Allen Bonde

Allen Bonde presented a special program of his works titled “Bonde CompositionsPast and Present,” on April 16, 2005, at Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA. Among the pieces presented were three premieres; the concert also included guest artists Mara Bonde (soprano) and Maria Bonde (pianist). The program included Sensaciones Ritmicas, for piano four-hands; “October” from A Page a Day for a Year and a Day, piano solo; Three Elizabethan Songs Revisited, for soprano and piano; and the premieres of “Winter Song” and “You Were the One” (texts by Mary Jo Salter) and “From Sleep to Waking” (text by Robert B. Shaw), all from The Taming of the Shrew for soprano and piano.    

Premieres

The commissioned work The Christmas Witnesses, a cycle of seven carols for mixed voices and piano (text by Shaw), was introduced December 11, 2004, by the Shepherd Hill Regional High School Concert Choir, under the direction of Connie Galli, with special guest soprano Mara Bonde, and the composer at the piano. Cornucopia, a work for concert band and SATB chorus commissioned for the Stonington (CT) High School Music Department, was first heard in a December 21, 2005, performance at Stonington High School.