Sigma Alpha Iota

artistic creativity LIONESSES continued from page 19 The words of composer Ada Gentile bring us further understanding: "When I write, I think only of describing what I feel at that moment: if afterwards my work is received well by the public, this gives me pleasure, but I don't do as many of my colleagues do — write just to be successful with the public. In this way they often subvert their own creativity. I like my profession because it allows me to use freely the creativity that is in each of us... The only thing I don't like is the lack of inquiry ("research") since for some years now many of my colleagues have only wanted public success. They don't explore new directions as was done in the 70's and 80's." Each composer is truly different and individual: in the same way in which every mother gives birth to a child with its own individual characteristics, so every musician creates a musical child that is different from those created by others. At the same time, the world of female composition is always more and more varied, characterised — rather like Maurice Kagel's Hetereophonie — by a very personal elaboration of lessons, models, and extant pages in music history. A profound study of tradition, as well as of the avant-garde, is undertaken not merely to be able to apply the rules, but above all to overcome and to go beyond them. The attention given to research, above all to the production of the research itself, is the thread of Adrianne which links the extraordinary production of music by women. It is difficult to classify or catalogue this in any particular way. Since I cannot mention all of the women in this heterogeneous universe, I am highlighting the works of three real lionesses in the history of modern music: Sophia Gubaidulina, Nancy Van de Vate and Nadia Boulanger. Asgatovna The Lioness from the East is Sophia Gubaidulina Asgatovna, born in Čistopol in the Tatar Republic [of Russia]. She completed her music studies in the capital city, Kazan, and from 1953 to 1963 studied at the Conservatory in Moscow. In a long interview given to Restagno, Gubaidulina spoke of her training, T he Institute of European Studies (IES) in Vienna has named Nancy Van de Vate as Composer-in-Residence.  Founded 60 years ago, IES is featuring Van de Vate and her work in this year's celebration of its contributions to the lives of students from all over the world, and particularly from the United States. The composer will give several public lectures about her music, be presented in an all-Van de Vate concert, and continue as Professor 20 PAN PIPES WINTER 2011 sai-national.org her fascination for the piano playing of Bella Davidovich and Rosa Damarkina, her "idols", Sofronitzky and Richter, the enduring greatness of Wagner, Shostakovich, Berg, Arvo Pärt, and her adoration for Bach and Bartok, who have always been her leading lights. She spoke of her musical experience, begun in the year in which Stalin and Prokofiev died, and of her maestro, Nikolaj Pejko, an assistant to Shostakovich before the latter was dismissed from his teaching position in 1948. She said: "Before writing music we must meditate at great length and see everything in our head through our souls and hearts ... a free soul is indispensable if one wishes to compose." She remembered the incredible emotions she experienced when she heard the Moscow concerts given by Glenn Gould, Leonard Bernstein, and in 1962 by Stravinsky, then an American citizen, who returned to his homeland, "old and celebrated like a legend:" "I saw Stravinsky conduct a rehearsal. His gestures said more than any words. He was very precise and efficient; he had a relationship between one hand and the other... I think that this relationship mirrored the coincidences between unity and rationality, as if to say that the left hand was to take care of the sphere of intuition and the right hand to take care of all that is rational. ... His Symphony of Psalms appeared to Gubaidulina like "the building of a temple." These very meaningful words help us to understand this woman composer's own production, reaching towards the sacred as a cosmic concept, inside, outside and beyond history: "It's difficult for me to say whether or not one part of a cathedral is more sacred than another. It is the process of creation itself that brings sacredness as a reward." 1975. Her professional and artistic experiences continued in Hawaii and in Indonesia where she was unable — Debussy docet — to ignore the fascination of the gamelan: her travels and her discovery of other languages are immediately reflected in her way of composing. From Asia she moved to Vienna, where she founded the compact disc recording company, Vienna Modern Masters, which specialises in the production and recording of contemporary music, including much music by women composers. Van de Vate became more and more interested in social issues. Her operas are full of political themes and represent essential moments in recent history. These themes include the echoes of global warfare, the pacifist movement, the Chernobyl disaster, and of particular significance, her composition in 1998 of an opera symbolising humanity's period of waiting for further events, All Quiet on the Western Front … VAN DE VATE A particular creative tension permeates the works of Nancy Van de Vate, composer, pianist, viola player, and entrepreneur. She completed her doctorate in music composition at the Florida State University in the sixties and continued her work in the fields of both teaching and concertizing, while giving more and more attention and time to composition, including the founding of the League of Women Composers in boulanger With Nadia Boulanger we look backwards, but this is not important since her name lives through the many students who became protagonists in modern music history. Born in Paris, Nadia was sister to Lili Boulanger, famous, apart from her delicate Mèlodies and intense Psalms, as the first woman to win the prestigious Prix de Rome. When Lili died in 1918 at the age of twenty-three, Nadia was already a prolific composer, but after a few years – always a pioneer – she stopped writing to dedicate her life to orchestral conducting and the teaching of composition. Her conservatory was the American School in Fontainebleau where, for more than fifty years, she imbued her students with her temperament, profound knowledge of music and French culture, and interest in experimentation with electronic music. One of her famous sayings was: "I am the highest level of tension. Listen to this in yourselves." Through her boulangerie (this is how people talked of Fontainebleau) passed Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Walter Piston, Virgil Thomson, Marc Blitzstein, Robert Russell Bennett, Elliott Carter, Ross Lee Finney, and Philip Glass, and among others, a very young Leonard Bernstein and another young man who later also became famous: Daniel Barenboim. of Composition. IES Vienna is known for the excellence of its music program and also for such distinguished former students as author John Irving.  Founded for university students from outside Austria who wish to spend a semester or a year studying in Vienna, it is one of more than twenty IES study centers worldwide. Van de Vate is one of the few living American composers whose operas and orchestral music are heard worldwide. On Nov. 10, 2010, the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Toshiyuki Shimada, performed "Gema Jawa" (Echoes of Jawa). This exotic piece, commissioned in 1984 by the Jakarta Symphony, was premiered when the composer lived in Indonesia.  Since 1985 she has lived in Vienna, where she founded the CD company, Vienna Modern Masters specializing in recording contemporary music for large orchestra.

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