as published in PAN PIPES, Volume 95, Number 2

Robert Boury***

For the past seven years, SAI National Arts Associate Robert Boury has been going into the public schools to teach songwriting. This year's residency was at Rockefeller Elementary in Little Rock, AR, where he worked in a program with Show Choir director I. J. Routen in the creation and performance of the children's own musical, A Day in the Life of a Kid, performed for the combined fourth- and fifth-grade classes on May 3. His composition student Philip Gordon won the Beyer Award for Art Song ($5,000) from the National Federation of Music Clubs in Spring 2002, performing his cycle, Deep Early Snow, at the Federation's Fall Session in Little Rock. Seven other songwriting students had their works performed on the 17th Annual Songwriter's Showcase held on April 8 at the University of Arkansas, and twelve student composers heard their works performed and recorded at a second Showcase, Nov 17. In the fall of 2002, Boury again went into the schools, this time to several Little Rock high schools to prepare students for the first Delta Music Festival, to be held in spring 2003 at the University of Arkansas.

Premieres

The April 8 Songwriter's Showcase included the first performance of In the Garden of the Lord (two songs, text by Carol Thompson). The East Coast premiere of the comic opera Bowl, Cat and Broomstick (text by Wallace Stevens), was given by the New York Metro Vocal Ensemble, directed by Noelle Brower, May 10, 2002, at West Park Presbyterian Church, New York, NY, with soprano Leonora McClernan as Bowl; mezzo-soprano Jennifer Learned, Cat; and baritone Jose Dominguez, Broomstick.  On August 17, Boury's song cycle At Morning Star was introduced by baritone Donald Creer and pianist Trudy Kincade at the Fall Session of the National Federation of Music Club's convention in Little Rock.

Performances

Soprano Jeanie Darnell sang Boury's song cycle Sleeping in the Forest (poems by Mary Oliver) on the Master and Music series at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, April 28, 2002. On April 30th the Aeolis Recorder Ensemble gave a performance of Boury's Lives of the Great Butterflies, for AAT recorder trio at a noon day recital at Christ Episcopal Church in Little Rock, with Chris Cooke, Laurine Williams, and Anne Wilson.  Pianist Liza Murray's senior recital, presented by the Community School for the Arts, at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, May 7, 2002, included Boury's Sonatina. On September 8, soprano, Melissa Armstrong, accompanied by the composer, sang Our Hero and Gloria (texts by the poet/priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins based on a sermon he preached in November 1879). Baritone Creer, with the composer at the piano, performed the song cycle, At Morning Star (At Morning Star, White Rock Mountain, and Antoine River, all poems by Cynthia DeHaven Pitcock) on the November 17 Songwriter's Showcase

***Sigma Alpha Iota National Arts Associate

Further Information

• 2000-2001 Annual American Composers Update
• 1997-1998 Annual American Composers Update