Joyce Solomon Moorman (born May 11, 1946) is an American composer and educator.
Moorman was born in Tuskegee, Alabama on May 11, 1946, and grew up in Columbia, South Carolina. [1] [2] She attended segregated public schools through high school. [1] Moorman earned a bachelor's degree from Vassar College in 1968 and in 1971, a masters of arts from Rutgers University. [2] She earned a masters of fine arts from Sarah Lawrence College in 1975. [3] In 1982, she earned her doctorate from Columbia University. [2]
She taught at the Brooklyn Music School starting in 1982 and leaving in 1993. [2] She has also taught at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, St. John's University, York College, LaGuardia Community College, NYC College and at Brooklyn College. [2]
In 1976, she received a jazz study grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). [4] In 1998, she was the winner of the Vienna Modern Masters Millennium Commission Competition. [5]
Moorman's work, "The Soul of Nature" premiered with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 1990. [6] She composed Race Riot, a work based on Andy Warhol's piece of the same name. [7] It premiered in 2000 at the Pennsylvania Academy. [7] In 2016, the world premiere of Cape Coast Castle was played the Richmond County Orchestra. [8] Cape Coast Castle describes The Door of No Return in Ghana. [8]
Her opera, Elegies for the Fallen, is based on the poetry of Rashidah Ismaili and is a commemoration of the Soweto Massacre. [4]
William Grant Still Jr. was an American composer of nearly two hundred works, including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, over thirty choral works, art songs, chamber music, and solo works. Born in Mississippi and growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas, Still attended Wilberforce University and Oberlin Conservatory of Music as a student of George Whitefield Chadwick and then Edgard Varèse. Because of his close association and collaboration with prominent African-American literary and cultural figures, Still is considered to be part of the Harlem Renaissance.
Tania León is a Cuban-born American composer of both large scale and chamber works. She is also renowned as a conductor, educator, and advisor to arts organizations.
Josef Feigelson is a concert cellist living in the United States.
Jennifer Elaine Higdon is an American composer of contemporary classical music. She has received many awards, including the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her Violin Concerto and three Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her Percussion Concerto in 2010, Viola Concerto in 2018, and Harp Concerto in 2020. Elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019, she was a professor of composition at the Curtis Institute of Music from 1994 to 2021.
Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate is a Chickasaw classical composer and pianist. His compositions are inspired by North American Indian history, culture and ethos.
The Louisville Orchestra is the primary orchestra in Louisville, Kentucky. It was founded in 1937 by Robert Whitney (1904–1986). The Louisville Orchestra employs salaried musicians, and offers a wide variety of concert series to the community, including classical programs featuring international guest artists, pops performances, and education and family concerts. In 1942 the orchestra adopted the name of the former Louisville Philharmonic Society, which it kept until 1977 before reverting to its original name. The orchestra is the resident performing group for the Louisville Ballet and the Kentucky Opera, and presents several concerts across the Kentucky/Indiana area.
Alexina Diane Louie,, is a Canadian composer of contemporary classical music. She has composed for various instrumental and vocal combinations in a variety of genres. She has fulfilled a number of commissions, and her works, which have been performed internationally, have earned her a number of awards, including the Order of Canada and two Juno Awards.
Tod Machover, is a composer and an innovator in the application of technology in music. He is the son of Wilma Machover, a pianist and Carl Machover, a computer scientist.
Alla Pavlova is a Russian composer, born and initially raised in Vinnitsa in Ukraine. She and her family moved to Moscow in 1961, and she then moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1990, where she has settled. She is best known for her symphonic work.
Samuel Jones is an American composer and conductor.
The Omaha Symphony is a professional orchestra performing more than 200 concerts and presentations annually in Omaha, Nebraska and throughout the orchestra's home region. The orchestra was established in 1921. It is considered a major American orchestra, classified under "Group 2" among the League of American Orchestras, which ranks symphony orchestras by annual budget, with Group 1 the largest and Group 8 the smallest. Its annual budget in 2022 was approximately $8.4 million. The orchestra's home and principal venue is the 2,005-seat Holland Performing Arts Center, the $100 million purpose-built facility designed by Polshek Partnership that opened in October 2005. In a review, The Dallas Morning News called the Holland "one of the country's best-sounding" symphony halls.
Andys Skordis is a Cypriot composer. Andys has been awarded with the Buma Toonzetters Prize 2012, earning the title of the best Dutch Contemporary composition for that year. He has received other awards and honors from Cyprus, The Netherlands, Indonesia, Korea, Iceland and U.S.A. At the moment he lives in Amsterdam.
Evan Hause is an American composer, percussionist and conductor. Hause has composed over one hundred works ranging from rock music to opera.
Nancy Jean Van de Vate was an American-born Austrian composer, violist and pianist. She also used the pseudonyms Helen Huntley and William Huntley. She is known for operas such as All Quiet on the Western Front, and orchestral music such as Chernobyl and Journeys, including concertos like the Kraków Concerto for percussion and orchestra.
Markand Thakar is an American conductor and music director emeritus of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra (BCO).
George Irving Shirley is an American operatic tenor, and was the first African-American tenor to perform a leading role at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
Missy Mazzoli is an American composer and pianist who is a member of the composition faculty at the Mannes College of Music. In 2018, she became one of the first two women to receive a commission from the Metropolitan Opera House. She is the founder and keyboardist for Victoire, an electro-acoustic band. From 2012-2015 she was composer-in-residence at Opera Philadelphia, in collaboration with Gotham Chamber Opera and Music-Theater Group. Her music is published by G. Schirmer. Mazzoli received a 2015 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award, a Fulbright Grant to the Netherlands, and in 2018 was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Classical Composition. In 2018, Mazzoli was named for a two-season term as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Mazzoli was named the Bragg Artist-in-Residence at Mount Allison University beginning in 2022.
Black conductors are musicians of African, Caribbean, African-American ancestry and other members of the African diaspora who are musical ensemble leaders who direct classical music performances, such as an orchestral or choral concerts, or jazz ensemble big band concerts by way of visible gestures with the hands, arms, face and head. Conductors of African descent are rare, as the vast majority are male and Caucasian.
Margaret Rosezarian Harris was an American musician, conductor, composer, and educator, the first African-American woman to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and 13 other cities' orchestras.
Joyce Mathis was an American soprano who was a concert artist, recitalist, and opera singer from the 1960s into the early 1990s. She is considered a part of the first generation of black classical singers to achieve success in the United States; breaking down racial barriers within the field of classical music. She won several notable singing competitions, including the Marian Anderson Award in 1967 and the Young Concert Artists in 1968. In 1970 she recorded the role of the High Priestess in Verdi's Aida alongside Leontyne Price and Plácido Domingo. Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ned Rorem wrote his song cycle Women's Voices for her in 1975. In 1976 she created the role of Celestina in Roger Ames's opera Amistad at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She appeared frequently in performances with Opera Ebony and the Boys Choir of Harlem in addition to touring widely as a recitalist and concert soprano.