ME on Music Theory Print

Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol

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

Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol (born September 24, 1974) is a Grammy nominated Turkish-American composer and CMES Harvard University fellow (2013–15) who is a jazz pianist and singer that also performs a number of Near and Middle Eastern instruments as well as the keyboardless synthesizer Continuum Fingerboard and the SANLIKOL Renaissance 17, a digital microtonal keyboard designed and conceived by himself. The Boston Globe calls Sanlıkol’s music “colorful, fanciful, full of rhythmic life, and full of feeling” and “not touristy, but rather sophisticated, informed, internalized”, “…and he (Sanlıkol) is another who could play decisive role in music’s future in the world.” He is a full-time faculty member at the New England Conservatory (NEC). He is also the director of the Intercultural Institute at NEC and the project director/curator of Nilüfer Municipality Dr. Hüseyin Parkan Sanlıkol Musical Instruments Museum. Biography Early life The son of two Turkish Cypriots, Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol was born in Istanbul, Turkey. His father, Hüseyin Parkan Sanlıkol, was a medical doctor who got appointed by the state to a hospital in Bursa, Turkey to where the family moved in 1975. He studied western classi

Mel Atkey

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

Louis Melville Atkey (born June 16, 1958, in Vancouver, British Columbia - December 16, 2022 ) was a Canadian-born, English-emigrated musical theatre composer and lyricist. He began to write musicals while still in high school. After college he became a theatre critic in Canada, and continued to write musicals and songs while serving as director of Cabaret and Musical Theater Alliance until he moved to London in 1991. He is a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada and Mercury Musical Developments. He was a finalist for the Musical of the Year competition in Aarhus, Denmark, and his work has been short-listed for the Vivian Ellis Prize, the Quest for New Musicals, the Ken Hill Prize and Musical Stairs. Life and career Atkey was born to Ken (1927-2014) and Marion (1928-2022) Atkey (née Holmes),a commercial artist and a teacher respectively, in Vancouver, British Columbia, and grew up in neighbouring Ladner where he attended Delta Secondary School. During his high school years, Atkey began writing musicals, and continued to do so while attending Langara College in Vancouver. He gained his MA in Musical Theatre at Goldsmiths, University of London. In 1977, Atkey co-produced a jazz conc

Mel Bonis

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

Mélanie Hélène “Mel” Bonis (21 January 1858 – 18 March 1937) was a prolific French late-Romantic composer. She wrote more than 300 pieces, including works for piano solo and four hands, organ pieces, chamber music, mélodies, choral music, a mass, and works for orchestra. She attended the Paris Conservatoire, where her teachers included César Franck, Ernest Guiraud, and Auguste Bazille. Life Bonis was born to a Parisian lower-middle-class family and was educated according to the strict norms of Catholic morality. Endowed with great talent and musical sensitivity, she taught herself to play the piano. Initially, her parents did not encourage her music, but when she was twelve they were persuaded by a professor at the Conservatoire to allow her to receive formal music lessons. In 1874, at the age of sixteen, she began her studies at the Conservatoire, and attended classes in accompaniment, harmony, and composition, where she shared the benches with Claude Debussy and Gabriel Pierné and received tuition from César Franck. At the Conservatoire, she met and fell in love with Amédée Landély Hettich (5 February 1856 – 5 April 1937), a student, poet, and singer, setting some of his poems to

Mel Powell

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

Mel Powell (born Melvin Epstein) (February 12, 1923 – April 24, 1998) was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, and the founding dean of the music department at the California Institute of the Arts. He served as a music educator for over 40 years, first at Mannes College of Music and Queens College, then Yale University, and finally at CalArts. During his early career he worked as a jazz pianist. His classic Big Band compositions include “Mission to Moscow”, “My Guy’s Come Back”, “Clarinade”, “The Earl”, and “Bubble Bath”. Early life Mel Powell was born Melvin D. Epstein on February 12, 1923, in The Bronx, New York City, He began playing piano at age four, taking lessons from, among others, Nadia Reisenberg. Powell dreamed of life as a concert pianist until his older brother took him to see jazz pianist Teddy Wilson play, Career Powell’s style was rooted in the stride style that was the direct precursor to swing piano. One composition from his Goodman years, The Earl, is perhaps his best known from that time. The song—dedicated to Earl “Fatha” Hines, one of Powell’s piano heroes—was recorded without a drummer. prompting him to devote himself to composition rather than perfor

Melanie Ruth Daiken

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

Melanie Ruth Daiken (27 July 1945 – 25 June 2016) was an English conductor, composer and music educator. She taught at the Royal Academy of Music and became Deputy Head of Composition in 1986. Her compositions have been performed on radio and she was commissioned to write an opera by the Edinburgh Festival. Life She was born in London, the daughter of a Canadian mother and Leslie Daiken, a Russian-Jewish writer from Ireland. She began violin lessons at an early age, and studied piano with Vivian Langrish and composition with Hugh Wood at the Royal Academy of Music. After completing her studies, she took a teaching position with the Royal Academy of Music and became Deputy Head of Composition in 1986. Daiken also taught at Morley College and London University. Works *Eusebius, opera *Playboy of the Western World, opera *Mayakovsky and the Sun, opera References

Melchior Ernst Sachs

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

Johann Melchior Ernst Sachs (28 February 1843 – 18 May 1917) was a German romantic composer, who also held teaching and performing posts. He studied first at Altdorf Seminary; taught in elementary schools from 1861 to 1863, and later entered the Munich College of Music and remained there from 1863 to 1865, before becoming a pupil there under Joseph Rheinberger, from 1867 to 1869, when it re-opened as the Royal Bavarian Music School, under the overall direction of Hans von Bülow. Sachs conducted the Liederkranz Society from 1868 to 1872, and in 1871 was appointed a teacher of harmony at the Royal Music School. From 1869 until 1873 he conducted a male choral society at Munich, and he was the founder and conductor of the Tonkunstlerverein. As a music theorist he held original opinions on many points. Most of his numerous compositions remain unpublished, but his work includes symphonies; symphonic poems; an opera, Palestrina, which was performed at Ratisbon in 1886; a ballad, Das Thal des Espingo, for chorus and orchestra; a “Pater Noster”; and one work of gigantic dimensions, Kains Schuld und ihre Sühne (Cain, His Sin and Atonement). This production was intended to fill seven evenings

Melchior Franck

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

Melchior Franck (c. 1579 – 1 June 1639) was a German composer of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He was a hugely prolific composer of Lutheran church music, especially motets, and assisted in bringing the stylistic innovations of the Venetian School north across the Alps into Germany. Life Details of his early life are sparse, as is common for composers of the time. He was born in Zittau, and possibly studied with Christoph Demantius there, and also later with Adam Gumpelzhaimer in Augsburg. By 1601 Franck was in Nuremberg, as a music teacher; there he met Hans Leo Hassler, and learned from him both the Venetian polychoral style and the polyphonic style of the high Renaissance, both of which he incorporated into his own composition. In 1602 he took a position as Kapellmeister in Coburg to Prince Johann Casimir, and he remained in Coburg for the rest of his life. For the earlier portion of this time, the situation was ideal for him; he was supported by his patron, and had the resources necessary to carry on his composing. The Thirty Years’ War devastated the region around Coburg; in addition to the military depredations, typhus brought by the armies depopulated the enti

Melchior Hoffmann (composer)

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

Georg Melchior Hoffmann (c. 1679 – 6 October 1715) was a Baroque composer who was influential as the leader at the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig. Some of his compositions have been mistaken for those of Johann Sebastian Bach. Biography Hoffman was born sometime around 1679 (or 1685 according to some sources) in Bärenstein (now part of Altenberg), Saxony, Germany. His first musical service was as a choirboy in Dresden, under the tutelage of Johann Christoph Schmidt. Hoffmann succeeded Telemann as director of the Collegium Musicum in 1705, a position that did not end until Hoffman’s death ten years later. In this position he became an educator, and his students included Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel. Other responsibilities included being the organist at the Neukirche, and director of the Leipzig civic opera, for which he composed several works. He is known to have journeyed to England sometime around the years 1709–1710. In 1713 he began to suffer from the malady which would eventually prove fatal. are likely works by Hoffmann, and of more positive identification is a Magnificat in A minor for solo soprano and small group, which during the 19th century was assigned a BWV number of BWV An

Melchior Vulpius

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

Melchior Vulpius (c. 1570 in Wasungen – 7 August 1615 in Weimar) was a German singer and composer of church music. Vulpius came from a poor craftsman’s family. He studied at the local school in Wasungen (in Thuringia) with . From 1588, he attended the school in Speyer. After marrying in 1589, he obtained a position at the Gymnasium in Schleusingen. In 1596, he was named cantor in Weimar. He wrote and published church music, the best known being the setting of the hymn "" (Ah, stay with your grace) on a text by . This setting was often performed in Protestant churches on New Year’s Day and at the end of the service. Important compilations were (1602, 1604), (1604), (1605) and (1609). The Cantional (a collection of songs) was published posthumously in 1646 in Gotha. The St. Matthew Passion is another of Vulpius’ well-known works. By the middle of the 17th century, the music for the Passion had spread also to Sweden and later to Finland. Based on the several copies of music manuscripts that have been preserved in different archives in Finland, it can be concluded that the Passion became rather popular there. According to historical sources, this was the very first polyphonic passion c

Melih Kibar

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

Melih Kibar (6 September 1951 – 7 April 2005) was a Turkish composer. Biography Born in Istanbul, he graduated from the German High School Istanbul and studied chemical engineering at Boğaziçi University. He received a Master’s degree from the University of Wales, University College of Swansea. At the age of eight, Kibar enrolled at the Conservatory of Istanbul Municipality. He started his musical career in the school years and won a first prize as composer at the Milliyet High School Music Contest in 1970. Until 1975 he worked with Timur Selçuk. One of his earliest compositions was Çoban Yıldızı, a jingle for Eurovision Song Contest national selection. Since 1975, he composed 273 tunes, 9 musicals and 32 film musicals in cooperation with various artists, in particular with lyricist Çiğdem Talu. In 1976, he received the Golden Orange prize for the soundtrack of the film “Hababam Sınıfı”. Melih Kibar died of skin cancer on 7 April 2005 at a hospital in Istanbul. He was taken there two days before his death. He was laid to rest at Nakkaştepe Cemetery following the religious funeral held at Bebek Mosque. He is survived by his wife Ethel and his daughter Merve. Discography *Yadigar, 20

Melinda Kistétényi

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

Melinda Kistétényi (25 July 1926 – 20 October 1999) was a Hungarian classical organist, composer and chorus master known for her improvisations. She worked as a professor of music at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest for 53 years. Early life and education Melinda Kistétényi was born in Budapest on 25 July 1926. From 1946 to 1953, she attended the Budapest Academy of Music, where she was taught composition by János Viski, organ by Sebestyén Pécsi, conducting by János Ferencsik, András Kórodi and László Somogyi and church music by Jenő Ádám and Lajos Bárdos. She received a chorus master diploma in 1949. Kistétényi was a professor of music theory at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music for 53 years from 1956 to 1989. In her teaching, she was one of the most prominent Hungarian followers of the Kodály method, and wrote poetic texts to Kodály’s Epigrammák and Tricinia series. Her students include Andras Schiff, Zoltán Kocsis, Ivan Fischer, Dezső Ránki, Sylvia Sass, Xaver Varnus and Veronika Kincses. When Igor Stravinsky heard a recording of Kistétényi in the 1960s, he compared her to both Kodály and Béla Bartók. In addition to teaching, she also performed regular organ concerts i

Melinda Wagner

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

Melinda Jane Wagner (born 1957 in Philadelphia) is a US composer, and winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in music. Her undergraduate degree is from Hamilton College. She received her graduates degrees from University of Chicago and University of Pennsylvania. She also served as Composer-in-Residence at the University of Texas (Austin) and at the ‘Bravo!’ Vail Valley Music Festival. Some of her teachers included Richard Wernick, George Crumb, Shulamit Ran, and Jay Reise. Career A resident of Ridgewood, New Jersey, Wagner won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for her Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion. The Chicago Symphony has commissioned three major works, Falling Angels (1992); a piano concerto, Extremity of Sky (2002) for Emanuel Ax; the most recent of these, Proceed, Moon (2016), was premiered by the orchestra under the baton of Susanna Mälkki in 2017. Extremity of Sky has also been performed by Emanuel Ax with the National Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, and the Staatskapelle Berlin. Other works have been performed by a number of orchestras, including the New York New Music Ensemble, the Network for New Music, Orchestra 2001, the San Francisco Contemporar

Melis Aker

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

Melis Aker is a Turkish playwright, screenwriter, actor, and musician. Her work has been developed or presented by institutions including the Sundance Institute, Signature Theatre Company, The Old Vic, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and the Atlantic Theater Company. Early life and education Aker received a bachelor’s degree in Dramatic Literature and Philosophy from Tufts University in 2013. She completed an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University in 2018, studying under David Henry Hwang and Lynn Nottage. She also trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and is pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at King’s College London. Career Aker was selected for the New York Theatre Workshop’s 2050 Fellowship, Ars Nova’s Play Group, and the Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship. In 2019, her screenplay Arı Bee was selected for the Maison des Scénaristes marketplace at the Cannes Film Festival. Her play Field, Awakening was included on the 2019 Kilroys List. Set on the night of the 2016 attempted coup in Turkey, it follows childhood friends reuniting on an Istanbul football field amid political unrest. The play was featured in HowlRound’s panel on Middle Eastern playwrights

Melissa Dunphy

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

Melissa Dunphy (born 1980) is an Australian-American composer best known for her vocal, political, and theatrical music. Born in Australia and raised in an immigrant family, Dunphy herself immigrated to the United States in 2003 and has since become an award‐winning and acclaimed composer. She first came to national attention when her large‐scale work the Gonzales Cantata, a 40-minute choral piece in Baroque style that sets the text of the parts of the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy hearings in which former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified. It was featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, National Review, Fox News, and on the Rachel Maddow Show in 2009; Maddow described it as “probably the coolest thing you’ve ever seen on this show.” Dunphy completed her doctoral degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 2014 and is currently on the composition faculty at Rutgers University. Early life Born in Brisbane, Australia, Dunphy was raised in an immigrant household. Dunphy’s father was a Greek immigrant, and her mother was a refugee who fled from China to evade the Cultural Revolution. Dunphy first began piano lessons at age 3. Her mother introduced her to m

Melissa Hui

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

Melissa Hui is a Chinese-Canadian composer and pianist. She was born in 1966 in Hong Kong and currently resides in Montreal where she has been a faculty member at McGill University since 2010. Notable works by this artist include and blue sparks burn(2002) for violin and piano, Common Ground (1993) for orchestra, and San Rocco (1991) for oboe d’amore, SATB chamber choir, and chimes. Biography Early life and education Hui was born in the year 1966 in British Hong Kong (Now Hong Kong, China). In 1974, at the age of eight years old, she immigrated to Canada where she was raised from then on in Vancouver, British Columbia. Hui’s college education began at the University of British Columbia, where she earned her undergraduate degree in piano performance. For her graduate studies, Hui pursued and earned both her master’s and doctoral degrees in composition from the California Institute of the Arts and Yale University, respectively. Mentors to Hui during her collegiate studies in composition are noted as Jacob Druckman, Mel Powell, Martin Bresnick, Earl Kim, and Morton Subotnick. From 1994 to 2004, Hui served as a faculty member at Stanford University before moving back to Canada. In 2010

Melville Cook

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

Alfred Melville Cook (18 June 1912 – 22 May 1993) was a British organist, conductor, composer and teacher. Early life and education Cook was born in Gloucester. He was a chorister at Gloucester Cathedral (1923–1928) and articled pupil there under Herbert Sumsion (1929–1932). He also studied with Herbert Brewer and Edward Bairstow. He held the ARCO (1931) and the FRCO with the Harding Prize (1931). He studied at Durham University, receiving the B.Mus. in 1934 and D.Mus. in 1940. Career Cook was assistant organist of Gloucester Cathedral (1932–1937) and was also organist of All Saints’ Church, Cheltenham (1935–1937). In 1937 or 1938, aged 25, he was appointed choirmaster and organist at Leeds Parish Church. (See also Choir of Leeds Parish Church). During the war he served with the Royal Artillery in the Orkney Islands, East Africa, India and the Far East, and it was during this period that he met his wife Marion in Scotland. By 1946 he had returned to Leeds, during which time he performed on national radio both as a solo organist and choirmaster. He worked as director of the Parish Church Choir where he broadened the musical repertoire of Leeds Parish Church, introducing more unaccom

Menachem Avidom

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

Menachem Avidom (; January 6, 1908 – August 5, 1995) was an Israeli composer. His Hebrew surname is the combination of the names of his daughters Daniella and Miriam (Avi - the father of; D - for Daniella; O - and; M - for Miriam). Biography Avidom was born Mendel Mahler-Kalkstein in Stanislaviv, Austria-Hungary on January 6, 1908. This put him in Poland after World War I. He emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1925 and, soon after, went to study at the American University of Beirut (from 1926 to 1928). After further studies at the Paris Conservatory (from 1928 to 1931) with Henri Rabaud, he moved to Tel Aviv, where he taught music theory. From 1945 through 1952 he served as general secretary of the Israeli Philharmonic. He was also chair of the Israel Composer’s League from 1958 through 1971. Awards * In 1961, Avidom was awarded the Israel Prize for music, in recognition of his opera Alexandra ha’Hashmonait. Works ;Vocal *In Every Generation, opera, 1955 *Alexandra ha’Hashmonait, opera, 1961 *The Farewell, opera, 1971 *The First Sin, opera, 1980 *Me’Arat Yodfat, opera *4 other operas *Kantatat t’hilim, cantata, 1955 *12 Hills, cantata, 1976 ;Orchestral *Symphony No. 3: Yam tichoni

Meredi

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

Meredi, also known under her full name Ina Meredi Arakelian, is a German-Armenian composer and pianist based in Berlin and Los Angeles. Early life and education Born in Berlin in 1992, Meredi started piano lessons at the age of six, after she had started playing on an old piano in her family home at an early age. She continued her musical education at a performing arts school in the German capital, while studying composition at the Hanns Eisler Conservatory and Berlin University of the Arts in conjunction. She then specialized in composition for film and media at the Munich Conservatory. Career Meredi’s debut record Stardust was released on BMG’s Modern Recordings in 2020, and was named one of BBC Music Magazine’s Top 10 post-classical albums that year. Stardust was followed by the ambient album Trance (2021) and Some Other Place (2022), a solo piano reimagining of Trance. In 2022, Meredi composed White Flowers Take Their Bath for Mari Samuelsen’s album LYS (Deutsche Grammophon) – a track which has since garnered over 9 million global streams. In June 2024, Deutsche Grammophon announced the signing of an exclusive agreement with Meredi, as well as her first release on the label lat

Meredith Monk

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

Meredith Jane Monk (born November 20, 1942) is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. From the 1960s onwards, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording extensively for ECM Records. Her mother, a professional singer of popular and classical music known under the stage name of Audrey Marsh, was herself the daughter of a concert pianist of German Jewish background from Philadelphia. Meredith has a sister, Tracy (born 1948). Career Meredith Monk is primarily known for her vocal innovations, including a wide range of extended techniques, which she first developed in her solo performances prior to forming her own ensemble. In December 1961, she appeared at the Actor’s Playhouse in Greenwich Village (NYC) as a solo dancer in an off-Broadway children’s musical theater adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, entitled Scrooge (music and lyrics by Norman Curtis; directed and choreographed by Patricia Taylor Curtis). In 1964, Monk graduated from Sarah Lawrence College after studying with Beverly Schmidt Blossom, and in 1968 she founded The House, a company dedicated to an interdisciplinary

Meredith Willson

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

Robert Reiniger Meredith Willson (May 18, 1902 – June 15, 1984) was an American flautist, composer, conductor, musical arranger, bandleader, playwright, and writer. He is perhaps best known for writing the book, music, and lyrics for the 1957 hit Broadway musical The Music Man and composed symphonies and popular songs. He was twice nominated for Academy Awards for film scores. Early life Willson was born in Mason City, Iowa, to Rosalie Reiniger Willson and John David Willson. He had a brother two years his senior, John Cedrick, and a sister 12 years his senior, children’s writer Dixie Willson. Willson attended Frank Damrosch’s Institute of Musical Art (which later became The Juilliard School) in New York City. He married his high-school sweetheart, Elizabeth “Peggy” Wilson, on August 29, 1920; they were married for 26 years. As a child, Willson played the bass drum for a Salvation Army band. and later the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini (1924–1929). He then moved to San Francisco, California, as the concert director for radio station KFRC, and then as a musical director for the NBC radio network in Hollywood. His on-air radio debut came on KFRC in 1928 on Blu

Merle J. Isaac

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Merle John Isaac (October 12, 1898 – March 11, 1996) was an American composer and prolific arranger who focused on arranging famous pieces for performers of lower experience, especially school orchestras. Early life and education Isaac was born in Pioneer, Iowa on October 12, 1898 to William P. and Elizabeth J. Isaac. Merle was of Welsh and Scottish descent; his mother emigrated from Scotland as a child his paternal grandparents were Welsh. Shortly before 1900, the Isaac family moved from Iowa to Illinois. Isaac’s parents later bought a piano and he continued studying piano and organ with Carnduff until he finished eighth grade. Isaac enrolled at Crane Junior College, now known as Malcolm X College. After attending classes there in the morning, he dedicated his afternoons to practicing the church organ. This led him to a weekend job accompanying silent films on organ at movie theaters in the area. In 1993, the American String Teachers Association gave Isaac a lifetime achievement award, and annually through 1997 continued giving awards under his name. They also have an annual Merle J. Isaac composition contest to “encourage the composition, publication, and performance of music of

Merrill Bradshaw

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

Merrill Bradshaw (June 18, 1929 – July 12, 2000) was an American composer and professor at Brigham Young University (BYU), where he was composer-in-residence from 1967 to 1994. Bradshaw grew up in Lyman, Wyoming; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Portland, Oregon. He was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). He studied music theory at BYU with John R. Halliday and others, after which he continued his studies in composition at the University of Illinois. He became a faculty member at BYU in 1957. He was chairman of composition and theory from 1973 to 1983, and the executive director of the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition from 1983 to 1999. From 1973 to 1978 he chaired an LDS Church committee to revise the hymnbook, although the committee was suspended before they published their intended hymnal. A different committee authored the 1985 hymnal. Bradshaw composed many pieces in an eclectic style, most notably The Articles of Faith (1960), Symphony No. 3 (1967), Symphony No. 4 (1969), “Psalm XCVI” (1979), Four Mountain Sketches (1974), the oratorio The Restoration (1974), and a viola concerto titled Homages (1979). He collaborated closely with BYU ense

Merrill Jenson

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

Merrill Boyd Jenson (born January 20, 1947) is an American composer and arranger who has composed film scores for over thirty films including Emma Smith: My Story, Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration, The Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd, Legacy, Harry’s War, and Windwalker. Many of the films Jenson composed music for were directed by Academy Award-winning director Kieth Merrill. Jenson has also composed several concert productions including a symphony that premiered at Carnegie Hall. Additionally, he has composed music for many television commercials including the acclaimed Homefront ads, music for three outdoor pageants, and several albums. Jenson lives in Provo, Utah with his wife Betsy Lee Jenson. Early life Jenson was born in Richfield, Utah on January 20, 1947. He was introduced to music at an early age with his mother teaching him how to conduct music in front of a mirror while listening to recordings of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. She also taught him to play the piano while his father taught him the trumpet. He attended Brigham Young University where he directed the BYU Cougar Marching Band and graduated with a degree in Music Composition. Soon after graduating

Mervyn Roberts

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Mervyn Roberts (23 November 1906 12 July 1990), full name William Henry Mervyn Roberts, was a Welsh composer, best known for his piano music. Eiluned Davies regarded him as one of ‘Y Pump Cymreig’ (The Welsh Five) along with Denis ApIvor, Daniel Jones, Grace Williams and David Wynne, all born in the first two decades of the 20th Century. Career Roberts was born into an aristocratic family in Abergele, Denbighshire - he was the second son of the first Lord Clwyd. He studied English and history at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1925 until 1928, and then at the Royal College of Music with R. O. Morris, Gordon Jacob and Arthur Alexander. He was most successful as a composer during the 1940s and 1950s, when a number of his works were published. He was an occasional teacher, a contributor to music journals and during the war worked in the Civil Service. In 1947 he married the pianist Eileen Easom. From 1963-67 he taught piano at Christ’s Hospital, Horsham. Music His music, chromatic but basically tonal, is almost entirely for the keyboard and follows in the tradition of Arnold Bax and John Ireland. The piano works include the set of ten Variations on an Original Theme for two pianos (19

Mesías Maiguashca

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Mesías Maiguashca (born 24 December 1938) is an Ecuadorian composer and an advocate of Neue Musik (New Music), especially electroacoustic music. Biography Born in Quito, Maiguashca studied music at the Conservatorio Nacional de Quito, at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York (1958–65), with Alberto Ginastera at the Instituto di Tella in Buenos Aires, and at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne. In 1965–66 he returned to Quito to teach at the National Conservatory, but then moved back to Germany to attend the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt, and the Fourth Cologne Courses for New Music in 1966–67 where he studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen. He is regarded as one of the central figures of the Cologne School, active since the mid-1970s. Maiguashca worked closely with Stockhausen in the Electronic Music Studio of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne from 1968 to 1972, and joined Stockhausen’s ensemble for performances at the German Pavilion at Expo ‘70 in Osaka. He also prepared the recording of the collective composition Ensemble, organized by Stockhausen for the Darmstadt Courses in 1967. In 1971 he became a founding member of the Oeldorf Group of

Mesomedes

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Mesomedes of Crete () was a Greek citharode and lyric poet and composer of the early 2nd century AD in Roman Greece. Prior to the discovery of the Seikilos epitaph in the late 19th century, the hymns of Mesomedes were the only surviving written music from the ancient world. Three were published by Vincenzo Galilei in his Dialogo della musica antica e della moderna (Florence, 1581), during a period of intense investigation into music of the ancient Greeks. These hymns had been preserved through the Byzantine tradition (Anthol. pal. xiv. 63, xvi. 323), and were presented to Vincenzo by Girolamo Mei. Life and career He was a freedman of the Emperor Hadrian, on whose favorite Antinous he is said to have written a panegyric, specifically called a Citharoedic Hymn (Suda). Two epigrams by him in the Greek Anthology (Anthol. pal. xiv. 63, xvi. 323) are extant, and a hymn to Nemesis. The hymn is one of four which preserve the ancient musical notation written over the text. Two hymns formerly assigned to Dionysius of Alexandria, one to the muse Calliope and one entitled Hymn to the Sun, have also been attributed to Mesomedes. In an article published in 2003, Annie Bélis proves that the Berli

Mestre Damasceno

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Damasceno Gregório dos Santos (July 22, 1954 – August 26, 2025), better known as Mestre Damasceno, was a Brazilian Carimbó singer and cultural director. Life and career Damasceno was a Carimbó master and creator of the Búfalo-Bumbá de Salvaterra, a June revelry derived from the auto do boi and whose central figure is the Marajoara buffalo. By 2012, Damasceno had more than 400 compositions. In 2023, he had his work declared as intangible cultural heritage of the State of Pará. In 2025, Damasceno was awarded as Commander of the Order of Cultural Merit (OMC), receiving the honor in Rio de Janeiro, in a Solemn ceremony attended by the President of the Republic and the Minister of Culture. Death Damasceno died August 26, 2025, aged 71. References External links * *