Sheila Silver

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Sheila Jane Silver (born October 3, 1946) is an American composer. [1]

Contents

Early life and studies

Sheila Silver was born in Seattle, Washington in 1946, the youngest daughter of Robert and Fannie Silver. She started piano studies at the age of five. After two years at the University of Washington, she transferred to the University of California where she received a Bachelor of Arts in 1968. She then studied with Erhard Karkoschka at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart, and with György Ligeti in Berlin and later in Hamburg. She attended the 1970 Darmstadt Summer Institute, and spent a summer at the Tanglewood Music Center (1972) where she studied with Jacob Druckman. At Brandeis University she studied with Arthur Berger and Harold Shapero, earning her PhD in 1976. [2]

Silver is Professor Emerita at the State University of New York at Stony Brook [3] and served as visiting professor at the College of William and Mary. [4]

Career

Silver has merged tonal and atonal elements in works starting with her 1979 Canto, A Setting of Ezra Pound’s Canto XXXIX, for baritone and chamber ensemble (commissioned by the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood). Richard Dyer wrote in the Boston Globe of the world premiere, “Sheila Silver’s Canto matches Pound’s text with music of a comparably audacious directness, simplicity, and specificity and therefore boldly occupies a psycho-spiritual region that few other composers have cared to approach; it is a beautiful work.” [5] Silver often finds inspiration in non-Western musical traditions, such as Hebraic Chant, (Shirat Sara and Cello Sonata), Sikh prayer mantras (The Thief of Love, Ek Ong Kar,) or Hindustani music (A Thousand Splendid Suns). [6] She collects Tibetan singing bowls and has used them in compositions such as Being in Life and The White Rooster. [7] Critics have praised Silver’s work for being modern and accessible. Cary Smith in the Journal American wrote: “To the Spirit Unconquered is one of those rare compositions that grabs you emotionally and will not let you go. It is a stunning modern masterpiece, a work of profound musical and emotional depth.” [8]

Her Piano Concerto was written for pianist Alexander Paley and premiered by the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 1996. Said Steve Schwarz, in Classical Net, the Concerto "speaks with what I'd call a depth of discourse...it bespeaks a maturity of mind and culture found in few composers." [9]

Film music

Silver has scored three independent feature films directed by her husband, John Feldman,: [10] Alligator Eyes, Dead Funny and Who the Hell is Booby Roos?, winner of the Seattle International Film Festival’s New American Cinema Award in 2002. [11] She also scored Feldman’s much acclaimed documentary about the scientist Lynn Margulis, Symbiotic Earth, [12] and is currently working on the score for his new documentary, Regenerating Life.

Vocal music

Silver has written several song cycles. Beauty Intolerable: A Songbook based on the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay includes 14 songs and two rounds by this American iconic poet. It can be heard on a 2021 album released by Albany Records [13] and starring singers Dawn Upshaw, Stephanie Blythe, Sidney Outlaw, Deanne Meek, Lucy Fitz Gibbon, pianists Gilbert Kalish, Warren Jones, and other musicians. Of the recording, American Record Guide says “Silver...writes music that marries the delicious bitterness of jazzy discord with lush, cool harmonies and merges the two harmonic moods together with ease...The music is just as rich and captivating as the text that inspired it, and the splendid performances by this top-notch cast of artists are not a surprise. Spend some time with Edna and Sheila and Sappho and the rest.” [14]

In 2021, Silver completed an opera based on Khaled Hosseini's novel A Thousand Splendid Suns with a libretto by her long-time collaborator, Stephen Kitsakos. It was premiered by the Seattle Opera in February 2023. [15] In preparation for composing this opera, she undertook a study of Hindustani music, making multiple trips to India between 2013-2020 to study with Pandit Kedar Bodas in Pune. Silver’s intention is to take color and inspiration for her Western musical voice from Hindustani music. [16]

Awards and honors

In addition to grants and commissions from such organizations as the Paul Fromm Foundation, the Barlow Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Cary Trust, Chamber Music America, and Opera America, Silver’s honors include:

List of works

Orchestral works

Operatic works

Vocal works

Chamber

Film scores

Discography

  1. Beauty Intolerable, A Songbook based on the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay
  2. On Loving, Three Songs for Diane Kalish, in memoriam
  3. Transcending, Three Songs for Michael Dash, in memoriam
  4. Chariessa, A Cycle of Six Songs on Fragments from Sappho
  5. Nocturne, Inspired by Raga Jog, for solo piano
  1. Dance Converging
  2. Dynamis
  3. Six Preludes for Piano on poems of Baudelaire

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A Thousand Splendid Suns is an opera with music by American composer Sheila Silver and an English-language libretto by Stephen Kitsakos, based on the popular novel by Khaled Hosseini. It was commissioned by Seattle Opera, where it premiered February 25, 2023. The opera tells the story of two Afghan women, from different generations and walks of life, who are forced into marriage with the same man. Enemies at first, they grow to love each other like mother and daughter, and discover that the human spirit can survive and transcend the most challenging of circumstances.

References

  1. ↑ Libby, Cynthia Green (January 20, 2001). "Silver, Sheila". Oxford Music Online. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.42685. ISBN   978-1-56159-263-0 . Retrieved April 10, 2018.
  2. ↑ "Biography". Sheila Silver Composer. 2015-10-07. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
  3. ↑ "BWW Interview: A Conversation with Composer Sheila Silver". Broadway World. January 18, 2018. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  4. ↑ Levin, Neil. "Sheila Silver". Milken Archive. Milken Archive of Jewish Music. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
  5. ↑ Dyer, Richard (10 January 2011). "Sheila Silver Reviews". The Boston Globe. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
  6. ↑ "A Thousand Splendid Suns". American Opera Projects. January 18, 2018. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  7. ↑ Browers, Victoria; Guth, Martha. "If Trees Could Talk: Sheila Silver & John Feldman Interviewed". Songfest. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
  8. ↑ Smith, Cary. "Sheila Silver: To the Spirit Unconquered". New World Records. Bellevue/Seattle Journal American. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
  9. ↑ Schwartz, Steve (2007). "Sheila Silver Piano Music". Classical Net. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  10. ↑ "John Feldman". IMDb. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  11. ↑ "Who the Hell is Bobby Roos? (2002)". IMDb. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  12. ↑ "Symbiotic Earth". HummingbirdFilms. 2 May 2017. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  13. ↑ "A Stellar Group of Singers and Pianists Performs Art Songs by Noted American Composer Sheila Silver". Albany Records. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
  14. ↑ Boyd, Stephanie (September–October 2021). "SILVER: Beauty Intolerable" (PDF). American Record Guide. 84 (5): 183. Retrieved February 22, 2021.
  15. ↑ Rabinowitz, Chloe (February 8, 2022). "Seattle Opera Announces 2022/23 Season". Broadway World Seattle. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
  16. ↑ "A Thousand Splendid Suns". sheilasilver.com. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
  17. ↑ "Biography: Sheila Silver". HighResAudio.com. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
  18. ↑ "Sheila Silver Fellow Awarded 2013". gf.org. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
  19. ↑ Saunders, Jenni (November 4, 2010). "School of Fine Arts Presents World Premiere of New Opera". UConn Today. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  20. ↑ "Awards". American Academy of Arts and Letters. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
  21. ↑ Brody, Martin (2014). Music and Musical Composition at the American Academy in Rome. University of Rochester Press. p. 83. ISBN   9781580462457.
  22. ↑ "Music of Hale Smith, Sheila Silver & Joel Hoffman". DRAMOnline. DRAM. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
  23. ↑ "Sheila Silver". Keiser Southern Music Composers. Keiser Southern Music. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
  24. ↑ McVicker, Mary F. (4 August 2016). Women Opera Composers: Biographies from the 1500s to the 21st Century. McFarland, Incorporated. pp. 211–212. ISBN   9781476623610.

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