Music Notes – Sunday, May 25th:
This Sunday’s musicians are Karin Tooley, Ellen Horowitz Putman, and Hallie Horowitz
About Sunday’s guest musicians:
Hallie Horowitz is a graduate of the Philadelphia Musical Academy, with education from Oberlin Conservatory and the Cleveland Institute of Music. She was with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra for 27 years, and a popular solo recitalist and violin instructor in and around San Diego County before retiring to East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.
Hallie’s sister Ellen Horowitz Putman, a current member of UUCC, holds degrees in piano from Juilliard and the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins, has taught at Peabody Preparatory and privately, and has worked as a performer and accompanist in the many different towns that she and her late husband Bill’s pet rats said they wanted to live in.
Prelude: Open My Heart – Flurry
#1013 in Singing the Journey, “Open My Heart” is a simple round written by Henry Flurry (b. 1964), an award-winning UU composer, educator, and pianist based in Prescott, Arizona. Flurry has composed in response to commissions from the Atlanta Wind Symphony, University City Symphony, Camarata Singers, and others. He has also collaborated with various artists to create multimedia children’s software for many different publishers, including Disney, Scholastic, IBM, and Harper Collins. Flurry and his wife Maria regularly perform together as the duo Sticks and Tones. (includes material from henryflurry.com)
Song: #338 I Seek the Spirit of a Child – English Folk Song/Seaburg
#338 in Singing the Living Tradition, “I Seek the Spirit of a Child” is a setting of The Sussex Carol, an English folk song most often associated with the Christmas carol “On Christmas Night All Christians Sing”. The words were written by Universalist/UU Minister Carl Seaburg (1922-1998), who is also responsible for several of the other songs in our hymnbook, including “Be That Guide” (#124), “God Who Fills the Universe” (#37), and “Find a Stillness” (#352).
Centering Music: “Etude 2” from Etudes for Piano: Book 1 – Glass
A native of Baltimore, Philip Glass (b. 1937) is one of the most influential musicians of the last 50 years. Due to his frequent use of sparse instrumentation and repetitive elements, he is often classified as a minimalist composer, but Glass himself has rejected that label, feeling it does not take his full range of compositional language into account. Although he often utilizes modern rhythmic and harmonic elements, Glass’s compositions typically follow organized patterns of formal structure that would not be out of place in the music of Bach or Haydn. Glass has written numerous operas, symphonies, and concertos as well as various chamber music. He is also known for his many film scores, which include The Hours, Kundun, and Notes on a Scandal, each of which earned Glass an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score. Now in his eighties, Glass still composes and performs with the Philip Glass Ensemble.
Offertory Music: “Etude 7” from Etudes for Piano: Book 1 – Glass
In the words of the composer himself, “The Etudes began for me in the mid-90s and I am still adding new music to this collection as I write these notes in 2003. Their purpose was two-fold. First, to provide new music for my solo piano concerts. And second, for me to expand mv piano technique with music that would enhance and challenge my playing. Hence, the name Etudes, or “studies”. The result is a body of work that has a broad range of dynamic, tempo and emotion.” (from philipglass.com)
Song: Building a New Way – Sandefer
Martha Sandefer (b. 1952) is an American vocalist and composer who is currently involved with the Work o’ the Weavers project. She wrote “Building a New Way” in 1986 and her song was later arranged by Jim Scott (b. 1946) and included as #1017 in our Singing the Journey hymnbook.
Postlude: Praeludium and Allegro (in the style of Pugnani)
Friedrich “Fritz” Kreisler (1875-1962) was an Austrian-American violinist and composer. Kreisler was a child prodigy, studying in Vienna and Paris with some of the most celebrated musicians in Europe, and winning the Paris Conservatory’s esteemed “Premier Prix” gold medal at the age of 12. As an adult, Kreisler settled in the United States and rose to prominence as one of the great violin masters of the 20th century. As a composer, Kreisler was best-known for his works for the violin, although he also composed four operettas and several vocal and piano pieces. Written in 1905, the Praeludium and Allegro (in the style of Pugnani) is one of Kreisler’s best-known works. The piece was one of several early compositions by Kreisler which he originally ascribed to other composers – in this case, Italian composer and violinist Gaetano Pugnani (1731-1798). It was not until 1935 that Kreisler revealed that the Praeludium and Allegro was his own original work.
-Mike Carney, UUCC Music Director