Western Mich- igan University and is working on her doctoral degree in Music Composition at the University of Florida. Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) is most com- monly known as a violist and composer, in particular for her famous Viola Sonata (1919), which has remained one of the most significant in the instrument’s reper- toire. Her shorter pieces for viola and pia- no, as well as a number of solo songs, have gained increasing recognition since publi- cation around the turn of the millennium. Clarke’s choral music is less well- known, aside from the Ave Maria for three-part upper voices, which has been reprinted, performed, and recorded many times. Clarke was, however, composing choral music from her earliest studies at the Royal College of Music. She was one of Sir Charles Stanford’s few female com- position students, and she composed choral works right up to the end of her life, when she began revising much of her earlier music. She worked alongside some of the most influential English choral compos- ers of her day, singing in a choir of fellow composers and performers under the direc- tion of Ralph Vaughan Williams, alongside George Butterworth and Gustav Holst. Sir Hubert Parry recognized her talent and sponsored part of her tuition. Her choral music weaves together influences from many of these composers, while maintain- ing her own characteristic style. Clarke’s early choral works draw in- fluences from old English part-song forms, which were undergoing a revival during the early twentieth century as part of the “Brit- ish musical renaissance.” Pieces such as A Lover’s Dirge (1908) and When Cats Run Home and Light is Come (1909), which set texts by Shakespeare and Tennyson, are in- spired by the old English madrigal form, while Now Fie on Love (1906), her earliest work, is described by Christopher Johnson as a “rapid-fire glee.” Works such as My Spirit Like a Charmed Bark Doth Float (1911) and Music When Soft Voices Die (1907) show Clarke beginning to de- velop the more distinctive style that emerges in her later choral music. Both are, in some ways, reminiscent of several of Par- ry’s Songs of Farewell in their ebb and flow of expres- sive textures and dramatic interpretation of the text, but are characterized by Clarke’s signature chromaticism and harmonic shifts. Philomela (1914) sets another high- ly expressive text, conveying the narrative of Sir Philip Sidney’s poetic interpretation of the Greek myth of Philomela through deft changes in texture and harmony. He that Dwelleth in the Secret Place of the Most High (1920-21) was Clarke’s third attempt at setting a sacred text: she had just started what might have been a magnificent SSAATBB setting of Psalm 93 (“Jehovah reigneth”) when the news arrived about the deadlock at the 1919 Coolidge competi- tion, where her Viola Sonata was tied with Bloch’s. She never returned to her setting of Psalm 93 after this, but the following year she completed a startlingly theatrical, dissonant setting of Psalm 63 (“A Psalm of David, When He Was in the Wilderness of Judah”), for voice and piano. Both of the completed works are closely caught up in her admiration of Bloch and her experience of helping him and her friend May Mukle prepare the premiere of his cello-and-pia- no version of Schelomo—in fact, He That Dwelleth contains a musical reference to Schelomo (“He is my refuge,” mm. 9-12) that served as Clarke’s first pass at the fa- mous opening salvo of her Trio. Clarke wrote in her diary how exciting she was finding working on her setting of He That Dwelleth, and this is evident in the confi- dence of expression in the music. Powerful climaxes on passages such as “a thousand shall fall at thy side” convey real drama, giving way to lighter, more peaceful har- monies on “There shall no evil befall thee.” During the 1920s, Clarke’s choral com- posing continued alongside an increasingly demanding performing career. Clarke was one of the most prominent English violists of her day, performing with musicians such as Pablo Casals, Jacques Thibaud, Arthur Exploring the Choral Music of Rebecca Clarke CLAIRE WATTERS Rebecca Clarke Watters, Exploring the Choral Music of Rebecca ClarkeIAWM Journal Volume 27, No. 2 202120 Rubinstein, and Myra Hess, and she had been among the first women to be admitted to Henry Wood’s Queen’s Hall Orchestra in 1913, a historic moment for women musi- cians of this time. Several of her works from the 1920s hearken back to the old English forms that had first sparked her interest in choral composing. She arranged a few of her solo vocal works for choir—Weep you no more, sad fountains (1926), inspired by Renaissance lutenist and composer John Dowland, and the lilting Come, oh come, my life’s delight (1926)—as well as writing a new arrangement of the fifteenth-century English carol There is no rose (1928). Clarke’s final two choral compositions, Ave Maria (1937) and Chorus from Shel- ley’s ‘Hellas’ (1943), are both scored for up- per voices. The three-part Ave Maria draws heavily on Renaissance music in its use of modal harmony, crystal-clear textures, and steady, stepwise melodic lines. The Cho- rus from Shelley’s ‘Hellas’ was written six years later, when Clarke was living in the United States towards the end of the war, and it is stylistically very contrasting to the Ave Maria. Theatrical and expressive, it sets an extract from Shelley’s verse drama, Hel- las, written in 1821 and based on Aeschylus’ play The Persians. Clarke’s setting for unac- companied five-part upper voices makes use of the brilliant sonorities of the upper vocal range at climactic moments, drawing the lis- tener into the ebb and flow of the narrative. The choral works were first published by Oxford University Press in 1998, 1999, and 2003, posthumously. It seems that Clarke never offered these pieces for pub- lication. The Ave Maria was the first to be published, and when this proved popular in national reading-sessions and workshops, it was followed by the publication of the Chorus from Shelley’s ‘Hellas,’ to meet a demand for more music for women’s voices at the time. The rest of the pieces were pub- lished as a group—The Complete Choral Music of Rebecca Clarke—in 2003, coin- ciding with the release of the only signifi- cant recording of the complete choral works by Geoffrey Webber and the Choir of Gon- ville and Caius College, Cambridge. In early 2021, Oxford University Press was pleased to be able to make all twelve choral pieces available on its web- site, after some of them were previously only available from the archive service at Banks Music. The Press hopes that in do- ing this, choral musicians will be eager to discover this extraordinary composer and the beautifully expressive choral music she was writing throughout her life. To browse the full catalogue of works by Re- becca Clarke available from Oxford University Press (OUP), visit oxford.ly/rebeccaclarke. The article was originally published on the OUP Blog 25th June 2021 and written by Claire Wat- ters (Marketing Assistant). It was edited for IAWM with the kind help of Christopher John- son and reprinted with permission. Blue and Green Music was commissioned in 2020 by The Cassatt String Quartet through a grant from Chamber Music America. Because the all-female Quartet is named for painter Mary Cassatt, I thought it appropriate to base my work on another iconic female artist, Georgia O’Keeffe. The Painting I have admired O’Keeffe since I was a child. I studied her paintings, both repro- ductions and origi- nals that I had the opportunity to view in the Metropoli- tan Museum of Art in New York City, the Art Institute in Chicago, and the O’Keeffe Museum in New Mexico. To gain insight into her personal life, I read “What the World Gives to Me”: The Correspondence of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, and I visited her home in Abiquiú, New Mexico. Her windows looked out onto a magnificent desert land- scape, and it was thrilling to recognize the shapes and colors that had inspired her. In reading her correspondence, I discovered a woman who had overcome her self-doubts to become bold, confident, and comfort- able with her success. At first, I planned to base the four movements of my string quartet on four separate paintings. However, after study- ing one called Blue and Green Music, which hung in the Art Institute of Chi- cago, I decided to base my composition on this work alone. O’Keeffe had written: “Because I cannot sing, I paint,” and I re- solved to find the music embedded in her images. I did not plan to make a translation of the visual into sound, as I believe mu- sic is its own language, but rather to create a dynamic between two distinct musical motifs as O’Keeffe had created between two colors. Her painting was alive with movement, and although the images were abstract, they implied rather than described shapes in the natural world. As I sat in front of Blue and Green Music at the Art Institute, I tried to capture it in words: billowing and expanding. Is it distended outward by wind or water? Is it undulating, pressing against the solid frame of dark blue and green? Does a body arch out of its confinement? Is it a torso? Is it a tree root? Is it seaweed? Are fingers reach- ing up, fluttering and weaving around each other? Are waves bubbling up from the left corner? Are they overlapping the smooth, geometric column that slashes from upper left to lower right? It is strong and powerful, but is it also menacing? Do the filaments of green and white, so rounded and sculpted, sway rhythmically? Is it a hand playing on strings? Is it a rush of wind? What sounds does this painting sing? Can I hear them if I listen? Blue and green—are you speaking to me? It teases the imagination. MUSIC AND ART Blue and Green Music: A New String Quartet VICTORIA BOND Victoria Bond Georgia O’Keeffe: Blue and Green Music21 Ultimately, words did not fully express my impressions and left just unresolved questions. I knew that only in music could I create a parallel universe, where the re- lationship between notes and rhythms ex- pressed the rich ambiguity of those images. The Music I limited my composition to two mo- tifs, as O’Keeffe had limited her painting to two colors, and I chose the following musi- cal motifs: Example 1 represents blue, and Example 2 represents green. The challenge was to explore the variety and possibilities within this limited palette. The contrast be- tween the two motifs I chose is obvious in the direction of the notes’ lines and their rhythmic profiles. Blue has a descending line, and its rhythm is made up of dotted quarters and eighth notes; green has an as- cending line, and its rhythm is rapid thirty- second notes. [Ex. 1 & 2] In the first movement, entitled “Blue and Green,” the tempo marking is Modera- to, and the motifs are introduced separately, then developed, fragmented, and combined. They increase in intensity and complexity, leading to a climax at measure 30, which gradually relaxes and leads to the next sec- tion at measure 39, a rhythmic Presto. In thissection, the blue motif takes on a new character, condensed and compact, with the first violin repeating a short phrase in 5/8, punctuated by sharp accents in the other strings. The musical examples are a piano reduction. (See Example No. 3.) The green motif does not make its ap- pearance until measure 55, in the cello; its rhythm is transformed from the original into a new pattern of quarter notes and an eighth note. (See Example No. 4.) The second movement, entitled “Green,” is introduced by the second violin. It is marked Allegro and develops the dot- ted rhythm from the blue motif, but in dimi- nution, and it is applied exclusively to the green motif. The half-step, which is formed from the first two notes of the green motif, is the central feature, and it is the basis of the accompaniment figures. The predominant direction of the lines is rising, as it was in the original pattern of the green motif. (See Ex- ample No 5.) The third move- ment, entitled “Blue,” is contrapuntal with an Andante tempo mark- ing. A fugue, based on the rising green mo- tif, begins at measure 220, with the subject expressed in varying rhythmic values. (See Example No. 6.) The fourth and final movement is a rondo entitled “Danc- ing Colors.” The mu- sic is rhythmic and playful and is based on a syncopated, pizzi- cato figure introduced by the cello (a). The first violin states the theme, which com- bines both motifs into one figure—first the green motif and then the blue (b). The em- phasis is on rhythm, and the harmonies are tonal, contrasting with the chromatic nature of the three preceding movements. (See Ex- ample No. 7.) Each reiteration of the theme is varied and abbreviated into fragments. In the final measures the motives combine to provide a forte climax. (See Ex- ample 8.) Performances I have known the members of the Cassatt Quartet for many years. The en- semble performed on my new-music series, Cutting Edge Con- certs, on several occa- sions and recorded my first string. quartet, Dreams of Flying. I Ex. 1. Movement 1. Blue motif Ex. 2. Green motif Ex. 3. Blue in diminution Ex. 4. Green in augmentation Ex. 5. Movement 2. “Green” Ex. 6. Movement 3. “Blue” Ex. 7. Movement 4. “Dancing Colors” Ex. 8. Conclusion Bond, Blue and Green Music: A New String QuartetIAWM Journal Volume 27, No. 2 202122 cherished our working relationship, en- joying the spirit of collaboration so fun- damental to chamber music, where the cu- mulative effort of each player’s individual perspective determines the final artistic decisions. The official premiere of Blue and Green Music was on May 23, 2021. The work was composed in 2020 during the pandemic lockdown, and because no audience was permitted until May, perfor- mances were live-streamed only. The first was on April 18, 2021, at The Soapbox in Brooklyn, and the second on April 23 at the University of North Carolina. The third performance, on May 23, was a con- cert that had been video-recorded at the Howland Chamber Music Series in New York, on May 2, before a small, invited au- dience. The work received its first public performances at The Seal Bay Festival in Maine on August 16, 18, and 19. To have the luxury of multiple per- formances of this new work meant that it grew with each and gained a maturity and depth that only comes with famil- iarity. The Cassatt’s performances were masterful—all that this grateful compos- er could desire. They had made it their very own. The Cassatt Quartet will record Blue and Green Music with recording producer and engineer Judith Sherman. The up- coming album, on the Albany label, will also feature Dreams of Flying. I am grate- ful to the Quartet and to Chamber Music America for supporting my work. A musician, activist, teacher, and scholar, Lucille Field Goodman died at age 92 on Sunday, September 5, 2021. Music was her central love and life. She worked tireless- ly for lesbian, feminist, and social justice causes and to promote music by women composers, both contemporary and historic. When she was only twenty, Lucy re- ceived her B.A. in Music from Brooklyn College, and she earned an M.S. in Mu- sic Education from City University in 1971. Under the name Lucille Field, she performed classical vocal music, with an emphasis on contemporary and histori- cal women composers, throughout North America and Europe, including at Carne- gie Recital Hall in 1980. She taught music in elementary schools in Brownsville and Crown Heights (New York) before joining the faculty of Brooklyn College, where she taught music education and vocal perfor- mance for almost twenty years. In collabo- ration with other feminist professors, she established the first Women’s Studies De- partment at the college. Later in her career, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from CUNY and was appointed Professor Emerita after her retirement. Lucy and I became friends when we co-founded the IAWM. I remember end- less meetings at Barnard College in the late 1970s, during which she taught me lead- ership skills and shared her parliamentar- ian savvy. Many women at that time were afraid to state their opinions so as not to offend anyone, and instead, they claimed not to know or not to have an opinion. She empowered women to state their minds. Her decades of experience in community organizing and involvement with numer- ous social movements for equity and jus- tice in New York City gave her experience and gravitas as a leader. Understanding how women’s voices have been repeatedly dismissed or margin- alized, Lucy insisted that all voices—strong and weak—were heard at meetings, while at the same time, insisting that progress be made and that efforts for the cause move forward. Although she demonstrated pro- found patience, she did not tolerate fools or obstructionists, and she taught me to expect opposition to a broad, progressive, outside-the-box vision and to persevere. She helped us un- derstand that leaders were naturally chal- lenged by nar- row-minded, limited thinkers who measured others’ future potential by their assess- ment of what they could achieve individually and alone. She never doubted the power and strength of unity, how well thought out strategy and passion could effect change. For decades, I relied on her for advice on how to advance the cause of women in music, and I know that her sage counsel and astute observa- tions will ring in my ears for the rest of my life. It is hard to imagine what my life would be without her advice, support, and commiseration. Many of her family mem- bers, friends, and students claim the same. Lucille Field Goodman lived life inten- sified. She had all the wonderful qualities encompassed in the designation of “Diva,” including all the glamour and drama. Yet she was always kind, loving, and generous to her family, friends, students, colleagues, and even her adversaries. She taught us all how to live purposefully and passionately. At every opportunity, she sang works by women composers and taught her stu- dents the possible enrichment of doing the same. In 1987, she recorded a compact disc, Lucille Field Sings Songs by Ameri- can Women Composers, with pianist Har- riet Wingreen of the New York Philhar- monic. This ground-breaking recording included music of Ruth Crawford Seeger, Miriam Gideon, Dorothy Klotzman, Flor- ence Price, Patsy Rogers, and Nancy Van de Vate—proudly, I was the producer. It was released on Cambria Master Record- ings and continues to be in demand. As a vocalist, she was distinguished by her precise intonation and immaculate diction. She understood that the poetry of the lyrics and her narration of the song were her priorities; she put across every word and its meaning with clarity and pro- found nuance. This made her one of the most accomplished interpreters of art song of her generation. Her understanding of the fundamentals of good vocal technique al- lowed her to sing beautifully well into her eighties, whereas many singers lose their voices in their fifties. In her later years, she taught voice on the North Fork of Long Island and published two collections of short stories about the lives of Jewish immigrant fami- lies and aging lesbians. If you truly want to understand who Lucy was, read these short stories. They will warm your heart as you weep and laugh simultaneously. Lucille Field Goodman JEANNIE POOL IN MEMORIAM Lucille Field Goodman23 Lucy raised funds for women-in-mu- sic projects and knew how to call on in- dividuals, organizations, and institutions to support the much-needed advocacy and performances. She also helped to establish the North Fork Women for Women Fund (now North Fork Women). In addition, she sponsored the IAWM Search for New Mu- sic Miriam Gideon Prize and co-sponsored and the PatsyLu Prize. At her death, she was the venerated matriarch of the extended Feldman fam- ily in Boston, New Jersey, Toronto, and throughout the world, including her two sisters, Marion Kazdan and Yolette Nuss- baum; her daughter, Carol Goodman, her two grandchildren, Mikey and Leo; and her beloved partner of 42 years, Patsy Rogers. Donations can be made in Lucy’s memory to North Fork Women, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the IAWM, or another organization consistent with Lucy’s values. Composer, musicologist, and producer Jean- nie Gayle Pool was one of the founders of the IAWM. She is a member of the faculty of Chap- man University, where she teaches courses on the business of music. Her book Passions of Musical Women: The Story of the International Congress on Women in Music and the accom- panying Sourcebook are available on Amazon and through Jaygayle Music Books. Jeannie Remembering Lucille Field Goodman DEON NIELSEN PRICE I met Lucille Field Goodman and Patsy Rogers in 1984, when they arrived at my house in Culver City, California, directly from New York, in order to rehearse the songs we were to perform live the next day on the KPFK Public Radio program “Music of the Americas,” hosted by Jeannie G. Pool. The songs were by Josephine Lang, Ruth Craw- ford Seeger, Nancy Van de Vate, and Patsy Rodgers. Knowing that we would have just one rehearsal, I had prepared my piano accompaniment as thoroughly as possible, in- cluding anticipating breaths for the singer and carefully adhering to Patsy’s meticulous pedal markings. Being such fine musicians, they were immediately aware of that, and within a few moments, we felt quite comfortable in our collaboration. In subsequent performances, we included songs by Alma Mahler, Barbara Strozzi, and others, plus my own song cycle, To All Women Everywhere, on texts by Carol Lynn Pearson, with Paul Stewart, saxophone (and later, Berkeley Price, clarinet). I always enjoyed bringing music to life with Lucille, and I loved her warm, clear soprano voice. Her vocal skills were impeccable, thus freeing her to become immersed in the character of each song and make it her own heartfelt expression. We performed many recitals of music by women composers in congresses on women in music and in university recitals in Los Angeles, Mexico City, Atlanta, New York City, Paris, and London. In 2013, Lucille graciously reviewed the premiere of my Violin Concerto for One- ness, with Amanda Lo, violin, and Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra, Philip Nuzzo, direc- tor, at St. Ann’s and The Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn. I believe this brief excerpt from her writing illustrates Lucille’s infectious passion and enthusiasm for music: “From the first notes…I knew I was in for a treat. The energy and power of the opening told the audience that we were at ‘one’ with the music….When we returned once again to the passion of the opening measures, we were, as one, uplifted and joyful.” (Journal of the IAWM 19, No. 2, 2013, p. 34.) thanks Lucy’s daughter, Carol, and Lucy’s part- ner, Patsy Rogers, for some of the information in this tribute. Our hearts go out to you as you learn to live to without her. The Daffodil Perspective is a classical mu- sic podcast that creates space for everyone to belong. Founded in London, UK, in November 2018, The Daffodil Perspective is the first gender-balanced, racially equi- table, and inclusive classical music podcast in the UK and probably in the world. Its mission is to champion marginalized com- posers; showcase classical music as a thriv- ing, evolving art form; provide a model for curating equitable programs; and give underrepresented people the opportunity to feel represented. I grew up in the UK studying classical music and always felt out of place. I was a brown, mixed-race girl surrounded by white, privileged children, learning only about white men. It was not a welcom- ing environment. I left the classical music world behind at age eighteen for several reasons. I suffered from discrimination, racism, and microaggressions, and the community where I lived was patriarchal, sexist, racist, elitist, and more. In 2018, I heard the music of a female composer for the first time and was as- tounded. I was thirty years old and furious that I had never studied or heard female classical composers before. I immediately began to explore the music of hundreds of female composers, and I realized how few were being programmed and how little the classical music industry had moved on. All the reasons I left classical music behind in my teenage years were still there, only now I was in a position to do something about it. I had a background in radio, so I de- cided to create a podcast that championed female-identifying composers. From the very beginning, the show has been gender balanced. In every episode, at least 50% of the composers are female. For the first year-and-a-half, about half of most programs focused on one female compos- er. I told her story and played several of her pieces along with music by her male contemporaries to provide musical and his- torical context. The first year of the podcast featured 339 pieces by women out of a total 584 piec- es (58% women). The programs presented 204 female composers out of 409 compos- ers (49.9% women) and 34 hours of music by female composers out of 55.5 hours of music (60% women). Two hundred albums of exclusively female composers, 60 new release albums of exclusively women, 20 hours of music by historical women, and 198 pieces by historical women were played. The podcast featured 26 sonatas by women, 15 concertos, 12 symphonies, and five operas. The first year the podcast presented more music by women than the 15 largest world orchestras combined, and 10 times more female composers than the BBC Proms. WOMEN IN MUSIC INITIATIVES The Daffodil Perspective ELIZABETH DE BRITO De Brito, The Daffodil PerspectiveIAWM Journal Volume 27, No. 2 202124 The first year was ground-breaking, but the composers were overwhelmingly white. Works by great Black talents such as Florence Price and William Grant Still were programmed, but women of color comprised only 5% of the women pro- grammed. This was not acceptable. I also discovered that 90% of the albums of music by female composers featured only music by white women. Starting in June 2020, every episode has been racially equitable, with 25% of the music by female composers of color; this includes at least one Black and one Asian female composer on every episode. The podcast also features 25% male com- posers of color on every episode, includ- ing at least one Black and one Asian male composer. The second season of the podcast (from November 2019 to October 2020) featured 95 composers of color (55 men and 40 women). People of color made up 35% of the composers, compared to 6% by American orchestras (data by the In- stitute of Composer Diversity). The third annual season of The Daffodil Perspective finished on November 5th and the analysis shows that at least 50% of the composers were of color (half women and half men). In the 2019-2020 season, The Daffo- dil Perspective programmed 31 times more music by composers of color than the en- tire BBC Proms 2019, with 56% of the mu- sic by women, compared to 8% by world- wide orchestras (data from Donne Women in Music Survey). The podcast also programs at least one-third of the music by living compos- ers on every single episode. The Daffodil Perspective reacts against the notion of classical music being just dead white men; classical music continues to evolve. My aim is to keep the show as acces- sible as possible and avoid the technical aspects of the music. I focus on the emo- tional content of pieces, details about the composers’ lives, and stories behind the pieces and the musicians. I try to build a rich picture of these fascinating people and their music. One listener said that the pod- cast makes “classical music hip, approach- able, and understandable.” The Daffodil Perspective is named after the brightest, shiniest spring flower for a reason. Daffodils are the first spring flowers, and they show the way out of win- ter. The Daffodil Perspective is a bright yellow beacon of hope and light to shine the way forward, to be an inspiration for equitable programming, and to serve as a model for diversity in classical music. It is a program that can make you smile, like its namesake flower. The podcast is a one-woman show— a voluntary operation—and every episode takes around twelve hours to produce, in- cluding in-depth research into these mar- ginalized composers and devising ideas for the various sections within the podcast. In addition to using commercially avail- able recordings, I also contact contempo- rary composers to champion their work, along with the work of musicians who perform marginalized composers. The podcast therefore includes live recordings, demos, and other rarely heard music. I de- velop relationships with living artists and have built a reputation based on collabora- tion with individuals and groups such as Drama Musica and Illuminate Women’s Music. In addition, there is the time spent on the actual recording of the podcast, publishing it online, creating the tracklist, and marketing it on the website as well as social media. The podcasts cost more than £1,000 per year for music licensing, recordings, theme music by the incredible British composer Ella Jarman-Pinto, etc., and they require more than 1,000 working hours. The Daffodil Perspective receives no funding, and it is constantly looking for patrons for this trailblazing initiative. The podcast show is published on the Mixcloud online platform every two weeks on Friday and is available for free online listening on a computer or on the app. It can also be heard offline with a subscription. The web address is: https:// www.mixcloud.com/TheDaffodilPerspec- tive/ In 2021, it is not surprising that the lack of works by women on orchestral programs is a hot topic. The latest statistics from Don- ne UK have shown how dire the gender balance is in our orchestras throughout the world. It is therefore not unusual that the West Australian Symphony Orchestra has programmed just seven works by women out of 81 works for its 2022 season. This is a slight improvement over the previous year, when just two works by women were programmed. (Only one of those was per- formed due to the pandemic, and the other has been postponed to 2022.) Perth, in Western Australia, has been mostly safe from Covid due to our isolated location, our state government’s stringent border closures, and snap lockdowns at even a murmur of an outbreak. Thanks to these factors, concerts have been per- formed, albeit with local artists. This has meant that many smaller arts organiza- tions, such as Tenth Muse Initiative, have been able to thrive. Started by Saskia Willinge and I in February 2020, Tenth Muse Initiative grew from a passionate re- search project of mine, which I began in 2016 while I was studying at the Univer- sity of Western Australia Conservatorium of Music. Dismayed at the lack of gender diversity in the music I was performing and hearing, I began my own projects. I organized multiple “Celebration of Wom- en Composers” concerts, initiated my “WomenComposersProject” Instagram, advocated for performing works outside the “canon,” and started the Tenth Muse Initiative immediately after graduation. The Initiative is a new collective based in Boorloo/Perth. Our mission is to set a new standard for art music events through championing and platforming underrepresented musicians and creators, while providing inclusive spaces where art music is welcoming and accessible. Our city is quite isolated, and while much innovative music is heard here, equitable programming still has a long way to go. We intend to educate the local community through advocacy, programming thought- fully, and exposing musicians and concert- goers to composers they might not have encountered before. We hope that this can have a quick and significant effect as other groups take note (we hope) of the demand for diversity. Our name was inspired by Sappho, who was widely regarded as one Tenth Muse Initiative Breaking Ground in An Isolated City and Celebrating Pauline Viardot’s 200th Anniversary HANNAH LEE TUNGATE, Founder and Artistic Director25 of the greatest lyric poets of her time; she was often called the “Tenth Muse,” and she was a symbol for feminine creativity. She remains a reminder that women have always pursued the creative arts, even if sometimes history forgets. Our inaugural concert, held on Inter- national Women’s Day 2020, was a sell- out and featured a range of art and contem- porary musicians from Barbara Strozzi to an a cappella composition by local Perth composer Julia Nicholls. In partnership with the UWA Conservatorium of Music, we donated all the profits to a local char- ity that helps women in Perth find financial stability. Unfortunately, IWD 2020 was held just a week before the Covid lock- downs began in WA, so we were unable to meaningfully build much momentum. We re-emerged in July 2021 with a concert celebrating Pauline Viardot’s 200th Anniversary. Our concert, “Ugly Beauty,” featured works by Viardot, pro- grammed alongside some of her contem- poraries: Clara Schumann, Fanny Hensel, Clemence de Grandval, Josephine Lang, and Viardot’s sister, Maria Malibran. We came across the phrase “Ugly Beauty” a few times in different articles about Viar- dot. When her appearance is mentioned, she’s often described as having an “ugly beauty,” or a captivating presence and not appearance. This struck us as an ex- cellent place to begin a discussion about how, why, and for what women are re- membered, especially women in music. Heinrich Heine wrote in an 1844 article on the Parisian musical season: “There is nobody to replace [Pauline Viardot], and nobody can replace her. This is no nightingale, who has only the talent of her species and admirably sobs and trills her regular spring routine; nor is she a rose—she is ugly, yet ugly in a way that is noble—beautiful I might almost say.” 1 Heine describes a talented, popular, ar- resting musician, whom he admires and is attempting to compliment. While doing this, he dismisses all the women singing professionally at the time, and reduces Vi- ardot to being ugly, but in a “noble” way. Camille Saint-Saëns wrote: “[Viardot’s] voice was enormously powerful, had a prodigious range and was equal to every “Heine in Manfred Windfuhr,” Heinrich Heine Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke, ed. Volkmar Hansen (Hamburg: Hoff- man und Campe, 1990), 14(1):140. technical difficulty but, marvellous as it was, it did not please everybody. It was not a velvet or crystalline voice, but rather rough, compared by someone to the taste of a bitter orange.” 2 So, even in describ- ing her voice, we found these odd, back- handed compliments. To us, this really summed up the contradictory and often problematic ways women in the arts are discussed, remembered, and valued. The concert featured Australian star soprano Lisa Harper-Brown and West Australian Opera Young Artist Chelsea Kluga, along with emerging singers and instrumentalists. Harper-Brown said: “The significance of this concert in this time of ‘awakening’ cannot be overstated; to awaken our minds to the endeavours of a forgotten few, a previously overlooked minority of inspirational composers who worked in private because they lacked the vital credentials of being male. I am thrilled to be participating in such a worth- while and ground-breaking initiative.”3 The concert also included a song, My Love He Stands Upon the Quay, by the little-known composer Charlotte Sain- ton-Dolby (1821-1885), who shares the 200th birthday celebrations with Viardot. The work was most likely an Australian premiere; in fact, many of the works per- formed in this concert were probably WA premieres, if not Australian premieres. The concert was very well received and was worth the risk of exposing an audi- ence to an entire program of unfamiliar music by unfamiliar composers. We have planned a few future con- certs, although we are running into prob- lems regarding the availability of scores and musicians. With state borders still closed to much of the world (and much of the rest of Australia), the musicians here are very busy. The beauty of Perth is that it is a place where you can experiment in the arts. We have many small start-up groups and organizations that operate in their own niches, which means that the musicians are stretched across multiple projects. Camille Saint-Saëns, “Ecole buisson- nière, Pierre Lafitte” (1913): 217-223; trans- lated in Roger Nichols, Camille Saint-Saëns on Music and Musicians (New York: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 2008), 167. Lisa Harper-Brown, Recommendation letter for Bryant Stokes Matilda Award to author, May 31, 2021. In addition to our concerts, we have started preparing repertoire guides and Spotify playlists, which we hope will in- fluence the UWA conservatorium students and convince them to broaden their rep- ertoire for their recitals. The only way we are going to see real change is to keep hav- ing that conversation with new cohorts of students and teachers and eventually try to influence the programmers of the major ensembles. For now, we are doing advo- cacy on a small scale. When the amazing book 24 Songs and Arias by Women Com- posers was published (Hildegard Publish- ing with A Modern Reveal), we purchased multiple copies and gifted them to voice teachers in Perth. We plan to improve the accessibility of scores in Perth by gaining funding to purchase scores from Europe and the US. It will be a slow process, but we believe it will be worth the effort. Our plans for the future include com- missioning new works, funding a prize for the “Best Performance of a Work by an Underrepresented Composer” to encour- age students and teachers to enrich their repertoires, and recordings works by West Australian composers whose works are in special collections gathering dust. To find out more about Tenth Muse Initiative, please visit: www.tenthmuseinitiative. com.au Organist Jeanne Demessieux This year marks the 100th anniver- sary of the birth of Jeanne Demessieux (1921-1968), one of the finest organists of the 20th century. Her teacher, the well-known organist Marcel Duprè, described her as “the greatest organist of all generations,” and other experts agreed. She was the first female organ- ist to sign a recording contract, and she paved the way for future women organists, although she was often sub- jected to sexist remarks. In addition to her liturgical perfor- mances, she had a very active teaching career and concert schedule. She toured not only in France but elsewhere in Eu- rope and in the US. She composed a large number of works for the organ, many of which were extremely diffi- cult to perform. One organist described them as “ferociously hard.” She is be- ing remembered this year with perfor- mances of her music. Tungate, Tenth Muse InitiativeNext >