Annual American Composers Update
Ruth Schonthal
Ruth Schonthal, an adjunct composition faculty member
at New York University, has a home studio in New Rochelle,
NY. Germany's Furore Verlag will publish her complete
(past and future) works and has distribution rights for
those already issued by Oxford,
Carl
Fischer,
Southern
Music Co.,
Hildegard,
and Sisra Press. On Nov. 25, 1996, the New York University
Music Department honored Schonthal with a dinner at the
National Arts Club. Works finished in 1997 include
Japanese
Sketches (3 vols.), for piano;
Jocasta (piano-vocal
score, libretto by H. Cicoux, translated by Graves, Miller,
Makward, and Schonthal), a two-act opera commissioned
by Voice & Vision, Marya Mazor, director, and funded by
a Thanks to Grandmother Winifred Foundation grant;
Easy
Pieces, for flute solos, duets, trios, quartets, and
flute and piano;
Bells of Sarajevo, for clarinet
and piano with added string timbres;
String Quartet
No. 3 In Memoriam Holocaust; and
Divertimenti for
Diverse Instruments, commissioned by the Hoff-Barthelson
School of Music.
Premieres
Solo cellist Dawn Buckholz premiered
Improvisation
at Christ St. Stephens Church, New York, NY, May 30, 1997.
Performances
At New York's Merkin Hall, J. Lieberfarb sang
Two Songs
(text by B. Browning and D. H. Lawrence), from
Songs
of Love and Sorrow;
Two Songs (text by Garcia
Lorca); and
Six Times Solitude (text by A. A. Milne),
all accompanied by the composer. In 1997 in New York,
NY,
Reverberations (Nachklänge), for timbred piano,
was heard at Barnard College, with M. Kampmeier (Feb.
28); at the Fredrick Loewe Theatre, with Schonthal (Sept.
15); and at Hunter College, with Marcia Eckart (Nov. 9).
A program at George Washington University, in Washington,
DC, included
Loveletters for Clarinet and Cello,
with Laura Ferguson and Lori Barnet; and
By the Roadside,
with soprano Susan Bender and pianist Jessica Krash, Nov.
4, 1997. Organist Astrid Büsing presented the fantasy-suite
The Temptation of St. Anthony in Freiburg, Germany.
Following a work-in-progress production of six scenes
from
Jocasta, an opera in two acts, with M. Mazor,
director; F. Lindquist, conductor; and Schonthal, piano,
at the Cornelia Conally Center in New York, Oct. 25, 1996,
the entire work received 16 performances there between
May and June 1997.
Publications
1996-7 Pentatonics; piano;
Carl
Fischer, Inc. Wildunger Liederzyklus (text
by I Olbright and L. Kottek);
String Quartet No. 1;
String Quartet No. 2 'In the Viennese Manner'; all
by
Furore Verlag,
1997.
Recordings
Bells of Sarajevo, for clarinet and timbred piano;
Esther Lamnek and Schonthal;
Capstone
Records.
In Homage Of . . . . (24 Preludes
for Piano); N. Kaplan-Solomon;
Leonarda.
Reverberations; Sonata Breve; Sonatensatz; Varations
in Search of a Theme; Fragments from a Woman's Diary;
all with G. Steigerwalt, piano, on a
Cambria
Master Recordings reissue.
Further Information
