Salut, Nadia Boulanger!
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
It’s a Nadia Boulanger Birthday, (1887) so it’s an all-Nadia night, but not her compositions—rather, those of her students, most of them American!
Remembered as one of the foremost composition teachers of the 20th century, Nadia Boulanger founded and taught at the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, where most of this evening’s American composers studied; she also spent much time in the U.S., teaching at Wellesley, Radcliffe, and Juilliard. Where to begin? Why not with Copland, whose “Quiet City” starts us off this evening—John Williams conducting the Boston Pops. Peggy Glanville-Hicks’s “Etrucan Concerto,” with Keith Jarrett at the piano, also turns up in our first hour, along with Roy Harris’s “Memories of a Child’s Sunday,” David Alan Biller conducting the Albany Symphony.
Jose Serebrier leads the Bournemouth Symphony in Ned Rorem’s Symphony No. 3, while Gerard Schwarz directs the Seattle Syumphony in David Diamond’s “Rounds for String Orchestra.” We also hear Virgil Thomson’s “The River” and Philip Glass’s “Itaipu.” Along the way, shorter pieces by composers no less significant: Harold Shapero, Paul Bowles, Walter Piston, Elliot Carter, and Louise Talma. Her influence on our ears cannot be measured or exaggerated. Pay her tribute by staying tuned and listening to great music by her very great pupils!
Remembered as one of the foremost composition teachers of the 20th century, Nadia Boulanger founded and taught at the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, where most of this evening’s American composers studied; she also spent much time in the U.S., teaching at Wellesley, Radcliffe, and Juilliard. Where to begin? Why not with Copland, whose “Quiet City” starts us off this evening—John Williams conducting the Boston Pops. Peggy Glanville-Hicks’s “Etrucan Concerto,” with Keith Jarrett at the piano, also turns up in our first hour, along with Roy Harris’s “Memories of a Child’s Sunday,” David Alan Biller conducting the Albany Symphony.
Jose Serebrier leads the Bournemouth Symphony in Ned Rorem’s Symphony No. 3, while Gerard Schwarz directs the Seattle Syumphony in David Diamond’s “Rounds for String Orchestra.” We also hear Virgil Thomson’s “The River” and Philip Glass’s “Itaipu.” Along the way, shorter pieces by composers no less significant: Harold Shapero, Paul Bowles, Walter Piston, Elliot Carter, and Louise Talma. Her influence on our ears cannot be measured or exaggerated. Pay her tribute by staying tuned and listening to great music by her very great pupils!
