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Åse Hedstrøm

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Åse Hedstrøm (born 17 April 1950 in Moss) is a Norwegian contemporary composer. Life and career Åse Hedstrøm studied music at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht, and composition at the Norwegian State Academy of Music. She continued her studies in Stockholm with composer Sven-David Sandström. After completing her studies, Hedstrøm received a three-year working grant from the state in 1987, and began composing full-time. She received the Norwegian Society of Composers’ Work of the Year award for the chamber music work Right After in 1985 and for the string quartet Sorti in 1989. Parallel to her compositional career, Hedstrøm has also been active as an organizer and coordinator on the Norwegian music scene, beginning in 1978 when she was appointed as director for NyMusikk (the Norwegian section of ISDM). I the time-frame 1983 to 1987, Hedstrøm was the music co-ordinator for Henie Onstad Kunstsenter which resulted in a number of contemporary music concerts and festivals at the art centre. From 1994 to 1998, Hedstrøm served as director and artistic leader for the Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival. From 1999 to 2002, Hedstrøm was the director of the Stockholm Concert Hall and th

Asger Hamerik

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Asger Hamerik (Hammerich) (April 8, 1843 – July 13, 1923) was a Danish composer of the late romantic period. He was aged 80 at the time of his death. Life and career Born in Frederiksberg (near Copenhagen), he studied music with J.P.E. Hartmann and Niels Gade, being related to the former through his mother, a cousin of Emma Hartmann. He wrote his first pieces in his teens, including an unperformed symphony. His family were friends with Hans Christian Andersen, with whom Hamerik corresponded regularly. Later, he left Denmark in 1862 to study music in Berlin, with Hans von Bülow, and Paris where he was a protégé of Hector Berlioz. In 1864 he began using the more unmistakably Danish version of his last name, rather than Hammerich, in the swell of Danish national feeling after the Danish-Prussian war. He left Paris in 1869 for Italy, and then Vienna. In 1871 he was offered the post of director of the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, where his influence won praise from influential visitors including Tchaikovsky and Arthur Sullivan. He composed most of his large-scale concert works for the Institute’s orchestra. His students at Peabody included Eliza Woods. He left his position

Asprilio Pacelli

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Asprilio Pacelli (or Pecelli) (1570 – 4 May 1623) was an Italian Baroque composer. He was born in Vasciano near Narni in Stroncone, Province of Terni, Umbria, Italy; and died in Warsaw. Life He was a boy chorister at Cappella Giulia under Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. He served at two Roman churches: Santa Maria in Monserrato and Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini. Maestro di cappella of the Collegio Germanico (from 1595), he held the same position at S Pietro from 1602, but he left the post to Francesco Soriano from 1 January 1603; in the same year Pacelli became Maestro di cappella of King Sigismund III of Poland, who had one of the most important royal chapels in Europe. He remained at that position until his death. In appreciation, the King ordered an epitaph commemorating Pacelli to be constructed in the St. John’s Cathedral in Warsaw. The original epitaph with the composer’s portrait was destroyed when the Cathedral was also destroyed during the Planned destruction of Warsaw; it was nonetheless reconstructed after the war. References Bibliography * Mirosław Perz, Asprilio Pacelli, in «New Grove Dictionary»; * Cristina Santarelli, Asprilio Pacelli, in «Dizionario Encicloped

Asteryth Sloane

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Asteryth Sloane (formerly Xia Leon Sloane) is a British composer of contemporary classical music and a poet. They were the winner of the 2016 Cambridge Young Composer of the Year competition and also one of seven winners of the Classic FM/Royal Philharmonic Society 25th Birthday Commissions in 2017. In 2018 they won the senior category of the BBC Proms Inspire Young Composers’ competition. Composer Sloane began composing music through improvisation at the age of six and started taking formal lessons when they were twelve. Common themes that run through their compositions are those of nature (particularly climate change), philosophy and psychology, taking much inspiration from Buddhist, environmental and synaesthetic imagery. As well as vocal music, they enjoy writing for unusual combinations of instruments and the setting of texts from languages and cultures such as Basque and Mandarin. Sloane sees the arts as a means through which people can reconnect and this is the focus of much of their work. The use and effect of silence in music fascinate them, as does the use of music as a form of deep self-expression. Their compositional method is to strongly imagine the pitches they wish t

Astor Piazzolla

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla (, ; March 11, 1921 – July 4, 1992) was an Argentine tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger. His works revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music. A virtuoso bandoneonist, he regularly performed his own compositions with a variety of ensembles. In 1992, American music critic Stephen Holden described Piazzolla as “the world’s foremost composer of Tango music”. Life and career Childhood Piazzolla was born in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in 1921, His paternal grandfather, a sailor and fisherman named Pantaleo (later Pantaleón) Piazzolla, had immigrated to Mar del Plata from Trani, a seaport in the southeastern Italian region of Apulia, at the end of the 19th century. His mother was the daughter of two Italian immigrants from Villa Collemandina in Garfagnana in province of Lucca in the central region of Tuscany. In 1925 Astor Piazzolla’s family moved to Greenwich Village in New York City, which in those days was a violent neighbourhood inhabited by a volatile mixture of gangsters and hard-working immigrants. His parents worked long hours, and Piazzolla, despite having a li

Astrid Kruisselbrink

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Astrid Kruisselbrink (born 9 February 1972) is a Dutch composer. While studying at the Rotterdam Conservatory (1993–99) she won first prize at the European Young Women Composers Contest with the choral work Zijn lippen zijn uw lippen (His Lips are Your Lips). In 1998, her Spin for soprano and ensemble was selected for the international Gaudeamus Music Week for young musicians. Just before graduation, her composition In for orchestra was selected for the Project Jonge Componisten (Project Young Composers) and performed by the Balletorchestra, conducted by Richard Dufallo. She has since composed for various ensembles and choirs. During and after her studies she studied briefly with Luciano Berio, Betsy Jolas, Louis Andriessen and György Kurtag. Biography Born in the Dutch town of Velsen, from the age of nine she received piano lessons, both classical and jazz. In 1993, she entered the Rotterdam Conservatory (Codarts) where she studied composition under Klaas de Vries, Peter-Jan Wagemans ánd René Uijlenhoet, graduating cum laude in 1999. Notable works include String quartet (2000) recorded and performed by the Doelenkwartet. Pra (2003) for orchestra and soprano was performed by Moniqu