Composers Bureau

Margaret Vardell Sandresky

Margaret Vardell Sandresky is an organist, composer, and teacher. She graduated from Salem Academy and Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with a Bachelor of Music degree, cum laude. Continuing her education at the Eastman School of Music where she earned a Master of Music in Composition, she studied with Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers, and was an organ pupil of Harold Gleason. She was awarded a Fulbright Grant to the State Institute of Music in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, where she studied organ with Helmut Walcha, harpsichord with Maria Jaeger-Jung, and composition with Kurt Hessenberg.

She has held teaching positions at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the University of Texas at Austin, the North Carolina School of the Arts, and at Salem College. In Winston-Salem, where she has lived for a number of years, she has held the position of organist at the Home Moravian Church, the First Baptist Church, and at Centenary United Methodist Church.

Among her commissions are those funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the North Carolina Arts Council, the Reynolda House Museum of American Art, and the North Carolina Music Teachers Association.

Her principal research in music theory has explored the interaction of fifteenth century humanism between the music, art and architecture of that period. Her articles have been published in Music Theory Spectrum, Vol.1, in the Journal of Music Theory, Yale University Press (25.1), the The American Liszt Society Journal Vol.X, and The Golden Section in Music, edited by Jean Pierre Condat, Lyons, France, 1988.

She was the co-founder of the annual North Carolina Composers' Symposium and was a delegate to the International Congress of New Music Notation, held in Belgium in 1974, and is a member of the International Alliance for Women in Music.

Her anthems are published by Brodt Music Company and the Paraclete Press. Her complete organ works are published by Wayne Leupold Editions. Her Trio II for Violin, Violincello and Piano is published by the Hildegard Music Press.

Vardell-Sandresky is a Standards Award winning ASCAP composer. In 1999 the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra premiered her Song of a Nomad Flute, a ten-minute piece for solo flute and orchestra, as part of a festival of new music, and recorded it for release on the Vienna Modern Masters label. Her Organ Mass: L'homme arme, played by Kimberly Marshall, has been recorded on the Loft label.

Sandresky is the fourth generation of professional women musicians in her family.

Recordings

"L'homme arme Organ Mass", Kimberly Marshall at the Brumbaugh organ in Portland, Oregon. GAMUT 529 (available through Hildegard Publishing, Box 332, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010)

Compositions

• ORGAN MUSIC (Wayne Leupold Editions: 8510 Triad Drive, Colfax, NC 27235)
  • Vol. I and II organ solos
  • Vol. III organ and instruments
  • "Five Sacred Dances" for organ solo
• ANTHEMS
  • "The Turtle Dove" for SATB and keyboard
  • "Though I Speak With the Tongues" for SATB and optional children's choir, with organ
  • "I Am the True Vine" SSATB a cappella (Paraclete Press)
  • "King of Glory" - unison choir and organ (Brodt Music Co., Charlotte, NC)
• CHAMBER MUSIC
  • "Trio No. II" for violin, cello, and piano. (Three movements, duration 20 minutes.) (Hildegard Publishing Co.)
• UNPUBLISHED WORKS AVAILABLE FROM THE COMPOSER
  • "Seven Japanese Drawings" for Woodwind Quintet (15 minutes)
  • "Ricercare" for piano solo (5 minutes)
  • "Sonata for Viola and Piano" (25 minutes)
  • "Psalm 108" and " Psalm23" for baritone and organ (4 minutes each)
  • "Song of Ruth" for soprano and organ (3 minutes)
  • "Songs of a Nomad Flute " for flute solo and orchestra (10 minutes) (This work is also arranged for flute and piano.)

Further Information

For more information about Margaret Vardell Sandresky, please visit her website at http://www.e-universe.com/lmfhome/Sandresky.htm

• Pan Pipes 2004-2005 Annual American Composer Update
• Pan Pipes 2002-2003 Annual American Composer Update
• Pan Pipes 2000-2001 Annual American Composer Update
• Pan Pipes 1999-2000 Annual American Composer Update
• Pan Pipes 1998-1999 Annual American Composer Update
• Margaret Sandresky is listed in Women Composers (Stern 1973), Contemporary American Composers (Jacoby 1974), Who's Who in Music (1984), the International Who's Who in Music (1992), Women in Music (1993) Hixon & Hennesse, and the International Encylopedia of Women Composers (1981) Cohen - Bowker.
  

Contact Information

1244 Arbor Rd. #443
Winston-Salem, NC 27104

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Last updated 7/11/05
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