Annual American Composers Update
Jane Ellen
Jane Ellen lives in Albuquerque, NM, where she works as
a free-lance composer, lecturer, and musician. She received
her ninth consecutive ASCAP award. In 1998,
Performa,
New Mexico's first performing arts magazine, profiled
Ellen (Mar.), and then named her a contributing columnist
(May).
Internet Gazette reporter Ruthie Augustein
interviewed her for the Official Nancy Lee Grahn Tribute
Page on the World Wide Web. In the National League of
American Pen Women 1998 Biennial Music Competition, Ellen
won first place in children's music, for
The Wild Fern
(text by Ann Cragg) for two-part choir; second place in
vocal music, for
Longing for soprano and piano;
and third place in instrumental ensemble, for
Unknown
Gardens, a three-movement suite for cello and piano.
In 1998, she served on a New Mexico Federation of Music
Teachers panel on teaching composition to piano students,
at Piano Source in Albuquerque (Sep. 22), and judged the
Albuquerque Music Teachers' Student Composition Contest
(Oct.). Throughout 1998, she presented lectures on music
and other subjects at local meetings of OASIS, the University
of New Mexico ElderHostel, Hadassah, and the Annunciation
Parish Women's Guild. Pianist Michelle Roberts played
Ellen's arrangements of In the Garden and Softly and Tenderly
at Alameda Bible Church, in Albuquerque, Oct. and Nov.
1998.
Premieres
On Feb. 17, 1997,
Spirits of Cornwall was presented
by pianist Daniel Cummings at the Albuquerque SAI Alumnae
Chapter Program on American Music. The Mid Rio Grande
Homeschool Band commissioned and premiered
Battle Hymn
and
Westward Ho!, for concert band, May 21, 1998
at Netherwood Park Church of Christ, in Albuquerque. On
Oct. 11, 1998, Ellen gave the first performance of the
vocal solo
When Will I, at Albuquerque's Marble
Avenue Bible Church. On a New Mexico Women Composers'
Guild (NMWCG) program at New Life Presbyterian Church,
in Albequerque,
Poéme, for string trio, was introduced
by Laura Gutman, Wilson Barrett, and Katie Harlow, Mar.
22, 1998.
Performances
The same program included
Tethered Flight, for
solo violin, with Gutman; and
Unknown Gardens,
for cello and piano, with Harlow and Jane Viemeister.
On Mar. 15, 1998, a University of New Mexico KUNM-FM radio
program Other Voices, Other Sounds included Ellen's woodwind
quintet
Elegy for the Children of Sarajevo.
Unknown
Gardens and
Poéme were heard at the Annual
Convention of the New Mexico Federation of Music Clubs,
Apr. 24, 1998 in Albuquerque. Pianist Lynn Furnish presented
Michelle's Music Box and
Gypsy Guitars at
an NMMTA recital, May 17, 1998 at Washburn Piano Studios.
Publications
Come and Sing Alleluia, ed. 6272;
Love One Another;
ed. 6271; both children's anthems by
Neil
A. Kjos Music Co.
Recordings
Come and Sing Alleluia and
Love One Another;
Professor Bradley Ellingboe, director; both on
Neil
A. Kjos Music Co. Music for the Church Year
CD, Vol. 3.
Further Information
