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Annual American Composers Update
Jane Ellen**
Jane Ellen currently is working as a free-lance composer and lecturer and as a web designer in Albuquerque, NM. She continues to present lectures on a vast variety of musical and religious studies topics, adding new ones to her repertoire every year. A frequent collaborator with Marty Ronish on scripts and music for the nationally-distributed educational children's radio show Boombox Classroom, produced by Ronish and Sweet Bird Classics, she is expanding her scope of presentation to a broader field. Her latest commissions have included several works with lyricist Claire Roth (ASCAP). As part of their Martin Luther King Day Celebration in February 2001, Lead Us to Christ Jesus, the commissioned hymn for St. Bakhita, was sung at St. Agnes Cathedral in Long Island. In 2001, Ellen's poem Reenactment was published in a book, The Silence Within, and in a three-volume audio collection entitled The Sound of Poetry by the International Library of Poetry. She received her twelfth consecutive award from ASCAP in June, and she was listed in these new biographical resources: Who's Who in the World, 21st Century and 2000 Outstanding Musicians of the 20th Century (Cambridge International Biographical Centre); Who's Who in America, 2002, and Who's Who in the World, 2002 (Marquis), and 20th Century International Composer Directory (Grenadilla Press). The composer's website is located at www.janeellen.com, and she may be reached at jane@janeellen.com.
Premieres
The Civil War documentary, The Man Who Lost the Civil War, which uses instrumental and vocal versions of Ellen's Glorieta, produced by Rick Creese for City Block-Aslan Productions, had a premiere screening at UCLA on February 15-16, 2001. Heard first in Albuquerque in 2001, with Quodlibet, led by Marilyn Alletzhauser, were the commissioned works The Eternal Ring (poem by Roth), for SATB a cappella choir, April 29 and May 5, at the New Mexico Women Composer's Guild annual concert; and Per la Grazia di Dio (text in Italian by Roth), a sacred piece for a cappella choir, November 11. A celebratory anthem for SATB choir, flute and piano, Hearts and Hands United (text by Roth), was commissioned and introduced at New Life Presbyterian Church, Matalie Wham, choir director, June 3, 2001, in Albuquerque. The second episode, "Timbre," of Boombox Classroom featured an original theme commissioned for the program.
Performances
Susan Landers played Images of Rome, a three-movement suite for piano, with accompanying descriptive text by Roth, commissioned by the MTNA Foundation 2000, in Albuquerque, at the Rio Grande Arts and Crafts Festival, December 2-3, 2000, and at the First Unitarian Church, March 4, 2001. On May 4, 2001, at the Mission Art Gallery in Albuquerque, soprano Susan Corley performed Phantom Lost (text by Ann Cragg), for soprano, oboe, and piano. The ASCAP Foreign Division reported that The First Snowfall, for SSA choir and piano, had performances in Hong Kong and Canada in 2001.
Publications
Chiara; piano; JP-P001, 2000; Poème for Diana, string trio; JP-S001, 2001; The Eternal Ring; JP-COO1, 2001; Images of Rome; JP-P002, 2001; all by JEMS Publications.
**Sigma Alpha Iota Laureate Member
Further Information
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