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Una Mabel Bourne

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

Una Mabel Bourne (23 October 1882 – 15 November 1974) was an Australian pianist and composer. Early life Una Mabel Bourne was born at Mudgee, New South Wales, the daughter of James George Bourne and Margaret Webber Bourne. Her father was a shopkeeper. She was raised in Melbourne. Una Bourne’s musical abilities were evident early in life; she performed on piano in professional venues before her teens. She studied with Benno Scherek in Australia, and in several European cities as a young woman. Career “Miss Bourne has an excellent technique and plays with refinement and distinction,” an English critic wrote of a performance at London’s Bechstein Hall in 1906. Bourne joined Nellie Melba’s touring entourage in Australia in 1907, 1909, and 1912, both as an accompanist and performing solo. In 1915 she began making recordings with the English Gramophone Company. She also made player-piano rolls in the United States, and gave performances for women’s clubs and radio audiences. During World War II she was based in Melbourne again, where she performed and opened a conservatory. Personal life Una Mabel Bourne lived for many years with her friend and colleague, soprano Mona McCaughey, who died

Undine Smith Moore

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

Undine Eliza Anna Smith Moore (25 August 1904 – 6 February 1989), the “Dean of Black Women Composers”, was an American composer and professor of music in the twentieth century. Moore was originally trained as a classical pianist, but developed a compositional output of mostly vocal music—her preferred genre. Much of her work was inspired by black spirituals and folk music. Undine Smith Moore was a renowned teacher, and once stated that she experienced “teaching itself as an art”. Towards the end of her life, she received many awards for her accomplishments as a music educator. Biography Early life Undine Eliza Anna Smith was born the youngest of three children to James William Smith and Hardie Turnbull Smith. Undine was the granddaughter of slaves. Her hometown of Jarratt, Virginia, consisted of a large African-American population, and she would later recall memories of the community singing and praying at the Morningstar Baptist Church. Of her childhood, she said that “above all else, music reigned.” She was also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Education At age seven, Undine Smith began taking piano lessons under Lillian Allen Darden, who later encouraged her to attend Fis

Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer

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

Unico Wilhelm, Count van Wassenaer Obdam (30 October 1692 – 9 November 1766) was a Dutch nobleman who was a diplomat as well as a composer. He reorganized the Bailiwick of Utrecht of the Teutonic Order. His most important surviving compositions are the Concerti Armonici, which until 1980 had been misattributed to the Italian composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736) and to Carlo Ricciotti (1681–1756). Early years Van Wassenaer was born into a distinguished family of wealth, power and accomplishment—the House of Wassenaer. His grandfather, Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam, was supreme commander of the confederate Dutch navy, and was killed in battle in 1665 in the Second Anglo-Dutch War; his father, Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam (younger), served as a general of the army in the War of the Spanish Succession, but ruined his military reputation in 1703 in the Battle of Ekeren, and spent the rest of his career as a diplomat. Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer was born in the family castle of Twickel, near Delden, on 30 October 1692, the son of Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam (1645–1714) and Adriana Sophia Raesfelt (died 1694). He grew up in the Hague, where he was taught to play the harpsichord and vio

Union of Russian Composers

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

The Union of Russian Composers (formerly the Union of Soviet Composers, Order of Lenin Union of Composers of USSR () (1932– ), and Union of Soviet Composers of the USSR) is a state-created organization for musicians and musicologists created in 1932 by Joseph Stalin in the last year of the Cultural Revolution and first Five-Year Plan. It became the official replacement for the various artistic associations which were present before like the Association for Contemporary Music and the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians, two of the independently directed music committees. According to Richard Taruskin, the Union had fully materialized into its full-form well before 1948 and in time for the delivery of Zhdanov’s Doctrine. During the First Constituent Congress of post-Stalin Union of Soviet Composers, held in Moscow, in April 1960, the composer Dmitri Shostakovich was unanimously elected General Secretary. Currently, they are funded by the Russian government, specifically the Ministry of Culture, as well as various other state organizations. Priorities of the organization Their mission, as stated in 2021, is to contribute to “the moral and ethical education of a modern person.

Uno Naissoo

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

Uno Naissoo (born 25 March 1928, Viljandi – 5 January 1980, Tallinn) was an Estonian composer and jazz musician. In 1952, he graduated from Tallinn State Conservatory. Naissoo then taught music theory subjects at Georg Ots Tallinn Music School from 1952 to 1980. He has also directed several ensembles, including Swing Club (1947–1957), Rütmikud (1948–1950). Naissoo Unn has been a member of Estonian Composers’ Union since 1954. His son is pianist and composer Tõnu Naissoo. Awards * 1965 Estonian SSR Merited Art Worker * 1976 Annual Music Award of Estonian SSR * 1978 Estonian SSR People’s Artist Selected works Context & Composition Insight Uno Naissoo was a pioneering figure in post-war Estonian jazz, known for blending classical structure with improvisational elements. His compositions often integrated Estonian folk motifs with Western swing rhythms. Several of his jazz suites and choral works became staples in the Soviet-era Baltic repertoire, performed by school ensembles and national symphonies alike. * 7 jazz suites * song “My home” * song “When it’s Midsummer Day” * song “The May began in March” * choral song “The Woodpecker’s Warning” (original “Metsa telegramm”) References

Unsuk Chin

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

Unsuk Chin ( ; born July 14, 1961) is a South Korean composer of contemporary classical music, who is based in Berlin, Germany. Chin was a self-taught pianist from a young age and studied composition at Seoul National University as well as with György Ligeti at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. The recipient of numerous awards, she won the 2004 Grawemeyer Award for her Violin Concerto No. 1, the 2010 Music Composition Prize of the Prince Pierre Foundation for the ensemble piece Gougalōn and the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2024. In 2019, writers of The Guardian ranked her Cello Concerto (2009) the 11th greatest work of art music since 2000, with Andrew Clements describing it as “perhaps the most original and entertainingly disconcerting of all of her concertos , cast in four brilliant movements that never quite conform to type”. Biography Unsuk Chin was born in Seoul, South Korea. She studied composition with Sukhi Kang at Seoul National University and won several international prizes in her early 20s. In 1985, Chin won the Gaudeamus Foundation located in Amsterdam, with her piece Spektra for three celli, which was composed for her graduation project. She also recei