Annual American Composers Update

Robert Boury

SAI National Arts Associate Robert Boury, in his 17th year as the Resident Composer at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, also coordinates a Visiting Artists program for youth at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, in North Little Rock, AR. As part of a grant program, which he called EPIC (Every Person is Creative), he served as Visiting Artist with three North Little Rock elementary schools.

Premieres

As part of the Visiting Artist program, North Little Rock elementary school children, who wrote the lyrics, premiered The Queen is Flying to the Moon, four songs based on Chinese legends, in collaboration with Wildwood Park for the Performing Arts, where the performance occurred. The Row Twelve chamber ensemble introduced the quartet version of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (text by Wallace Stevens) for flute, oboe, piano, and actor, at the Harvard-Epworth Methodist Church, in Cambridge, MA.

Performances

Soprano Jeanie Darnell, accompanied by the composer, performed the song cycle Carnations (poems by Stevens) on an Artspree concert at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. As part of a University of Colorado festival honoring the memory of composer/teacher Ross Lee Finney, Peter Garrity, violin; Lara Turner, cello; and Mary Steele Moegle, piano, played Trio in D. Mezzo-soprano Kate Young and guitarist James Ferla presented Boury's art song Winter Storm (text by Stephen Vincent Benet) at the Laurel Arts poetry series in Somerset, PA, and at the Frick Museum in Pittsburgh, PA. The summer 1998 SAI Province Officer seminar, held in Indianapolis, featured art songs John James Audubon and Trying to Pray, with SAI National Executive Secretary Ruth Sieber, soprano, and SAI National Arts Associate and retired Dean of the Butler University School of Music Dr. Jack Eaton, piano.

Publications

Ballade; cello or tenor saxophone and piano; Encore Music Publications.