Annual American Composers Update
Sondra Clark
Retired from university teaching and music criticism,
Sondra Clark works from her home in Los Altos, CA. She
was selected by the award-winning Grand Piano Show to
be the subject of an hour-long video, "The Wonderful Piano
Compositions of Sondra Clark," which has played on 450
cable stations nationally throughout 1999 and 2000. She
has the distinction of being the only composer featured
in the show's 165 programs. In California Composers Today
contests, two of Clark's duo-piano works won first prizes:
Three Odd Meters in 1999, and
Florida Fantasy
in 2000.
Premieres
The San Francisco Choral Artists, directed by Magen Solomon,
introduced
Carolibet, Dec. 12, 17, and 18, 1999,
in Palo Alto, Berkeley and San Francisco, CA. Heard first
at California Composers Today Winners Recitals with the
composer and Marsha Rocklin, duo-pianists, were
Three
Odd Meters, July 4, 1999 in Monterey; and
Florida
Fantasy, July 2, 2000 in San Diego.
Mastiffo's
Aria from
Dalmatia and Dalmatio (libretto by
Sally M. Gall), an opera-in-progress, was presented at
the Oct. 30, 1999 National Composers Association concert
at the Palo Alto Cultural Center, with baritone Joseph
Messler and pianist Jeana Ogren.
Hodie was sung
first on Dec. 10, 2000, by the Cantabile Children's Choir,
directed by Signe Boyer, at the United Methodist Church
of Los Altos.
Performances
Under the baton of Leroy Kromm,
Requiem for Lost Children
was performed Mar. 25, 2000, by the San Jose (CA) Symphonic
Choir and Orchestra, and the Cantabile Children's Choir,
with mezzo-soprano Janet Campbell, tenor Joseph Meyers,
and baritone Michael Taylor, at St. Joseph's Cathedral
Basilica. The California Music Teachers' Convention's
Piano Ensemble Master Class, conducted by guest artists
Marilyn Neeley and Andrew Gerle, held July 2, 1999 in
Monterey, featured
Three Scenes from New Orleans,
for duo-piano, with Laurie Shyr and Stephany Chang. Harpsichordist
Elaine Funaro played
Three Odd Meters at the Annual
Meeting of the Midwestern Historical Keyboard Society
at the University of Colorado at Boulder, May 19, 2000.
Heard at the MTAC Annual Convention's Contemporary Music
Seminar in San Diego were
Florida Fantasy and
Three
Odd Meters, July 3, 2000, with the composer and Rocklin,
duo-pianists.
Further Information
