Thea Musgrave CBE (born 27 May 1928) is a Scottish composer of opera and classical music. She has lived in the United States since 1972. [1]
Thea Musgrave CBE (born 27 May 1928) is a Scottish composer of opera and classical music. She has lived in the United States since 1972. [1]
Born in Barnton, Edinburgh, Musgrave was educated at Moreton Hall School, a boarding independent school for girls near the market town of Oswestry in Shropshire, followed by the University of Edinburgh, and in Paris as a pupil of Nadia Boulanger from 1950 to 1954. [2] In 1958 she attended the Tanglewood Festival and studied with Aaron Copland. [3] In 1970 she became guest professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, a position which confirmed her increasing involvement with the musical life of the United States. She married American violist and opera conductor Peter Mark in 1971. [4] From 1987 to 2002 she was distinguished professor at Queens College, City University of New York. [5]
Among Musgrave's earlier orchestral works, the Concerto for Orchestra of 1967 and the Concerto for Horn of 1971 display the composer's ongoing fascination with 'dramatic-abstract' musical ideas. [6] More recent works continue the idea though sometimes in a more programmatic way: such as the oboe concerto Helios of 1994, in which the soloist represents the Sun God. Another frequent source of inspiration is the visual arts – The Seasons took its initial inspiration from a visit to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, while Turbulent Landscapes (commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and premiered by them in 2003) depicts a series of paintings by J. M. W. Turner. [7]
She has written more than a dozen operas and other music theatre works, many taking a historical figure as their central character, among them Mary, Queen of Scots (1977), Harriet Tubman (Harriet, the Woman called Moses, 1984), Simón Bolívar (1993; premiere 1995 at the Virginia Opera) and Pontalba (2003). In 2008, her 80th birthday was marked by premieres of Points of View, Green, Cantilena, Taking Turns and other performances. [8]
In 2018, coinciding with Musgrave's 90th birthday, her compositions were performed at the Edinburgh International Festival and the BBC Proms.
In response to a question presented by Tom Service for the BBC about Musgrave's view of being a 'woman composer' she replied, "Yes I am a woman, and I am a composer. But rarely at the same time". [9] She admits that pursuing music can be a difficult career. When asked by the BBC to offer advice to young composers, she replied, "Don't do it, unless you have to. And if you do, enjoy every minute of it." [10]
Mark-Anthony Turnage is an English composer of contemporary classical music.
John Harris Harbison is an American composer and academic.
Ruth Dorothy Louisa ("Wid") Gipps was an English composer, oboist, pianist, conductor and educator. She composed music in a wide range of genres, including five symphonies, seven concertos and many chamber and choral works. She founded both the London Repertoire Orchestra and the Chanticleer Orchestra and served as conductor and music director for the City of Birmingham Choir. Later in her life she served as chairwoman of the Composers' Guild of Great Britain.
Steven Edward Stucky was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer.
Samuel Hans Adler is an American composer, conductor, author, and professor. During the course of a professional career which ranges over six decades he has served as a faculty member at both the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. In addition, he is credited with founding and conducting the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra which participated in the cultural diplomacy initiatives of the United States in Germany and throughout Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Adler's musical catalogue includes over 400 published compositions. He has been honored with several awards including Germany's Order of Merit – Officer's Cross.
Walter Sinclair Hartley was an American composer of contemporary classical music.
Dame Judith Weir is a British composer serving as Master of the King's Music. Appointed in 2014 by Queen Elizabeth II, Weir is the first woman to hold this office.
Chen Yi is a Chinese-American composer of contemporary classical music and violinist. She was the first Chinese woman to receive a Master of Arts (M.A.) in music composition from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Chen was a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her composition Si Ji, and has received awards from the Koussevistky Music Foundation and American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2010, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from The New School and in 2012, she was awarded the Brock Commission from the American Choral Directors Association. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2019.
Augusta Read Thomas is an American composer and University Professor of Composition in the Department of Music at the University of Chicago, where she is also director of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition.
Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen is a Norwegian contemporary composer.
Hendrik Pienaar Hofmeyr is a South African composer. Born in Cape Town, he furthered his studies in Italy during 10 years of self-imposed exile as a conscientious objector. While there, he won the South African Opera Competition with The Fall of the House of Usher. He also received the annual Nederburg Prize for Opera for this work subsequent to its performance at the State Theatre in Pretoria in 1988. In the same year, he obtained first prize in an international competition in Italy with music for a short film by Wim Wenders. He returned to South Africa in 1992, and in 1997 won two major international composition competitions, the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition of Belgium and the first edition of the Dimitris Mitropoulos Competition in Athens. His 'Incantesimo' for solo flute was selected to represent South Africa at the ISCM World Music Days in Croatia in 2005. In 2008 he was honoured with a Kanna award by the Kleinkaroo National Arts Festival. He is currently Professor and Head of Composition and Theory at the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town, where he obtained a DMus in 1999.
Roberto Sierra is a Puerto Rican composer of contemporary classical music.
Donald Henry Kay AM is an Australian classical composer.
Lior Navok is an Israeli classical composer, conductor and pianist. He was born in Tel Aviv. His music has been performed internationally by orchestras and ensembles including the Oper Frankfurt, Nuernberg Opera, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra. Amongst the awards he has received are those from the Israel Cultural Excellence Foundation and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. He has also received awards from the Fromm Music Foundation, Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund Award, and Israel Prime Minister Award. In 2004, he was one of seven composers awarded commissions for new musical works by the Serge Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress and the Koussevitzky Music Foundation.
David Horne is a Scottish composer, pianist, and teacher.
Gary Alan Kulesha is a Canadian composer, pianist, conductor, and educator. Since 1995, he has been Composer Advisor to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He has been Composer-in-Residence with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (1988–1992) and the Canadian Opera Company (1993–1995). He was awarded the National Arts Centre Orchestra Composer Award in 2002.
Sebastian Fagerlund is a Finnish composer. He is described as “a post-modern impressionist whose sound landscapes can be heard as ecstatic nature images which, however, are always inner images, landscapes of the mind”. Echoes of Western culture, Asian musical traditions, and heavy metal have all been detected in his music.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
