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Member Activities

Elizabeth Bell's Loss-Songs (S, pf) was performed on the Autumn Serenade Festival on 10/30/97; Duovarious (pf duet) was performed on 12/8/97.

Judd Danby recently gave a lecture entitled: The Fabric of Musical Shaping: Inspiration, Chosen Materials, Compositional Technique, and Style Interwoven at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and in February, was Guest Composer at Connecticut College. Danby's The Piano's Stuck is published by Soundout Digital Press, a new Web-based publisher.

Keith Dippre's Retort part 2 (pf, cl, vc) was premiered at the Ohio State Contemporary Music Festival on 2/11/98.

Jerome Miskell's Commercial Timeout (ww qnt), commissioned by the Tapestry Quintet, was performed on 3/16 at Mount Union College, and again on 3/18 at Ashland University; Puzzles and Cannons (ww trio) was performed at Ashland University on 3/4 and 3/18; Endless Summer, Eternal Light...and Fireworks (orch) was performed on 2/18 by the University of Pittsburgh Chamber Orchestra. Miskell was recently commissioned to compose a bassoon quartet for the 1998 John Miller Bassoon Symposium.

Robert Peck's Phaethon's Fall (orch) was premiered on 2/25/98 by the Indiana University Symphony Orchestra; Hommage a Messiaen (vc, harp) was performed on 3/15 in Baton Rouge (LA) as part of the Festival of Contemporary Music at Louisiana State University.

Abram M. Plum received premieres of two new works on a concert at Illinois Wesleyan University on 4/5: Inscapes, a song cycle to five poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, was sung by John Pescitelli, baritone, and Mountain Music (pf) was performed by the composer. Earlier works presented on this program included Three Lyric Pieces, played by cellist Gregory Hamilton, Mutation, sung by soprano Jody Kienzler, and Seven Reflections, played by the composer.

William Price's And They Did Feast Upon... (fl, ob, cl, tpt, tbn, tba, pf, perc) was premiered on by the LSU New Music Ensemble, conducted by Dinos Constantinides, at the LSU Union Theatre on 3/2/98.

Howard Quilling's Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano was performed at Los Angeles Valley College on a program presented by the Pacific Composers Forum on 7/27/97; Variation and Prelude on Brother James's Ayre for Organ at St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Bakersfield (CA); From Quiet Beginnings was performed at the Bakersfield Convention Center with the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra on 1/11/98; Trio for Flute, Viola and Guitar at the Bakersfield Christian Life Center on a New Directions Concert presented by the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra on 2/15/98.

Laura Elise Schwendinger's Songs of Heaven and Earth was premiered on 2/7 at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC by receiving a grant from the American Composer's Forum for this project. Ms. Schwendinger also received support for Songs of Heaven and Earth as a Fellow at both the Five College Women's Studies Research Center in Spring of 1997 and the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center in Italy in 7/97.

Karen Thomas's Roundup (sax qrt) was performed in Fiuggi, Italy on the II Symposium Festival Donne in Musica on 9/10/97 and 9/14/97; and again for the Women in Music Conference by the Athenian Saxophone Quartet on 10/25/97 at the University of Ohio, Athens; and again at the American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conference at Northwestern University on 3/26/98; Over the City (In memory of the victims of the bombing of Hiroshima) (choir, chamber ens) was performed at the Women in Music Conference at Ohio University on 10/25/97; Alnight by the rose (ATTB) has been given numerous performances by the Hillard Ensemble; Four Delineations of Curtmantle (tbn) was performed at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville on 6/6/97. Three Medieval Lyrics for a cappella choir received Second Prize in His Majestie's Clerkes Choral Composition Competition 1997.

Mary Jeanne van Appledorn's Music of Enchantment, for Native American flute and strings, was premiered at Texas Tech University on 12/9/97; A Native American Mosaic for Native American flute, was performed at the College Music Society Conference at Adams State College, Alamosa (CO); Terrestrial Music, a double concerto for violin, piano and strings was recorded for Opus One in Poland.

Dawn K. Williams' Praesepe (str qrt) was premiered at the 1997 Louisiana Music Teachers Association convention on 10/30/97 in Ruston (LA). The work was performed by the Premiere Quartet, comprised of the principal string players of the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra. Praesepe is the commissioned work of the 1996-97 LMTA Commissioning Award. For partial funding of the performance, Williams was also a recipient of an Individual Artist Mini-Grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts.

Donald Reid Womack recently received premieres of three commissioned works. Out of the Blues, a concerto for marimba and chamber orchestra, was premiered in Pittsburgh (PA) on 2/16/98. On Fields of Frozen Fire was performed by the Honolulu Symphony on 1/4 and 1/6; O Magnum Mysterium (SATB) was performed on 12/20/97 and 12/21/97 in Honolulu by the Hawai'i Vocal Arts Ensemble. Womack also received an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Hawai'i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts in 1997.